Random Zero's Ramblings

We have just Bottled our first Wine……… Black Cherry!!!!

we have been able to produce a clear, good tasting wine ready for aging.

used Kwik Clear clearing agent and a wine that was really very cloudy is now is crystal clear.

and the taste… room for improvement but aging will do that.

My Darling Beth Chose the mane Zombie bumhead bunny breweries but it didn’t fit on the label……….. well i may be lying about the label but we came to a compromise.

New brews up and coming:

1. pineapple Wine

2. Mango Wine

3. liquer Base made with Alcotec Turbo 48hr

Bottling of many many more current brews to follow also

After a fun filled drunken homebrew weekend i have decided to take stock of whats going on in the world of brew

so as you can see a few things have changed since the last post.

1. elderflower cider – bubbling away.give it maybe a week!!

2. cherry wine – nearly finished. give it 2 days.

3. cherrry vimto – bubbling away.

4. Belvoir cordial wine – bubbling away.

5. ribeana wine – bubbling away.

6. rocks – despite my last post winging about how it wasn’t working – bubbling away.

7. liquers – bubbling away.

8. real cider mk3 – as we drank a large section of my reserve on saturday evening, i decided to brew the next batch. used a large amount more apple solid in this one and when adding extra sugar the reaction was so strong i had to syphon some of it off !!!!

OK so new wine rack in place. purchased from Argos.

would have been better if all the pieces were in place but we were missing a batten. so i made one to fit.

the bottom 3 rows are full the rest are empty.

after purchasing a 54 bottle rack i decided to see how many bottles i would be needing for my current brews!!

more than i expected!

so new rack mk2 will be purchased this weekend!!

as you can see from the above i have some more brewing planned and also that the rocks wont start. i have tried 3 times to get this working to no avail.

i have a new 25l container arriving this weekend so i will be starting another cider brew. this one i will make sweeter and use the champagne yeast.

i will also be purchasing a couple more demijohns so I can brew the mango and the pineapple wines.

also have a few mates over this weekend to help consume batches 1-2 of the cider so good times to be had all round

having run out of things to do with my current projects as they are bubbling away, i have decided to start some more.

as mentioned in a previous post, i was debating trying some belvoir cordial brewing and have decided on and purchased the winter mixed berry one. I couldn’t get hold of the blueberry one so went to waitroise to try to track it down. Whilst there I discovered another option and bit the bullet and purchsed it.

Rock Squash – RED 5  is another preservative free fruit squash although this one is flavoured with Red grape, Sour cherry, Raspberry, Pomegranate and Cranberry.

i will be starting them on a sugar water base as i did with the revamped cherry vimto wine.

on another note – corker, corks and shrink wrap caps arrived and the cider we are aging is all prepped and ready to go!!

picking up the wine rack tonight!!!

ok so time for a brew update.

1. cider batch 2 high alcohol batch came out at 9.5% and was bottled this weekend as below.

we also bottled some of the batch 1 and batch 2 into wine bottles for aging. when our new corker arrives we will be swapping out the plastic bungs for corks.

2. ribena wine in very active now and bubbling away.

3. cherry vimto wine.

this was still not playing ball so i filtered the mixture and boiled it down as below

i then made a base of sugar, water, yeast nutrient and yeast and started this brewing.

i then added the vimto back to this mixture and away it went!!!. now more vigourous than the ribena.

4. high alcohol base – i added some nutrient to this and put in in the airing cuboard over night and it is now bubbling away.

5. black cherry wine – unstoppable !!!! going really well

6. new brew

after bottling my other cider i decided to put the next 25l batch on the go.

this is an elderflower cider kit purchaed from Hops and vines in witney.

just add water and sugar, the concentrate and yeast and away it went. looking forwards to this one. when fermentation is over, flavouring is added and then racking and bottling. should take 2-3 weeks so watch this space.

and here they are all together (minus the cherry vimto which is elsewhere).

we also started cleaning the many bottles we have !!!

flavouring no. 1 for liquer base decided upon due to the donation of this by one of the coffee shops near my work!!

amaretto.

in addition to this i thought i’d give an update on progress of the brews currently in progress.

1. ribeana wine – bubbling away since last night, and seemingly doing well.

2. cherry vimto – struggling to start so i may filter and then boil the mixture to remove the preservatives and also add some yeast nutrient to give it a boost.

3. black cherry wine – unstoppable !!!! going really well

4. high alcohol cider – still bubbling away – will be checking the alcahol content this weekend and if in excess of 9% i will kill off the yeast and bottle.

5. high alcohol liquer base – alkso struggling to start but have increased temperature and will check on my return home. if unable to get going will treat the same as the vimto and reduce batch size to 1 gallon from 5. additional yeast nutrient will also need to be added.

watch this space!!!

ok so i have been brewing a while now and am nearly ready to bottle cider batch 2. we have plenty of bottles for this but nothing for the wine projects.

i looked around and buying bottles is way to expensive so i tried the following methods of aquiring wine bottles.

1. asked my collegues at work who will be saving them for me.

2. asked the local pubs who mainly told me no either due to cash back for bottles or restrictions imposed by the council on allowing glass to leave the pubs.

3. freeycycle.

the latter of these proved the most fruitful. freecycle is a selection of yahoo groups where like minded people offer and ask for sundry items no longer required by their owners, to save them from landfill. i put an add on the local freecycle and got given this.

more than 100 bottles in one go!!!!!!!

i shall in turn be giving away any sundries i have in the house. all in all… result. in addition to all these i also got offered many many more!!!!

Belvoir fruit farms produce preservative free cordials in a variety of different flavours.

one of the issues we have had with cordial brewing is the preservatives kill off the yeast, so no brewing, so no booze!!!.

these should brew fine, and they even state if left after opening, the cordials will ferment on their own on their website.

they are reasonably priced and designed to be diluted 1 part to 10 so 1-2 bottles per gallon should be sufficient and they are around the £3 mark per l bottle so another budget, hopefully tasty wine option.

will probably try the blueberry, spiced winter berry, elderflower and the apple and ginger flavours.

watch this space.

As stated in a previous post, we are brewing up a high alcohol base in a 25l container. we are now trying to decide what to flavour the mix with.

the brew shop .com  supplies a massive amount of different essences for reasonable money, but being the penny pincher that i am a few other options we may try are….

1. Fruit cordials such as ribena

2. Boiled sweets. We have a Booker’s cash and carry card and have been inspired by an acquaintance who got us to get her some pear drops to flavour vodka for gifts for christmas. this same method should work on our brew. pear drops, tom thumb drops, aniseed twists all should work well.

3. Food flavoring essences such as those used in baking…. raspberry is a definite.

4. ASDA double strength Squash – they make a cherries and berries squash which is to die for.

5. CHILLI self explainatory – i have some Dorset NAGA Chilli.

i have been looking into demijons and there are a few options available.

Wilkinsons provide very cost effective glass demijons for £6.50 each but i was sure there were cheaper options.

homebrew online ebay seller sells plastic predrilled food grade 5l plastic demijons for £6.22 inclusive of postage so not much difference.

Sainsburys sell 5l of caledonian Water in a food grade plastic container for £1.05 so i opted for this.

we purchased some new airlocks, as we only had 2, from wilkinsons and using a set of calipers measured the stems. these tapered from 9.5mm to 11 so drilled 10mm holes in the lids and pushed the new airlocks in.

we then sterilised the containers and started the cherry wine and cherry vimto wine mentioned in previous posts.

these may not last as well as the glass demijons but proved massively more cost effective and i expect to get at least 10 brews out of each so for 10.5p a brew i think it is worth them being disposable and have the added advantage of being lightweight and having handles on the tops.

images below.