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May 13, 2011 18:26:33 GMT
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I'm taking a risk here because technically this doesn't involve making or modifying anything. That said, I know there are a few budding home brewers on here and I might get away with a one-stop discussion thread so we can all share ideas. If it's too off-topic then mods please feel free to remove it. I got back into home brewing late last year with some cider after picking up the apples in my mate's garden. We got around 60kg of them which was good for 40 litres of apple juice. That went in 9 demijohns round at another mate's house and he let the lot brew to cider. We used two types of yeast - cider and champagne. Most was with cider yeast which dropped out quite quickly to a nice dense sediment at the bottom and the resulting cider was still. The other lot we used champagne yeast which took an age to settle out and we were left with quite crisp sparkling cider. I would say it wasn't worth the extra wait, because syphoning it off knocked the fizz out of it and the yeast sediment was very light and made racking a pain. Since we were noobs we lost loads in the racking, bottled it too soon and generally cocked it up, but the end product was quite drinkable. Around December I put a blackberry wine on. I think it was about 700g fruit which was previously foraged and frozen, a kilo of sugar and topped up to 5 litres with water. It has aged well and is quite drinkable. It could do with a bit more fruit though - note for later this year The next brew was a gallon of limoncello. I knew roughly what I wanted it to taste like so I juiced 15 lemons from the market, added 1kg of sugar for the brew and once completed I'll add more sugar to taste. It has now cleared and is sat in the demi. I need to rack it off the yeast and bottle it really. Which brings us up to the latest brews. I'm doing a cider with cloudy apple juice from Lidl and what they call Pear Nectar, which is pear pulp watered down with added sugar. It's quite thick and gloopy so I guess it'll make a kind of perry cider. These are the offending juices: Into the demijohns goes 200g of white sugar, a teaspoon of yeast nutrient, a teaspoon of yeast and 4 litres of juice: That will probably start to froth up so I've left a gap at the top. In a few days I'll top it up to the neck and leave it to ferment out. The 200g of sugar will add about 2% alcohol on top of that created by the natural sugars in the juice, so the apple should come out at about 6% and the pear which is a bit sweeter might be 7-7.5% I would call myself a beginner but I'll try and answer any questions. Years ago I did two lots of beer, two lots of schnapps and I've just got back into it. I've read a book, done a few brews that have been quite drinkable, but I wouldn't consider myself an expert yet ;D
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will
Posted a lot
Posts: 4,023
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May 13, 2011 21:53:29 GMT
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Ah brings back fond memories of crushing grapes with our feet in the washing up bowl as kids I've a couple of demis in the garage, tempted to have a stab at this. Just need them thingys to go in the tops, ingredients and a little know how. Make poverty history, cheaper alcohol now ;D
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chevazon
Posted a lot
1939 Chevrolet 2 door coupe, `67 `Zon estate, `87 Ragtop Cavalier, 4 x 800 Drifters,(!) 1500 Drifter
Posts: 2,259
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May 13, 2011 23:09:34 GMT
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Had a couple of glasses of my plum wine from last year. Wor lass was half pi$$ed ! First time I have tried brewing stuff. Still got a couple of gallon of elderberry, cider etc to get through !
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May 14, 2011 11:23:03 GMT
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Can you recommend some reading around this? I quiet fancie brewing up some DIY Aldi wine!!
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1994 Rover Metro 1994 Peugeot 405 Estate 1991 Rover Metro Gti 16v 2001 Fiat Seicento Sporting 1999 Fiat Punto 1.2 1994 Peugeot 106 Xnd (x3) 1991 Westfield 7 2004 Landrover 110 SW 2003 Seat Ibiza 1.9Tdi Sport 1959 Ford 107e Prefect 1992 Suzuki Vitara 2008 Skoda Fabia
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May 14, 2011 12:25:00 GMT
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The perry is going mad. Actually it's out of control It spat the top of the airlock out overnight so I've had to move it to the kitchen in a spare washing up bowl until it calms down a bit Can you recommend some reading around this? I quiet fancie brewing up some DIY Aldi wine!! You should find books in the library. One I recommend is simply called Winemaking by CJJ Berry
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May 14, 2011 18:11:37 GMT
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Some great stuff can be found over on Jim's Beer Kit Forum www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/forum/index.phpThere's allsorts of stuff on there, not just beers. There's a whole section on turbo-ciders, which is well worth a read - if only for peoples' reviews of their own recipes; with comments like 'tastes like a rough bacardi breezer'. Just drunk the last of our sloe gin this week, which turned out brilliantly this year and the last litre of our sloe and blackberry vodka is on borrowed time in the freezer.... Might have a go at some elderflower champagne next. Joe
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Last Edit: May 15, 2011 20:40:14 GMT by Deleted
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May 15, 2011 19:48:02 GMT
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The beer kits are pretty good. I've made a few nice ales and some nice Belgian beers. Have done DIY cider as well which is fun but varies from "mmmm" to "oh my god did a stray donkey just kick me in the head".
My mate has his own beehive and makes mead. Very nice and not exactly easy to find in the shops.
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skinnylew
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 5,546
Club RR Member Number: 11
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***Home Brew Thread***skinnylew
@skinnylew
Club Retro Rides Member 11
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May 15, 2011 22:51:25 GMT
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there was some doing the rounds at the Gathering last year...... potent!! and some skittles/Smartie Vodka as well if I remember rightly (which after drinking both I might not have been ;D )
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there was some doing the rounds at the Gathering last year...... potent!! and some skittles/Smartie Vodka as well if I remember rightly (which after drinking both I might not have been ;D ) I don't remember writing that, but that is definitely in my hand ;D The Vodka was just dolly mixture dissolved into it.. I've got the demijohns out this year
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...proper medallion man chest wig motoring.
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May 16, 2011 11:25:15 GMT
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There was an impressive homebrew/cider thread on here beforehand which involved the crushing of huge quantities of apples and allowing them to ferment from the natural yeast on the apple skins.
I've done a few brews of beer and have found the most success in dark ales so far. All of my batches have been pretty potent but some were a little bit of an acquired taste!
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May 16, 2011 11:31:52 GMT
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There was an impressive homebrew/cider thread on here beforehand which involved the crushing of huge quantities of apples and allowing them to ferment from the natural yeast on the apple skins. I've tried doing this.. It works, but because I was doing it in a barrel, rather than a demijohn with an airlock, I couldn't tell very well that it had finished working and it carried on once bottled. It was highly amusing when opening the bottle created a massive sticky fountain ;D Will be giving it a go again this year hopefully.
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...proper medallion man chest wig motoring.
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May 16, 2011 12:08:02 GMT
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It was highly amusing when opening the bottle created a massive sticky fountain ;D You must've gotten it pretty close to correct then! If you get it wrong you usually get glass grenades. Our (group of mates doing the brew) second brew was overprimed a bit because some of the lads got a bit silly with the white sugar during bottling. Some of them exploded on the shelf whilst conditioning, others exploded in your hand when you took them out of the esky! I got small shards of glass embedded in the inner lining of my esky, very nasty.
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May 16, 2011 12:54:43 GMT
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Well the brews have calmed down a bit now, so tonight's job is to clean the flat up where it's been spraying everywhere, top the demis up the top and wash out the airlocks ;D
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skinnylew
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 5,546
Club RR Member Number: 11
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***Home Brew Thread***skinnylew
@skinnylew
Club Retro Rides Member 11
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May 16, 2011 13:37:10 GMT
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there was some doing the rounds at the Gathering last year...... potent!! and some skittles/Smartie Vodka as well if I remember rightly (which after drinking both I might not have been ;D ) I don't remember writing that, but that is definitely in my hand ;D The Vodka was just dolly mixture dissolved into it.. I've got the demijohns out this year DOLLY MIXTURES!!! thats the one!!
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camper damper
Part of things
Another car bites the dust
Posts: 606
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May 17, 2011 19:24:44 GMT
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I like home brewing use to do it till a jar blew to bits and put me in hospital for 2 weeks but can i ask a question are the jars worth any thing i have 17 had 18 of them and just want to know how much there worth
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May 18, 2011 11:15:27 GMT
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Google says that 5l glass demijohns are between £6 and £10 new so prob not worth much Waiting on a delivery of a couple bits then I'll be getting started on a couple cordial based experiments
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...proper medallion man chest wig motoring.
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crazymonkey
Posted a lot
ummm....what was I doing again???
Posts: 1,981
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May 18, 2011 13:20:48 GMT
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we got a few demijohns for free so got a few wine kits on the go (cheating really but still tastes good ;D) oh and we cant do without the homebrew beer kits. quite fancy making some from scratch but never got round to it. I remember the blackberry wine we used to make when I was a wee child (ok about 14 lol) but that stuff didnt take a lot to knock you down. Honestly didnt know it was so simple to make cider from apple juice though. shall have to try that now me thinks
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whoever said dogs were man's best friend....obviously never heard of cable ties
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May 19, 2011 16:10:52 GMT
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Right, so I've got started on mine too. I'm new to this other than an experiment with apples and their wild yeasts the year before last.. First off, Vimto wine/cider/alcopop. I love Vimto so an alcoholic version would be lovely but it's full of preservatives so I had to boil it off. Worth pointing out now that I steralised everything I started out using half a litre and 300g sugar, but that was nowhere near enough. So it ended up as 700g sugar and a litre of Vimto. I used a teaspoon of this yeast And a teaspoon of yeast nutrient. Left overnight, it started to bubble, when I got up this morning, it was only once every 3 minutes. It's got gradually quicker through the day and is every 10 seconds or so now but it isn't frothing yet.. It may work and it may not. I don't reckon I've driven the preservatives off. i took the gravity at the beginning and it was only 1.050 so it's not going to be a wine, more of an alcopop, probably ending at 4 or 5%. And all excited today... I'm having a go at a 'turbo' cider. Cheap and quick is the aim for today. Tools needed I thought I'd take the specific gravity of the juice on its own and it was 1050. I dissolved 250g of sugar and a teaspoon of yeast nutrient into a litre of juice and this was poured into my demijohn to make up a complete gallon (4.5ish litres) It's gravity with the additions was 1070ish. Should end up anywhere between 6 and 9% depending on how far it ferments.. I used a teaspoon of the same yeast as before since it is supposedly robust and good for ciders and country wines It's bubbling like a good'n already I'll keep you updated.
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...proper medallion man chest wig motoring.
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May 19, 2011 17:34:37 GMT
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I really need to try this!
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May 19, 2011 20:29:58 GMT
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Now who's going to be brave and show a picture of their distilation setup?
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