brewing 2ne1

Wild cherry wine. Clear deep cherry colour. Smooth cherry...

Sat, 03 Dec 2011 12:54:32 -0500

Wild cherry wine. Clear deep cherry colour. Smooth cherry flavour. So different to how it tasted a while back! dylski

Cemecherry 2010

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 17:07:30 -0400

Just cracked open a bottle of my Cemecherry 2010. Wow! it tastes great. It has smoothed out and has a mellow kirsh after taste. It is no longer dry and is a more medium.

It is my most successful brew so far. Very pleased.

Once again I wish I made more bottles and did not give so many away at Christmas :)
Marcus

Johnson's Red

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 17:02:59 -0400

Matt Johnson has many grapes growing over his house and decided to put them to good use and asked me to make some red wine for him.

He picked one carrier bag full of black grapes about 2.6kg. They had been sitting around for a few days in his fridge so some of them had started to turn bad. I decided to wash them in a solution of water with one crushed campden tablet to kill off any bacteria.

Lolly then crushed the grapes within the fermentation bucket, which only made 1/3 gallon. So to try and bulk it up a bit I chopped 200g of black raisins and boiled them in water. Which topped it up to 1 gallon.

I then measured the Specific gravity and added about ¾ kg of sugar to make up the SG to 1.090

I added bog standard brewing yeast and popped it in a warm room for 3 days.

Marcus

Super Cider

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 04:00:00 -0400

2 November 2010 - I had two gallons of freshly pressed pure apple juice for making a batch of cider after an apple pressing evening with a friend. For the past few years, I help him process a huge crop of apples into juice with a great old fashioned grinder and press that he’s had for decades, and I take home a portion of the juice. This year I took home four gallons, and we drank two as fresh wonderful juice, and I fermented the other two.

I read in an old brewing book about how some country folk made cider from pressed apple juice as normal, but added sugar or honey, whatever was available cheaply, to produce a stronger cider which might have been nearly wine. When they drank a few pints of this cider, they would understandably have difficulty walking. This is what I wanted to try this year.

The starting gravity of the pure juice was 1.05, so I added 1 kg of sugar in a primary fermenting bucket to bring it up to 1.08 which would hopefully produce a med/dry apple wine with about 12 or 13% alcohol. I added pectolase, acid blend, tannin, bentonite, and winemaking yeast. It was racked to two glass demijohns after a couple weeks and allowed to sit.

Update 20 Aug 2011- I finally decided to bottle this batch, which had no attention whatsoever during the past several months. It tastes fine, medium dry (not dry) with a pleasing golden colour. I bottled all of it in 2 L plastic soda bottles since I’m low on proper wine bottles. I have one chilled in the fridge, it’s nice served cold at dinner time.

Anyone up for a tasting?

Cheers, Jason

Raspberry Wine - 2010

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 19:04:00 -0400

July 2010 - I started a gallon of raspberry wine since we had a huge crop of berries in the garden. We save our surplus berries in the freezer and when a sufficient amount had been accumulated, I weighed 3 lbs of frozen raspberries into a large straining bag, tied it closed, and placed it in a large pot on the stove with half a gallon of water. The pot was heated until about 80 deg C to sterilise and the heat was turned off. The liquid was allowed to cool for a couple hours and was poured into a primary fermenting bucket. I put a small volume of cool tap water into the pot with the straining bag and mashed the berries to get as much juice/colour out as possible and poured the extract into the primary as well. I repeated this once more. This made just over a gallon of raspberry extract, to which I added sugar to SG 1.10. Then I added bentonite, pectolase, citric acid, and yeast. Fementation started quickly and after a week or two was racked to a glass demijohn with an airlock.

Update August 2011 - I found this in the cupboard under the stairs, racked it and somehow it tasted fine (I was expecting the worst since it had been ignored for so long). So I bottled it, and drank the extra half bottle last night. It was very berryish, quite sweet, with a bright red colour. I’m pleased.

Cheers, Jason

Bottled St Peter’s Ruby Red Ale. Note the authentic...

Tue, 28 Jun 2011 22:28:23 -0400

Bottled St Peter’s Ruby Red Ale. Note the authentic bottles ;) dylski

Elderflower Champagne 2011

Sun, 05 Jun 2011 14:22:00 -0400

Decanted the Elderflower into 1 litre and 0.5litre bottles. I had to remove the elderflowers off of the top first.
I used a ladle and poured the liquid through a sieve and a sheet of kitchen towel to remove as much sediment as possible.
It is still a little cloudy but tastes fantastic!
Not too sweet, not too sharp, tastes like lime soda to start then finishes with elderflower. Very pleased.
However, I do not know how alcoholic it is.
Marcus

Elderflower Champagne 2011We picked too many flowers this year...

Sun, 29 May 2011 12:29:00 -0400

Elderflower Champagne 2011
We picked too many flowers this year 600g in all, and I did not want to waste them, so this will be a bit of an experiment. I also added more limes than last year.
The Recipe is as follows.
600g Flowers(after triming, approximately a carrier bag of flowers)
1kg Sugar
4 Lemons, 5 limes
1/4 cup white wine vinegar
2 gallons Hot Water
0.5 gallons of cold
Yeast

After collecting all of the Elderflowers with the children. I shook off all the bugs, trimmed them and put them into a carrier bag for weighing.
I grated the lime and lemon zest and squeezed out all the juice into the bucket, then added the cup of vinegar and the full 600g of flowers. I dissolved 1kg of sugar in 2 litres of hot water and added this to the bucket. I added a further 8 litres of hot water. THen a further 3 litres of cold.
After the mixture had cooled I added a sprinkling of yeast.
Marcus

Nettle AleDecanted from the bucket into 2 Litre plastic bottles....

Sat, 07 May 2011 03:48:00 -0400

Nettle Ale
Decanted from the bucket into 2 Litre plastic bottles. The brew was still active and tasted sweet. So I think it has some time to go.

I will now leave it to clear and will decant again into smaller plastic bottles once I have collected some!
Marcus

Nettle Ale 201124th April 2011Thanks to Dylan for delivering...

Sun, 24 Apr 2011 03:24:00 -0400

Nettle Ale 2011
24th April 2011
Thanks to Dylan for delivering half an Ikea bag of nettles. I have managed to kick start my first brew of 2011.
I used Dylan’s recipe as a base and modified it, due to not having any oranges!

12 litres water
6 litres of nettle tops. gently pushed into a litre jug to measure them out.
Juice of 3 lemons, strained
Juice of 2 limes, strained
1,5kg caster sugar
60g cream of tartar
10g yeast
Brought about 8 litres of water in a large pan.
Added the nettles and stirred into the boiling water.
Brought to the boil again, and let it boil for another 5 minutes
Let it cool for 3 hours. It was still hot!
Poured through a seive and squeezed remaining leaves through a muslin. Into primary fermentation Bucket
Squeezed and added lemons and limes through a seive.
Dissolved sugar in boiling water and added to the bucket.
Added Cream of Tarter.
Waited until it had cooled. About 2 hours.
Then added Brewing Yeast
Popped under stairs for 8 Days (Away from my children! After the accident last year when one of the twins sat on my brew!)
Marcus

Mini-kegging some Nog

Sat, 15 Jan 2011 11:03:55 -0500

Just put 8.5 pints of Woodfordes Nog (fizzy from the pressure barrel) into a mini-keg with 24g of glucose.

Dylski

Cemecherry 2010Racked the wine, got 17 good bottles, 1 for...

Thu, 25 Nov 2010 15:48:00 -0500

Cemecherry 2010
Racked the wine, got 17 good bottles, 1 for cooking (sediment).
The wine tastes good, strong kirsh taste at the moment. A little harsh. But as I remember last year it mellowed out really well.
I have decided to brand the wine Cemecherry as most of the cherries did come from the Mill Road Cemetery.
My eldest daughter Tabatha created the labels on photoshop!

SG still 1000 started at 1080

calc 80 / 7.36 = 10.86%

Marcus

Beer brewing is the delicate and dedicated blending of art and...

Fri, 22 Oct 2010 05:18:46 -0400

Beer brewing is the delicate and dedicated blending of art and science. Finding the perfect balance of grains, hops, malt, adding just the right flavoring agents, boiling for exactly enough time to release the tannins, starches, humic acids from you wort, activating enzymes to break down those starches, forging the perfect mash from the ether of sobriety to give birth to that most glorious pint, these are skills that take a lifetime to master. Perfect beer is meticulously planned and carefully crafted.

Screw that.

You’re six days into a 2 month expedition, and if you were lucky enough to not be on a dry ship, it’s de facto dry by now anyway. You’re eying the ethanol stores, the crew is eying each other, and all hell will break loose if y’all don’t get some sweet water soon. This is no time for artistry.

Andrew of Southern Fried Science has some tips about how to make a passable beverage using only ingredients and tools you would find on a modestly sized oceanographic research vessel; such as a coffee maker, cereal, and fruits and nuts for flavour.

(via Makezine)

Damson Gin Not really brewing but logged here just the same. A...

Fri, 03 Sep 2010 19:20:00 -0400

Damson Gin

Not really brewing but logged here just the same.

A few damsons over a 1lb
One 70cl bottle of 37.5% Gordon’s gin with a good glug (~100cl) of Blue Saphire Export 47%
168g of caster sugar

Pricked the damsons and threw the lot into a jar. Agitated until all dissolved. Will visit in a year’s time if I can hold out that long.

Dylski

Mini-kegs A Go-Go

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 19:32:00 -0400

Finally got to test fruits of my mini-keg re-use investigations; having previously prepared, tested and filled a mini-keg that I had previously bought full of Adnam’s Explorer.

I can happily say that it all worked fine!

Initially I used the bottom tap without releasing to pressure valve at the top. It comes out under pressure and if you let it out really slowly the result is still rather frothy and not too fizzy. The advantage is that you can probably do this a good few times over a long period of time without the beer going off because no air gets in.

The best results are when you push the centre part of the bung into the keg to release the pressure completely. It pours better and is a lot fizzier. I found that stuffing a wine bottle stopper into the hole in the bung kept the pressure up between sessions. The only downside to this approach is that oxygen gets it. Nevertheless, I think the beer still stays good for at least four days once opened.

Dylski

Cherry Adventures #5

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 19:06:54 -0400

Wild Cherry Wine

Bottled it. A fair bit less bitter and less sour than when last racked. Bodes well for drinking next year.

Cemecherry Wine

Racked it. Less sour now and slightly sweet. A sort of vanilla aroma. Promising.

Cherry Beer

Bottled it. It’s still very cherry and fairly strong. Might call it Very Cherry Merry Beer.

Dylski

Elderberry Wine 2010

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 08:54:06 -0400

Strained and squeezed into two demijohns and added 1/4 lbs sugar in each.

ElderBerry 2010Collected just over 4lbs of Berries (1 carrybag...

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 17:43:36 -0400

ElderBerry 2010
Collected just over 4lbs of Berries (1 carrybag full Weighed with stalks on) from the fields around the back of Trumpington. The berries varied in size and ripeness from tree to tree.

Stripped off berries into a Bucket, Richard, Ella and the twins helped. Which made short work of a long job. And left to soak for an hour in cold water to kill off bugs and allow green berries and floaty bits to float to the top. Seived those off.

Filled up to one galleon of Boiled water in the fermentation bucket.
Mashed the berries in small quantities with a potatoe masher in a saucepan, then added them to the fermentation bucket.
Then added the following
8 oz of chopped raisins.
Juice of 1 lemon and 1 Orange.
A crushed vitamin B tablet
Yeast nutrient
I tasted it this year. And it tasted fruity but not sweet, almost savoury with no acidity. Still has the strange Elderberry after taste.
After reading last years attempt, and knowing that it came out a little dry. I think I will add the full amount of sugar and follow the recipe more closely, making 2 demijons rather than just the one.

Tomorrow I will add 2.5lbs of Sugar and the yeast

Marcus

Wild Cherry 2010 Racked the wine last week 8th August, a lot of...

Sun, 15 Aug 2010 14:08:43 -0400

Wild Cherry 2010

Racked the wine last week 8th August, a lot of sediment but just topped up with water.
Tastes like a rosé but with a kirsh background and getting stronger.
SG is now 1000 started at 1080

calc 80 / 7.36 = 10.86%

Next racking is in 3 months.

Isn't the web wonderful?

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 10:08:36 -0400

I quite literally stumbled across this:-

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF&msa=0&msid=110283288865222744836.000474c7ac367669eacbb

Could be quite useful for brewing purposes!

/Mikey