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Oct 24, 2011 11:24:12 GMT
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Update: On the left is what most of my brews look like when in progress: cloudy with a powdery sediment in the bottom, which is the spent yeast. On the right is the dirty cider made with the rotten apples. It's much less cloudy and the yeast is all chunky. Both taste fairly similar at the moment, which is a bit disappointing. I was hoping it would have that West-Country sheeps-pee scrumpy taste to it
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Oct 24, 2011 11:58:56 GMT
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Here's my attempt at Cider this year. Tried to speed up process so we modded the juicer a bit, juice runs straight to my mates 'honey vat' with built in filter, and a bin bag to collect the pulp. In truth the bin bag didn't work too well and still had to open out a few times to clear pulp. Boiled it off: Then filled three djs with it. Two are very clear, one was made up of the dregs so a little more scrumpy style. Few days later: Bottled and ready to put away.
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Oct 28, 2011 15:20:10 GMT
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Righty, a bit of tasting. Quite a few brews on the go at the moment so quite a lot of sampling to do ;D I've taken a photo of each to show what it looks like in the demijohns and the tag tells you the ingredients and the date I put the brews on. For each one I poured half a glass and gave it a whisk with a teaspoon to knock the gas out of it. I then gave it a sniff to check out the smell and took a taste. On the side I'd made up some sugar water with 250ml of water and 25g of sugar dissolved to sweeten the brews if they needed it. Onto the tasting... Rosé:Quite strong in alcohol as planned! Not too dry, which is surprising, so it hasn't brewed all the sugar out. Maybe a bit too much tannin. Could do with a bit more fruit. Adding sugar water dilutes the flavour down a bit too much, so maybe it needs some strawberry Ribena instead. I'll see what it's like once it has cleared, but I think next time it might need 3 litres of juice instead of 2. It doesn't have the harsh almondy taste of the WOW, so I think it must have been the orange that caused it. Cherry Kool Aid:Still bubbling away and smells quite yeasty! There is residual sweetness in there and it has not finished brewing yet. The Kool Aid is maybe a bit too dilute. I can't taste alcohol at all, but I did aim to get this one at about 6% rather than wine strength. Slightly winey in taste. I'm not sure if I could drink large amounts of this, so I'm glad I only put 2 litres on as a bit of fun to see what it comes out like! Tropical Punch Kool Aid:Still bubbling, but not as much as the cherry Kool Aid. Not as yeasty smelling either, but it might be the extreme artificial colors and flavors masking it! Check this out: It's also quite sweet tasting and doesn't need any sugar. Adding sugar water makes it quite sickly sweet. Cider - juiced apples:This was the first of the ciders to go on and I put the apples (about 10kg) through my fruit juicer. Mistake. Why? Because it took ages and made extreme amounts of mess for not much juice! It's still a bit yeasty with a few bits of yeast floating in it. It's quite perfumed smelling, like the cider we made last year. Very dry to taste, slightly cidery, sharp, and very apply. Lots of tannin so I'm glad I didn't add any tea. It needs sweetening and is much improved with a bit of sugar water. This also brings out the cidery taste. It does taste very perfumey and it's not the yeast I can taste, so it must be the apples. This one might need to sit for a while once it has cleared. Cider - pressed apples:This was from the same batch of apples but pressed instead of juiced. You can see it is a bit more cloudy because it has been brewing for two weeks less. Quite a different smell to it - much more cidery. Sharp, dry, lots of tannin and definitely more cidery tasting than the juiced batch. No perfumey taste to it that I can detect. Sweetening improves it but it doesn't need much. Cider - pressed apple (scrumpy):This is from the rotten apples that had gone brown and mushy. It smells noticebly more scrumpy-like with a strong cider scent. Interestingly, it's clearer than the gallon from the good apples that went on at the same time, so I think the apples had a head start brewing in their skins before I pressed them! Taste - now we're talking! Proper strong scrumpy taste to it, quite dry, not quite as sharp as the other ciders and not as much tanin. A tiny bit of sugar water really improves it. I think I'm going to want to drink a lot of this one!
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Quick query from me:
Put my turbo cider on last Monday and it hasnt frothed up? The airlock is bubbling, allbeit quite slowly (at a guess, prob 5 - 6 times a minute).
The brew has gone cloudy and looks fine. My flat has no heating, perhaps it is not warm enough? (i have it wrapped in a towel though).
My basic recipe:
3 litres lidl apple juice 1 litre cloudy apple juice 1/2 cup of strong tea 1 chopped apple Sachet yeast approx 200g sugar
Any ideas?!
Thanks, Joe
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It sounds like it's fine because it has gone cloudy and it is bubbling. I think it's probably just because it's not as warm as it was.
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Finally the Wow is done, I'm going to get a bit tried tonight.
Has anyone tried anything with blueberry juice? I've seen it in Tescos and I'm tempted!
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I just want to get my Damson gin out of my demi's so I can start playing
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bailey
Part of things
Posts: 125
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johnny69 that is some home brew collection lol can i ask a favor could you pm me a few details on how you made the rose my misses drinks it and i would love to have a go at some. if you have covered it in the thread so far i do apoligise i just skiped to the last page. So tell me to jog on and find it
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I don't think I posted anything about it because it's kind of an experiment at the moment, but I'll put details up tomorrow when I'm a bit more sober I've been racking tonight and had a little sample as I go, so feeling a little tiddly. I think this stuff is a bit stronger than I calculated ;D I bottled up the two blackberry wines and had two half-glasses while I was bottling them, which were delicious. Then splashes of the three ciders as I racked them *amazing* and a glass of the experimental rosé wine which is actually ok. Needs to sit to completely clear I think, then it'll be great.
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Jan 18, 2012 22:05:24 GMT
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Sticking this in the post to my Grandma tomorrow, since I promised her a bottle. Home-made vinyl label with a message on the back ;D
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Feb 28, 2012 18:49:27 GMT
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Just put a new brew on. We had a dodgy watermelon - cut it open and it literally started oozing litres of liquid. Overnight it had filled the container we put it in and the flesh had basically emptied most of its liquid out. It tasted fine so I decided to make a brew of it I used the guidelines for Watermelon-Mustang Grape Wine from here but just adjusted the quantities to suit the gallon demijohn. I cut all the flesh out the melon and gave it a good mash with the potato masher: I then passed all that through the muslin you see in the funnel on the left. Don't do this if you have a squeamish veggie girlfriend because it looks like badly minced up murder scene once you've squeezed the juice out of it: It's a lovely pink colour and I got 2.2 litres. Shame we lost about a litre last night... I've added a teaspoon of yeast nutrient, a teaspoon of pectolase to make it clear, 850g of white sugar, a teaspoon of Young's wine yeast and it's topped up with red grape juice. I might add a mug of tea as usual, since it's a red wine:
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Haha! Classic, J69 that is epic use of a watermelon. Will be interesting to see how that turns out.
I've just had 2 more Demis donated, so I'm going to clean up the brewing room and get prepared for some spring brewing soon. I quite fancy doing a pear + apple cider this year (as the parents have both trees).
Next on the list is blueberry though, I love the idea of a blue wine.
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Feb 29, 2012 11:24:35 GMT
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I think blueberry wine will come out purple, tw. Whenever I've made blueberry jam or desserts they ended up being a deep purple.
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I've been playing at all this sort of thing for a year now and seem to be getting a feel for what I'm OK at, and what I fail at. Brewing wines that don't taste foul or get infected seems to be something of a mystery to me, which is odd, since cider is essentially the same process and I'm OK at that. I have a feeling that it is to do with the timeframes involved- even in the depths of winter, I can knock out a turbo cider in a couple weeks which is fairly pallatable, but a wine takes far longer. More time and opportunities for infection or for things to go wrong. I've just started on beer kits and have done 2 with good levels of success and think I may be a convert. I will document the next one that I do but I may need to wait until I either accumulate enough bottles or buy a keg. So far I've done a Muntons IPA with brewing sugar and a 'Superbrew' bitter from Wilkinsons with beer kit enhancer (which is essentially a mix of spraymalt and brewing sugar). This is the latter, living in the bottom of my wardrobe to condition... They were only bottled last night so will need a little while. My taste from the bottom of the barrel was very promising. Here's the next one. Coopers Australian Pale Ale, with hopped light spraymalt and brewing sugar. I'm undecided whether to do it to the correct quantities or to up the sugar/alcohol a bit. I've gone with Coopers as according to the majority on the Jims Beer Kit forum, they're pretty foolproof kits that don't go wrong easily, they take modifications to the recipe well and they're incredibly cheap for the quality. This one was £12 and makes 5 gallons. Total cost to brew will be about £20. 50p/pint for a decent beer is not to be sniffed at..
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...proper medallion man chest wig motoring.
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Agreed on the Coopers kits. They're great starter kits and I'd highly recommend Tom Caxton kits also. Then when you've got a few brews under your belt and a bit more confident I'd highly recommend a St. Peter's. I recently did their Golden Ale kit and it was superb!
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G A R'goyle
Part of things
Bad to the bones Senior citzien
Posts: 115
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Apr 17, 2012 13:00:00 GMT
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Found this recipe on the web One liters vodka Four Piri-Piri & four Habanero peppers Two vanilla bars Slot piri-piri and chop habanero Put all in a jar pour in Vodka Let it rest for three days and remove peppers after four more days remove vanilla bars Pic’s Prepared to begin Sliced and slotted In the bottle I just had to make a label!
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Apr 17, 2012 18:46:08 GMT
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I made chilli vodka a while back. Never again!!!
In my brewing news, the watermelon and red grape wine is finished. I've stabilised it with Campden and sorbate but not used finings because the haze doesn't bother me. It's... rather odd tasting. Nothing wrong with it, just odd tasting and very, very strong. I've been experimenting what to do with it to use it up in a more palatable way, with juice, strawberry Ribena etc. Only 3.5 more litres of it to go ;D
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Apr 17, 2012 19:36:14 GMT
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Finally the Wow is done, I'm going to get a bit tried tonight. Has anyone tried anything with blueberry juice? I've seen it in Tescos and I'm tempted! I've tried and all i can say is you need to leave it to mature, i did 2 involving blueberry juice and when i first tasted them there was this overwhelming rankness to them. i thought i would give it a chance and left it from end of september until beginning of this week and its come out really good. Think its back on page 7 when i used it. At around page 8 i found 1lb of dried elderberries and did 2 1 gallon batches from it, bottled and tasted this week, didn't sweeten it or add any water, one word: amazing!! The quince wine is down to about 2.5 litres after all the racking i've had to do, i think i may have over cooked it when extracting the juice and got too much pulp through, even using a muslin. i'll compare mine to my parents one next time i see them, they also have a nectarine wine on the go which is pretty tasty too!
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1977 datsun 810 180b estate
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Apr 18, 2012 10:35:05 GMT
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Found some dried elderberries in the larder (god knows how they got there!!) So just started this: 1lb dried elderberries 0.5lb sultanas 2.5lb sugar 2 tsp citric acid yeast Elderberries and sultanas into bucket and cover with 2 litres boiling water, add sugar and acid to 1 litre boiling water and melt sugar, pour into bucket, let it cool and add the yeast. Leave 2 days then strain into demijohn, leave as normal. I won't be doing the second gallon batch with same lot of berries as the book suggests though. Did you just brew 3 litres or top it up to a gallon? Did you do the second gallon with the same batch of fruit in the end? What yeast did you use?
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Apr 18, 2012 16:53:28 GMT
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I topped it up to 1 gallon after initial fermentation had died down.
I did a second batch using the spent elderberries and sultanas, same amount of sugar with an extra 3/4lb of sultanas and pectic enzyme. Left for 4 days this time, both then left to ferment, racked and left a month then reracked and left 6 months, apparently you should leave it a year but as i hadn't done any WOW for a while we had run out.
I use youngs boggo dried active yeast for everything i do.
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1977 datsun 810 180b estate
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