Adventures in Homebrewland (image heavy - you have been warned!)

pandora205

Help from those in the know needed please.

I'm making some more wine and decided after my last lot (rather rough to say the least) to use concentrate again. I've bought a Young's Medium White concentrate. Only problem is the ingredients suggested don't match those I have already.

The instructions say I need:

sugar (I have this)
wine yeast compound (I have this)

plus
stabiliser
finings

I don't have these but I do have:
yeast nutrient
citric acid
pectolase

Can I substitute any of these? Or can I get away without the suggested and treat the concentrate as fruit juice and follow the other recipe?

Thanks

DdraigGoch

Hello from a lurker :wave:

I'm wondering if it's possible to brew anything successfully in a FREEZING cold house? We are working on making it warmer, but currently we consider it a triumph if the lounge gets to 17' ..... the kitchen never gets near that!

I know that it has to be possible - how else did the mediaeval brewers manage? - but I'd really appreciate some advice.

Many thanks in advance

pol

I wrap a spare quilt round my tub. If you stand some old towels underneath, it should raise the temperature enough to get a good brew going. You get a better flavoured wine when it's fermented at lower temp too.

pol

Bongedone

As above poster. It will brew eventually. By taking longer though you run a bigger risk of contaminating the batch.

tripod2000

I'm in the same boat with a cold house over winter. Go for it. My stouts are more crisp than if fermented at warm and if you want lager then you'd probably have a good temperature going on there. The one thing I would say is keep it constant, as said with wrapping with insulation.

Keep everything sterile and you needn't worry too much about increased risk of blah blah blah!

redfraggle_2

Hi, can anyone tell me the cheapest bottles that can be used for cider or ideally used bottles that can be reused?

Thanks!

dirtyflannel

My oh is experimenting with the old home brew lark. To date he has made lager, bitter and stout ot of kits from wilkinsons.. Now he is having a go literally at winemaking. Made some wine form Lidls red grape juice which was ok. very strong everyone keeps asking for more. There is some white grape, some apple juice and even a pineapple wine bubbling away. Lidl have the best pure fruit juice no preservatives or additives about 80p litre. May update if I survive the tasting.

dirtyflannel

redfraggle wrote: »

Hi, can anyone tell me the cheapest bottles that can be used for cider or ideally used bottles that can be reused?

Thanks!

We use a pressure barrel or the large plastic bottles just in case they blow.

redfraggle_2

dirtyflannel wrote: »

We use a pressure barrel or the large plastic bottles just in case they blow.

Thanks, makes me realise that I need to read up more about it as I was literally thinking of the final bottles for storage (as in glass or small plastic) but there's obviously loads in between to think about!

Gigervamp

We stored our elderflower champagne in 2 litre coke bottles that we cleaned and sterilised. I'd imagine you could do the same with cider.