brewing 2ne1

Cherry Adventures #3

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 17:33:00 -0400

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

Cherry Adventures #2 2.5kg sour but plump and some failry sweet...

Sat, 24 Jul 2010 18:33:00 -0400

Cherry Adventures #2

2.5kg sour but plump and some failry sweet cherries with 2l homebrew beer and 125g sugar (glucose). Tastes very cherry. Might add another 2l homebrew and another 125g sugar after this has brewed depending on how it tastes. Racked the previous cherry beer adventure.

Dylski

After 3 days in the bucket and a couple of weeks in the bottle,...

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 03:38:00 -0400

After 3 days in the bucket and a couple of weeks in the bottle, the Rhubarb champagne is ready for the tasting.

Note: I had left a good gap of air to allow for a decent amount of compression - better than exploding bottles. I bled off the gas after the first couple of days - thing went off like a rocket, hence even more of a gap:)

/Mikey

Wild Cherry Wine 2010Three Galleons racked into Demijons. New...

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 16:25:57 -0400

Wild Cherry Wine 2010
Three Galleons racked into Demijons. New syphoning kit worked a treat. (Still have to perfect though!) Looks like pink Grapefruit juice! Tastes like sweet cherry, and I can taste the alcohol coming through.
SG is 1020 started at 1080
calc 60 / 7.36 = 8.15%
Nicely bubbling away! Have to rack in 3 weeks!
Marcus

Cherry Adventures #1 Racked the wild cherry wine. A bit sour...

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 19:45:00 -0400

Cherry Adventures #1

Racked the wild cherry wine. A bit sour with a bit of a bitter taste. Rather rough but then there’s a year to go for it to mellow so we’ll see.

Mixed some of the wild cherry excess with homebrewed beer in the bottle on the left.

On the right is going to be another experiment:

2.5lbs cherries crushed, stoned and mixed with a bit under 2 litres of homebrew beer. Going to see if it ferments again to get a very cherry beer. Added ~125g sugar to push up the alcohol content. Not exactly sure what it currently is but my estimation is that the beer is ~4% and going by the cunning sugar-alcohol equation 125g should add around 3%.

Dylski

CemeCherry Wine (Cherry Wine) Fat cherries from the cemetary....

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 07:07:00 -0400

CemeCherry Wine (Cherry Wine)

Fat cherries from the cemetary. Stoned (the cherries), crushed and poured a gallon of water onto them.

Dylski

Rhubarb champagne on its way

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 03:48:00 -0400

Little half moons of deliciousness!

Started the brew Sunday evening, will bottle tonight (3days).

/Mikey

Wild Cherry Wine 2010. Three days later with the cherries...

Mon, 05 Jul 2010 17:52:00 -0400

Wild Cherry Wine 2010. Three days later with the cherries sitting in water 4 campden tablets and pectin enzyme. The cherries look bleached out. Smells like kirsh, very almondy.
I squeezed the cherries through a muslin. And topped up with water to 3 gallons.
Also added

6tsps Acid Blend

3tsps Yeast Nutrient

7.5lbs Sugar

1.5tsps Pectin Enzyme

0.75tsps Grape Tannin

1 packet of yeast

Measured the SG at 1.080 Left to ferment in the primary tub for the next 5 days

Marcus

Wild Cherry Wine. Working to last years recipe but 3 times the...

Sun, 04 Jul 2010 14:57:52 -0400

Wild Cherry Wine. Working to last years recipe but 3 times the quantity. As last years was so good and there has been a bumper crop of cherries!
Marcus

Wild Cherry Wine

Sat, 03 Jul 2010 09:15:00 -0400

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

Fri, 02 Jul 2010 03:49:00 -0400

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 champagne.

I’ve taken the recipe from here:-

http://www.accidentalsmallholder.net/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=ea4eb66049142f84bd68a5e6983eb3e9&topic=3066.0

and scaled it up for double volume:-

10 ltr water
7 cups rhubarb - I’ll weigh this and come up with an equivalent
7 cups sugar - ~1.5kg
2 lemons
390ml cider vinegar

I’ll be using frozen rhubarb as I saw a post for rhubarb wine saying that it tastes better if frozen first. Does anyone know if this will kill the yeast though?

/Mike

Wild Cherry Wine

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 07:18:00 -0400

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 this morning. Will add ~225g chopped raisins tonight If I remember to buy some. Tomorrow I’ll strain, add sugar, yeast and nutrient and put into a demijohn to ferment.

Dylski

Is That a Cat I Smell?

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 08:54:55 -0400

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 flower? I wonder whether the malodourous brew will settle down with time?

/Mikey

Elderflower Champagne

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 07:12:00 -0400

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

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 07:01:47 -0400

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 number on the right is from a batch generated just a week ago and generally follows the same recipe, however, after a sample tasting of the original batch suggested it might be a little laid back, this batch contains 2Kg sugar and some champagne yeast from that fine purveyor Ebay,

Time will tell… I think I need to invest in a vin-o-meter!

Elderflower Champagne 2010

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 17:51:26 -0400

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

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 17:46:00 -0400

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

Elderberry Wine Bottled. Tastes good, the dryness as mellowed...

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 13:43:00 -0400

Elderberry Wine Bottled.
Tastes good, the dryness as mellowed and it has a deep flavour. I think this is going to age well. I have laid the bottles down and will crack one open at Christmas. The original recipe suggested that the wine will be palatable after 12 months.
My Daughter created a brilliant label for the bottles, Picturing elderberries and the Elderberry fairies!

Marcus

Apparently proper ‘Nettle Beer’ uses malt for the...

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 08:58:00 -0400

Apparently proper ‘Nettle Beer’ uses malt for the sugars. There is a recipe here using whole plants and some discussion here.

Put together a batch of Elderflower Champagne this morning...

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 08:28:00 -0400

Put together a batch of Elderflower Champagne this morning according to Jason’s recipe. No yeast added yet; will see what happens after 48 hours.

Dylski