What's going on in your winery today..

[Cellar_Rat]

bottled my Hop Ball ale. Interesting that the fermenter was REALLY easy to clean. Normally there is a ring of gunk that needs a good hard scrub.

[Ted.B]

Cleaning a dozen ebay demijohns and admiring my 5 gallon carboy, also an ebay score. When the demijohns are ready I will be racking off my wine#2 and basicaly clearing the decks ready for grapefest.

[billybuntus]

Racked 3 gallons of blackberry wine from primary.

Wash a few dozen manky bottles.

Racked a gallon of blackberry and elderberry.
Currently nothing fermenting. Must pay a visit to the you know where and get a couple of beer kits to keep me going and possibly a beaverdale barolo 30 bottle kit

[Omniata]

Racked the Elderberry melomel yesterday thinking it would have gone off, the elderberry and black grape melomel seemed ok but didn't want to chance it as the airlock had dried out

Had a look at the orange melomel this evening, still seems very "marmalade", will maybe try racking tomorrow, the sediment is very fine and "whispy". May be better to run it though a filter too...

Bottled the lemon balm wine, the taste is still a little hot after a year, although it is quite sweet so balances for a nice finish...
Seems to have come round quite well after I watered it down a little too much by mistake, the flavour is quite "thin" but then again if it were any more pronounced I think it would be too much considering the taste of lemon balm as opposed to lemons...

Time to start looking at the others, the apple and orange wines seem ready, and the blueberry melomel too. Although a I may leave the blueberry mature longer in bulk...

Edit: I say "ready" but really mean "ready for bottling", time to get the next batches on the go... I have a dark cherry planned...

[billybuntus]

Started a brewferm diablo kit today and a 30 bottle beaverdale barolo. Nearly swapped the yeast out but since its the first time I've made it I'll swap it out next time so I can compare.

[owlwithoutfeathers]

Started a brewferm diablo kit today and a 30 bottle beaverdale barolo. Nearly swapped the yeast out but since its the first time I've made it I'll swap it out next time so I can compare.

Excellent: two of my favourite kits. I've got Diabolo maturing in bottles - its about 6 months old now as it is awesome.

[billybuntus]

Excellent: two of my favourite kits. I've got Diabolo maturing in bottles - its about 6 months old now as it is awesome.

Excellent work. I'm planning to build up a good selection of beers for winter time

Abbey will be purchased next week

Any other beer kit recommendations?

[lockwood1956]

Woodfordes headcracker is yum scrum (proper sitting down beer mind!)

[billybuntus]

Woodfordes headcracker is yum scrum (proper sitting down beer mind!)

That's how I always take my beer I'll pick a kit up next week cheers for the tip.

Started 2 gallons of orange wine today (wurzel recipe) just out of curiosity as there's a large post on the other forum raving about it.

got 4 gallons of christmas pud to rack off tommorow

[owlwithoutfeathers]

Seriously; you just can't go wrong with brewferm. If you have diabolo on the go and are going to do abbey I would suggest getting a "summer" beer on the go now; by march / April they will be awesome! I've considered the "ruby" type brewferms. And may venture forth in candi sugar to prime, rather than sugar or coopers sugar pellets. . . Like beaverdale to me brewferm is pound for pound the best beer kits out there. You get structure flavour and body. One day I'll move to all grain; if the other half allows me the space . ;-)

Owl.

[Lisa Cairno]

weekend wine making

im going to buy 2 more DJ's and make some wine #1. im thinking of tring lidl to buy some exotic type juice if its got no addetives of course.
QUESTION. some of the juices have the citric acid in them does that mean i dont need to add it at the wine making stage, or would you steer clear of this juice? and just uce pure juice?
thanks lisa x

[Lisa Cairno]

Its me again
Questions questons
MY hubs and i want to start a cider. how do we go about the stage when created fizz? do we have to purchase a gadget to add carbonation and is this to the bottle or to the gallon tub/DJ. I havnt tried cider making at all yet because we like the fizz.

[Cellar_Rat]

You treat is like beer - keep it in a pressure keg or a BEER bottle with a little sugar. The sugar ferments and the gas is trappedd hence fizz. USE BEER BOTTLES not ordinary bottle else they will EXPLODE. ..

Pop bottles (coke, lemo etc ) also work.

[lockwood1956]

Once it has fermented to dry, put it in beer bottles and add 1/2 tsp sugar per bottle for a madium fizz and 1 tsp for a lot of fizz (lager typee fizz) do not exceed 1tsp per 500ml bottle.

Pet bottles work well too

as to juice containing acid.....make up the must, and taste it, dont worry too much as you can alwways add some acid later if need be

regards
Bob

[mark g]

two gallons of fruit juice wine for only £4.00

Just started two gallons of 5,alive Tropical five fruit-juice blend wine.

Ingredients:
2lt-5,live Tropical fruit juice.
2lt-grape juice (RED OR WHITE)
3lb-sugar.
water.
1tsp-GP yeast compound, per Demijohn.

NOTE: this wine is ok to drink in six months, but i like to mature it for at least 12 months.