July 2010
11 posts
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Cherry Adventures #3
Bottled the 2 litres of cherry beer. Tasted promising.
Added 2 litres of homebrew beer to the very cherry beer as it was very cherry. And pretty tart. Also added 125g glucose too for an extra fermentation. Now sitting with all the cherries still in. Still very cherry. Still tart.
Dylski
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Rhubarb champagne on its way
Little half moons of deliciousness!
Started the brew Sunday evening, will bottle tonight (3days).
/Mikey
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Wild Cherry Wine
Strained it all through a butter muslin with a bit of squeezing to get most of the liquid out. Filled one demijohn with half a litre to spare so my initial water measurement was probably a little out. Tasted sour and cherry-like.
Dylski
Rhubarb Champagne
Everyone loves Rhubarb yeah? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0420127/
Seriously, it’s got to be one of the best films ever. The only word that people say is “rhubarb” for the entire duration of the movie. Yes, yes… I was about 6 the last time I saw it :)
Anyway..
This weekend I’ll be attempting rhubarb champagne. Seems to be a simple variant of the elderflower...
June 2010
19 posts
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Wild Cherry Wine
Picked many varieties of cherries from seven different trees. Mostly the small ‘bird cherries’ that are too sour or bitter to eat. Took a couple of hours and much neck and arm straining to gather 3lbs of cherries. Should be just enough to make a gallon of wine.
Crushed and soaked over night. Removed many stones and added pectin destroying enzyme, citric acid and a Campden tablet...
Is That a Cat I Smell?
Due to the warm weather we’re having I decided to let some gas out of the two batches… Batch 2 imparted the room with the luscious smell of a crisp new summers day.
Batch 1 i’m afraid to say emitted the scent of pure evil. If the RSPCA had been in the neighbourhood they would have assumed I was a cat abuser.
I assume the smell is perhaps generated from one of the wild yeasts that live on the...
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Elderflower Champagne
Scooped out the flowers and peel from the bucket last night. Brew still bubbling. Cloudy and a little syrupy to taste. The liquor was bubbling again this morning. Will look up when to bottle soon.
UPDATE:
Bottled last night. Pressure building in the plastic bottles this morning… SG 1.026
Dylski
Even more elderflower champagne
Here lying in the leaves of the Elder is a lovely bevvy of edlerflower brews.
At first glance they appear to be the same, however the tasty number on the left is an example of the Elderflower Champagne I started 2 weeks ago.
General recipe was:-
10 Ltr water
10 heads ederflower
3 lemons
1Kg sugar
3 Tbs white wine vinegar
Left to ferment with natural yeast for 4 days.
The cheeky...
Elderflower Champagne 2010
Tested the 1st Batch and it is very fizzy. I released the pressure on all the bottles. It still has a tart taste to it, but is mellowing out nicely.
At this stage the SG is 1014 original was 1030
difference being 16 / 7.36 = 2.17% alcohol Marcus
Elderflower Champagne 2010 Batch 2
Bottled the 2nd Batch of Elderflower Champagne. This tastes more like last years. However, it is still very sweet. I now have 22 litres of Champagne!
At this stage the SG is 1020 original was 1030
difference being 10 / 7.36 = 1.36% alcohol Marcus
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Elderflower Champagne 2010 Batch 2
Started another batch similar to Jason’s recipe last year.
270g of flowers (approx 40 medium size heads or half a carrier bag) 1kg of sugar 4 Lemons grated zest and Juice. 2 Limes grated zest and juice 1/4 cup of white wine vinegar 2 gallons of hot water 0.5 gallons of cold. sprinkling of yeast.
trimmed the flowers and weighed them. added yeast at the start this time just to make sure it...
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White Wine Le Paddocks Bottled
I bottled the White Wine and unfortunately it is still very sharp. It is not very palatable. I was it two minds whether or not to throw it away! However, this was the demijohn that had the sediment in it. So hopefully the 2nd Demijohn that had no sediment in, will be better.
I will test the alcohol content later.
If anyone has any clues on how I could improve this wine. Please let me know.
...
Elderflower Champagne 2010
Bottled the Elderflower Champagne.
Unfortunately, it looks as though it has stopped fermenting and is looking a bit cloudy. It tastes similar to Dylan’s Elderflower champagne last year, still sweet, slightly sour and tiny bit bitter. I think this is due to the lemon zest sitting in the brew for too long.
I have added two teaspoons of sugar to each 2 litre bottle, to try and kick start the...
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Elderflower Champagne 2010
A strange mucus has appeared on top. But no bubbles have appeared. I think it is due to the lack of hot weather. The Yeast has not kick started. So I have decided to give it a kick start (Thanks Dylan for giving me some yeast)
1 hour on. The lid is starting to bulge. Yippee! Brew safely on the way!
Marcus
Elderflower Champagne 2010
Removed flowers from the top as mould was starting to appear. The lid was bulged so fermenting has started! Marcus
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V Vessel One-Step →
Interesting system that collects the sediment so no racking required. As they say:
The ultimate one-stage fermenter! The fastest and easiest way to make a batch of wine or beer!
However, it’s not cheap. Available in the UK from Hop and Grape it’s ~£130. I’m trying to figure out how to make one for less!
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Nettle Ale is Bottled
Bottled the Nettle Ale. It has a light fizz to it and the SG has dropped to 0.996, indicating a ABV ~6.4%. It was still a bit cloudy but not milky, sort of like a Hoegaarden beer. A good nettle flavour and with a sour-zesty lemon dimension. I added a half teaspoon of sugar to each bottle but they have not been put somewhere warm and, with the weather like it currently is, this might not be ...
May 2010
4 posts
Elderflower Champagne 2010
Spent this morning picking 70 to 90 Elderflower heads with the family from the hedgerows at the back of Addenbrooks and Long Road.
The heads vary in size wildly so this time I decided to weigh them after trimming. Which was 0.5kg
I also upped the recipe to 1.5 times last years as we had so many flower heads
Which is 0.5kg of Flower heads (70 -90 flowerheads) (3/4 carrier bag)
6 Lemons grated...
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Nettle ale finishes fermentation
Moved the pressurised keg of nettle ale to a cooler and more temperature-stable location today. SG measured at 1.004 suggesting a alcohol content ~5.5%. This could be an ale with a kick as well as a sting.
The ale is still very cloudy so rather than bottle now I’m going to give it a week or so to clear. Then I’ll bottle with half a teaspoon of sugar.
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April 2010
1 post
Gorse Flower Wine
Started 20 March 2010 following the advice for making flower wines in Terry Garey’s book “The Joy of Home Winemaking”
2 L of gorse flowers (picked with gloves!), 2.5 kg sugar, 1 tsp of citric acid, 1/2 tsp of tartaric acid, 1/4 tsp of wine tannin, 1 tsp of yeast nutrient, 1 tsp winemaking yeast, 1 gallon of water
The flowers were harvested in Pembrokeshire and smelled slightly of...
December 2009
2 posts
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White wine Le Paddocks Racked
Racked the white wine, Siphoning went a bit wrong on the second demijohn and some sediment got through, so I will have to re rack in a months time. It is still pretty sharp at the moment. I am hoping that it will mellow over time. But It may need to be sweetend.
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ElderBerry Wine Racked
Racked to remove the sediment. But there was not much in there this time. It is coming along well it is still a bit dry and has a slight bitterness. However, the recipe says that it needs to be left for a year. So it should mellow out nicely. Marcus
November 2009
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Christmas Ale
Ingredients
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp ground allspice
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 vanilla pod, split
1 orange zest and juice
250g tropical rainforest honey (dark)
750g Sugar
1.8kg John Best Traditional English Ale tin
Put all ingredients except juice and malt into pot with a few litres of hot water, simmered for 30 mins. Put malt into pressure barrel, removed orange rind from hot water...
October 2009
6 posts
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Quince Wine
I made four gallons of this wine a couple years ago. I remember it was a nightmare because it took forever to ferment and was stubborn to clear. Finally, after many months and racks, I bottled it but then the wine fermented a bit more in the bottles. I wanted to throw it away, but instead persisted and poured it back out of the bottles. It finally cleared properly and I bottled a second time. The...
September 2009
10 posts
2 tags
White Wine Le Paddocks
27/09/09
Rinsed the grapes in a sink of water with two crushed campden tablets. Crushed the grapes through a sieve (which took ages). Then squeezed them through a muslin, To get exactly 2gallons of juice. Added 500g of unrefined cane sugar
28/09/09
Bought a Hydrometer so that I could measure the Specific gravity.
Added about another 200g of sugar to bring the specific gravity to 1.075.
tasted...
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White Wine Le Paddocks
Here are two white Wine recipes that I have discovered on the internet.
The Grapes taste great, like sweet gooseberries. So I am hoping for big things.
Recipe 1
Use only the ripe undamaged grapes, bad grapes make bad wine.
When every grape is squashed add a yeast-a Gervin Yeast is best.
Leave in the bucket for about 2 days then press the grapes to get the juice out.
When you’ve...
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