been too long!

Hi guys,

sorry its been a while since my last post, i've just been a bit quiet on the wine front. The 4 week wine kit turned out superb and was drunk very quickly over the festive break! Result! will be doing it again.

My cider is slowly ageing away, although it is taking time to clear. Tasted it when i racked it just last week and its slowly improving in taste. Hopefully be ready in the next month or 2 :) ]

Happy Winemaking!

cider update

so the cider fermented down to 1015 SG yesterday, so I racked it into a demijohn for secondary fermentation. I topped it up with some apple juice as it was slightly under the 1 gallon of the demijohn. Left it and the wine kit in beside the hot tank, as it stays at a steady temperature of 22 degrees celsius. Pictures to follow.


Happy winemaking!

its cider time!

so, whilst checking my wine the other day I noticed one of my protein jars was nearly empty and its slightly bigger than the demijohn. so I decided that it would make an excellent primary fermenter. its big, food safe and empty!

i went to tesco and bought 5 litres of apple juice. it was quite cheap at 56p a litre. poured it into the container and measured the SG. sitting around 1045 which hopefully will give me around 7% alcohol. I planned to use cider yeast, but my homebrew store was out of it. I had to use champagne yeast instead, but they were out of lalvin, so had to make do with young's. after using lalvin yeasts for the first time with the wine kit i have decided to try and use them wherever possible!

so i didn't add any sugar to the juice and added the yeast leaving it for 15 minutes before i stirred it in. it has been fermenting away for a couple of days now, getting quite a strong cidery smell and plenty of nice fizzing! will test the SG in a couple of days. i plan to rack to secondary when it gets to about 1015 SG

Happy winemaking!

another new adventure.

hi guys, having been a bit bored since classes finished and with my new collection of demijohns, I decided to try a wine kit to make some homebrew! I bought a Vineco merlot kit from my local homebrew store and tonight i set about making it. I first sterilised the equipment using a Campden tablet solution. The wine concentrate was then added to the demijohn. I added bentonite and a packet of oak shavings, which will hopefully impart an oak aged flavour to the wine. I then topped up the wine with cold water. The yeast, Lalvin EC118, was added to a small cup of water to rehydrate for 15 minutes. First time using lalvin yeast and I'm impressed. I haven't seen such activity in a starter solution ever with the previous yeasts I've been using! after 15 minutes the yeast was added to the wine and as per instructions the airlock was added. heres a few pics of the process.

lets just hope it tastes alright!!

happy winemaking!

new arrivals!

Hi guys, got a bit of a bargain on ebay this week! picked up 12 demijohns, the glass ones which i prefer, for an absolute steal of £15! adding on my petrol it still only came to approx £22! much cheaper than buying them brand new! 9 clear and 3 brown. they do need a good cleaning out, but for the price I'm more than happy to do that myself! heres a couple of pics

Plastic vs Glass & Cork vs Rubber

Hi guys!

I have been wondering what your opinion are on the above matters! do you prefer glass demijohns and carboys to their plastic equivalent? I know i certainly prefer glass over plastic.

I'm still on the fence over the cork vs rubber bung debate. I'm only taking about using it in the fermenting vessel.  I know cork is traditional and all that, but I have been told rubber gives a better seal. But then there is a risk of the rubber imparting a flavour to the winem or so I've been told.

So, what are your views on this? let me know in the comment section of this post!


Happy winemaking!

second racking!!

Ok, now i'm really spoiling you guys! two updates within the space of ten days! Am i generous or what???!!

onto the wine now, and over the weekend mum had a chance to rack the apple wine and the apple & plum wine. When i left them in september just going under secondary fermentation, the were very cloudy and clearly had a lot of sediment and yeast suspended in it. Pleased to say that after several weeks fermenting the wine has cleared dramatically as you will see in the pics below! :) following the same procedure as before the wine was racked into a clean demijohn/bucket and topped up with a sugar solution. The air lock were fitted once again and the wine was allowed to happily ferment for another few weeks!

 apple and plum just before racking

 apple and plum almost racked

 midway through racking the apple and plum

 apple and plum

 taking the hydrometer reading

 my collection of demijohns. L-R rhubarb, damson and apple. Using plastic demijohns for the first time ever, not a fan. I'd be interested to hear what other views people have on them

 apple wine just before racking

 apple wine being racked

 apple and plum in its new home

apple and plum just started

 apple just started!

Happy winemaking!