***Home Brew Thread***

[Jonny69]

I decided to dump the perry in the end. There was so much pulp in it even with finings it was just making a sludgy mess and what was clearer tasted like washing powder. Stuck on a Wurzel's Orange Wine instead. If you Joogle it, it seems to be a popular one in the homebrew circles, so I'll be interested to see how it comes out

[SidewinderINC]

Just bottled my latest batch of beer.

A cherry wheatbeer, should have probably put more cherry in as it's more a hint at the current stage. hopefully the maturing time of 8 weeks (minimum) should round out the flavour

[Jonny69]

I forgot I started this thread. Have a big update:

2nd August:

Originally Posted by Jonny69

I went blackberry picking last night. Came home with a hoard of about 2.5 kg of fruit for winemaking. 2 kg went into a bucket last night with some boiling water and a campden tablet. Will seive it into a demijohn and add yeast and sugar probably tomorrow night. In the meantime; BLACKBERRIES!!!

Edit: Blackberry wine

Method so far:

01/08/11

2 kg blackberries into a bucket
Pour over 1.7l boiling water and a mug of stewed black tea made with 2 teabags
Mash up to a pulp
Add 1 campden tablet, 1 teaspoon of pectolase, 1 teaspoon of yeast nutrient
Cover and wait 24 hours





02/08/11

Strain through a seive
Strain through a muslin into demijohn

03/08/11

Add 1kg white sugar and 1 teaspoon of Young's wine yeast to demijohn. Fit airlock. After 12 hours it's frothing up and brewing:



Next step: waiting

6th August:

Originally Posted by Jonny69

Added 250ml of juiced apples from work to the BB wine. This is very significant because it includes the one and only apple I could find on Isaac Newton's apple tree. Damn groundsmen must have pruned all the apples off at some point because all the trees were bare

Will be topping it up to the top with shop apple juice when it has calmed down in a day or two.

Also put on a second blackberry wine. Ingredients for this one are as follows:

1.7kg blackberries treated as per before
1.7l boiled water
Mug of stewed tea made with 2 teabags
1kg sugar
1 teaspoon each of pectolase and yeast nutrient
1 teaspoon of Young's wine yeast

Will be topping this one up with red grape juice instead of apple.

5th October:

Originally Posted by Jonny69

This was quite exciting. My brew was alternating between a big frothy head and a clear top. It was repeating this over about a two minute period:

10th October:

Originally Posted by Jonny69

Yesterday afternoon. This little lot plus a washing up bowl and a bucket full:



There is about 24kg in that basket and another 6-7kg in total in the washing up bowl and bucket. I chopped up the lot in the washing up bowl and bucket into this:



The older apples that I already had weren't very juicy, so out of that lot I only managed to get about 4 litres of juice using my juicer:



Choosing to use my juicer was a mistake. It's not a great bit of kit at the best of times but using it to do any quantity is just a blocked-up pulpy nightmare. I passed the juice through a muslin because it was too pulpy to brew and then squeezed the waste through it as well. Got another 0.5 litres or so just by squeezing the pulp spat out by the juicer!

So I need a plan B for the rest of the apples. It begins with this el-cheapo 2-tonne bottle jack purchase...



...and I'll make a fruit press out of a sheet of thick ply and a few bits of 2x2. Total time: probably about the same. Total ballache: much lower. Personal west-country-style man points: +1000

15th October:

Originally Posted by Jonny69

Quick dose of reality check today. Went to buy some wood for the apple press and it was going to come to nearly £40. Think of all the apples or organic cider I could have bought for that

Decided to take a different approach, with a pair of clamps and a pair of thick chopping boards. So today I've been pressing apples. I've done two lots; one clean and one scrumpy, which you'll see below. The clean lot starts by being chopped up and all the bad bits cut out, then dumped into the sink with a campden tablet:



Then I call on the king of the kitchen toys at the moment: the Magimix:







Once scratted up, I dumped about 3 ladels of the minced apple in a sheet of muslin, wrapped it up and put it between two boards like so:



I squeezed it once, then released it, folded it over and repeated for maximum juice yield:





In the meantime I got two demijohns ready with steriliser:



They were left to stand while I blitzed up another bucket load of apple. As you can see, it goes everywhere. The kitchen was covered in minced apple:



Once they were pressed, it was time to tackle the rotten apples for the scrumpy bottle. These are the ones that have gone brown, covered in mould and generally looking like they're far too gone to use:



The reality is if you break these apples open they smell like cider. The brown squish is where their natural yeast has started to turn the apples to cider, so I figure it's ideal to shove them in for a real scrumpy taste

So a bit more pressing later and this is what I've got, with another litre and a half in the fridge to top up to when the froth has died down:

16th October:

Originally Posted by Jonny69

I am very excited this morning. Blooping is occurring, but check this out.

The juice from the good apples:



The juice from the rotten apples:



WOOP! Dirty cider

24th October:

Originally Posted by Jonny69

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

28th October:

Originally Posted by Jonny69

Righty, a bit of tasting. Quite a few brews on the go at the moment so quite a lot of sampling to do

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!