Brewing? Maybe, ramblings? Yes.

Damn the pear pulp!

admin — Wed, 05 May 2010 10:48:39 +0000

I thought I was going to fly through the perry I had left fermenting and ignored due to the heavy pulp in it. I had gotten some muslin cloth earlier so I could strain the nettle juice and then the pear. The nettles took a minute or two, great! The pear took an hour and [...]

Nettle beer

admin — Tue, 04 May 2010 10:58:54 +0000

Time to start harvesting some nettles! It’s about the right time of year if you’ve got a decent nettle patch nearby. I managed to harvest one plastic carrier bag of nettles from around Charleville Castle I wish I could have gotten more but it turned out well as I wouldn’t have been able to cook [...]

Cider kits

admin — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 15:39:03 +0000

My cider kit arrived from The Homebrew Company today, nice and fast, I had ordered it yesterday morning. Somehow the thoughs of “how big will this be” had fled from my thoughts and belived that I’d be getting 4-5 gallons of apple juice to brew with. Getting this home would have been a problem had [...]

The cider experiment – results… kinda

admin — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 17:00:21 +0000

Well my batch of ciders have all gone down the hatch except for one, the pear. I’m disappointed that I didn’t take many notes during the process, something I hope to resolve with the next batch. I do have some memories though The lidl and tesco apple juices are pretty much identical The clear juice [...]

Go Go! Auto-syphon! (also covering kit cider)

admin — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 11:49:32 +0000

After awhile of waiting, forgetting, waiting some more and then being distracted by shiney things I’m back looking for an auto syphon for demi-john’s. http://www.thehomebrewcompany.ie/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=722 I originally got the larger version for carboy’s and then after a bit of practice to figure out how it worked and delighting in simpleness and effectivness I went to [...]

Nearly but not quite

admin — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 09:39:00 +0000

I nearly bottled my ciders last night but I wasn’t able to do it! Not because of lazyness but maybe forgetfulness. I had forgotten I had drank them two months ago. All I have left now is the pear lurking in the back of the closet with all it’s extra pear bits. I have a [...]

Concentration

admin — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 16:55:01 +0000

Concentration is a wonderful thing, I wish I had more of it or even a small amount of it. I can concentrate for awhile on something but then a few days or hours later I find it boring and move along, perhaps that is called dedication or something other than concentration, dedication even? Perhaps. I [...]

Cider brew day racking

admin — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 22:56:20 +0000

After a trip to London I’ve racked my set of ciders. The perry though…. it has fermented but the extra pulp has caused some issues. The first issue is there’s no yeast cake! The yeast is still suspended in the pear, attached to the pulp no doubt, eating away at it. I’m going to have [...]

Fermenting Acai

admin — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 16:25:52 +0000

The cider is nearly ready to rack and in the mean time I’ve been looking at other alternative juices to ferment. One of the new additions to the window of the local health food store is acai juice, small bottles of it at least with larger ones inside. I’ll be buying a small bottle for [...]

Brewday Jan 2010

admin — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 22:50:40 +0000

The saying of plans and battles is true for me in most things. My plan of a bunch of cider using two different yeasts has changed a bit If I had examined the smack pack more I would have realised I needed a starter to get the yeast going before pitching…. :/ Mistake two was [...]