Nettle Beer

[HerbalEarthling]

The only company that I found that makes this is a company on the other side of the world. Anyone here in the US make beer? I will pay you to make some nettle beer! Or give you soap that I'm going to make from nettle beer. I must have it! Haha. Of course, you don't harvest nettles until April so obviously I'm thinking ahead.

By the way if anyone is interested in knowing, nettles are supposedly really good for your hair and I would like to make a shampoo bar from it. Don't know how much of this survives the soap process but it seems legit; and good for marketing ;-)

 

[Obsidian]

I read somewhere that beer isn't good for shampoo bars, can't remember why though. You can buy dried nettles and infuse your olive oil with it.

 

[HerbalEarthling]

I read somewhere that beer isn't good for shampoo bars, can't remember why though. You can buy dried nettles and infuse your olive oil with it.

Really? That's interesting. I have seen so many shampoo bars with beer and tutorials on putting beer directly in your hair that I just thought it was the thing to do. I'm going to have to dig into this further. If you find the info you were talking about during your travels, please enlighten me. I would not want to use any ingredients th at could be harmful.

 

[Obsidian]

I believe the article said with repeated use, beer can dry the hair out. Not sure if its true especially since beer in soap has no alcohol left. I found egg yolks make a really great shampoo bar. Have you seen this video? It talks about different herbs for hair, I wouldn't use the recipe though if you have dry hair, it seems really cleansing.

http://youtu.be/TduqRMxb-kE

 

[AKjulz]

Just wondering if you could just use beer and then nettle separately in an infusion or strong decoction? My husband recently started making beer, so now he is googling nettle beer. Haha. We do have several types of nettle here so I'll let you know if he takes the challenge! Come spring of course

 

[HerbalEarthling]

Just wondering if you could just use beer and then nettle separately in an infusion or strong decoction? My husband recently started making beer, so now he is googling nettle beer. Haha. We do have several types of nettle here so I'll let you know if he takes the challenge! Come spring of course

Omg! I'm so jacked up on soap, I need to stop lol! I soooo hope he does this! I seriously will either pay you or send you soap!

 

[Obsidian]

You could probably just steep nettle in warm beer instead of having to make actual nettle beer.

 

[ourwolfden]

You can always make your own beer. Especially if you don't plan to drink it just to make soap with it wouldn't be too hard. I can advise on wine, but not beer.

Here is a recipe for wine:

NETTLE WINE (1)

• 3 qts nettle tops
• 3-1/2 lbs granulated sugar
• 7-1/2 pts water
• 1 lemon
• 1 orange
• 1 tsp yeast nutrient
• wine yeast

Thinly peel the lemon and orange while bringing water to boil. Juice the lemon and orange. Place nettles, juice and lemon and orange peelings in in primary with sugar and yeast nutrient. Pour boiling water into primary and stir well to dissolve sugar. Cover with sanitized cloth and set aside to cool. When room temperature, add wine yeast. After five days of vigorous fermentation, strain liquid into secondary and attach airlock. When wine begins to clear, rack into clean secondary and refit airlock. After 3 months, rack into bottles. [Adapted from Steven A. Krause's Wine from the Wilds]

You can use bread yeast instead (again if you are only using it for soap). Instead of an airlock you can use a balloon, and you wouldn't have to wait the 3 months, it wouldn't hurt if it was still cloudy.

I found it here and there are a few others as well:
http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/nettles.asp

 

[HerbalEarthling]

You could probably just steep nettle in warm beer instead of having to make actual nettle beer.

You probably could... I'll have to try it. But no matter what, nettle beer sounds awesome. You didn't think I was going to buy/make/obtain nettle beer and put it all into my soap did you?

 

[HerbalEarthling]

You can always make your own beer. Especially if you don't plan to drink it just to make soap with it wouldn't be too hard. I can advise on wine, but not beer.

Here is a recipe for wine:

NETTLE WINE (1)

• 3 qts nettle tops
• 3-1/2 lbs granulated sugar
• 7-1/2 pts water
• 1 lemon
• 1 orange
• 1 tsp yeast nutrient
• wine yeast

Thinly peel the lemon and orange while bringing water to boil. Juice the lemon and orange. Place nettles, juice and lemon and orange peelings in in primary with sugar and yeast nutrient. Pour boiling water into primary and stir well to dissolve sugar. Cover with sanitized cloth and set aside to cool. When room temperature, add wine yeast. After five days of vigorous fermentation, strain liquid into secondary and attach airlock. When wine begins to clear, rack into clean secondary and refit airlock. After 3 months, rack into bottles. [Adapted from Steven A. Krause's Wine from the Wilds]

You can use bread yeast instead (again if you are only using it for soap). Instead of an airlock you can use a balloon, and you wouldn't have to wait the 3 months, it wouldn't hurt if it was still cloudy.

I found it here and there are a few others as well:
http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/nettles.asp

Wow. Nice! Thank you. I didn't think about wine. As I said before I want to get in on this hype about beer soap but that sounds neat too! My husband has made wine in the past so we have a lot of the equipment. Grrr so many things that I want to do. I need to organize my time better. I have spent seriously like 5 hours on this forum and the internet just sucking in all of this information, I feel like I could burst! Haha

 

[ourwolfden]

If has made wine, then he has all the basic knowledge to make beer. Plus you can be the great wife to say "hey, lets start making beer, we can get the ingredients to make your favorite" then add a by the way lets make nettle beer!

 

[HerbalEarthling]

If has made wine, then he has all the basic knowledge to make beer. Plus you can be the great wife to say "hey, lets start making beer, we can get the ingredients to make your favorite" then add a by the way lets make nettle beer!

Haha nice. Yeah, I don't know much about either wine or beer brewing and he hasn't made any since we've been together. I don't know why I didn't think about it haha. Where do you get hops from? They are in all beers right?

 

[ourwolfden]

This is where I buy most of my supplies other than Friar Tuck's:
http://www.midwestsupplies.com/winemaking-equipment.html?utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Supplies_(w)&mkwid=6k8wnh2N&pcrid=416875838&pmt=e&kwd=midwest%20wine%20supply&utm_term=midwest%20wine%20supply

 

[Lindy]

Actually the only person I have ever heard that said beer was bad for hair was soaping 101 and as much as I respect her I don't agree. I make beer shampoo as well as beer conditioner, they are both amazing adding volume and shine. I make other shampoos and conditioners as well, but the beer shampoo has it's group of fans.....