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

CiderBoy

stevenhp1987 wrote: »

.....and it's rather cloudy... have I done something wrong?

Also, I put in way too much sugar for primining accidently... any way to save it without exploding (put it in tablespoons instead of teaspoons)

I personally leave it until it clears a bit more than that before bottling (I'm currently doing a 5 gallon batch every 6 weeks).

The sugar should be ok - just keep squeezing the plastic bottles to make sure they don't get too solid & release the pressure a bit of they do - pet bottles are fairly strong and will stretch a bit before they explode (look up 'dry ice coke' on youtube to get an idea of how much).

Drink the Grolsch bottle first - if the pressure gets too much then that'll be the dangerous one!

brownhandbag

Hi has anyone here attempted marrow rum?

I am gonna have a go with this method.

Take top off and remove seeds. Fill with brown sugar, 1 teaspoon dried yeast and juice of an orange. Tape top back on and hang in an old stocking over brewing bucket. Leave for about 4 weeks until bottom (of marrow) is soft then pierce holes to drain liquid. Add another dose of yeast and orange juice and put in demijohn to ferment.

Anyone tried similar?

Cheers x

Gigervamp

I haven't tried that yet, but might give it a go this year. Was thinking of doing it last year but made marrow wine instead.

leon103

Anyone know where the cheapest place to buy Grolsch style bottles?

I have had a second attempt at making my Coopers lager after the first attempt turned out flat. This time I used a different pressure barrel has i believe the first attempt turned out flat because the screw top wasn't screwing on correctly.

I followed the instructions given on here and the label. I had 3 grolsch style bottles and opened them over the weekend and the lager was lovely. Great taste and plenty of fizz. I have gone and tried some out of the barrel and its flat, well not completely flat but nothing compared to the bottles. Why is this? Anyway of saving it?

missychrissy

i'm really enjoying this thread. I only worked out yesterday how to make a post so this is only my second. I am just about to bottle 5 gallons of elderberry wine and 3 gallons of rosehip. I'm sorry i can't post pictures as I don't have a scanner but I've sampled them both and I'm gobsmacked they are both drinkable. I started them in October last year. I know I have been very patient, but this is my first attempt at home brewing and I have a very cold house so I wanted to make sure they were completely fermented. I've also just bottled some rice and raisin which is a bit sweeter than the other two.
I have used two books by CJJ Berry '130 Winemaking Recipes' and 'First Steps in Winemaking' and both are very easy to follow. I also have fermenting two galls of apple wine though this is not clearing, 2 galls of hop wine, 3 galls of flaked barley wine, 3 galls of ordinary barley wine, 3 galls of wheat wine, one gall of redcurrant, 3 galls of Chinese rice wine, a further 3 galls of rice and raisin. I went into production big style. Something had to work out. I have four sons, all with partners and when they visit a lot of wine is consumed so I thought I would produce my own and save money. they are quite excited at the prospect. This is the first week I have had any ready for drinking.
i have found Hop and Grape good for supplies. they are very quick and their customer service is excellent. I love their 5 gall fermenters with taps as it does away with the need to use a siphon. it's almost as easy to make 3+ galls as it is to make one. I am certainly not an expert but I am learning fast and can now enjoy the fruits, or grains of my labour.
Happy Brewing

Gigervamp

Welcome to MSE missychrissy.

I have to ask, where do you keep all your wines when they're fermenting? I've only got 2 demi-johns on the go at the moment and they're both in the way! One in the bathroom on the floor and the other in the kitchen taking up valuable workspace.

missychrissy

hi gigervamp
I have a large boiler cupboard in my utility room. It's a modern house (one of three) but the builder built in lots of storage space. At present I have 10 one gall demijohns and 4 five gall fermenters in there with room for one more. It's the only warm place in the house. I work nights so don't have heating on when I'm in bed during the day and as I go out about 7 in evening to work I can often get away with not putting heating on in evening in the colder months. i have been lurking on these boards about a year now and implementing lots of OS ideas. I switched my central heating off on March first last year and lasted til near end of October except when I had visitors so I put my wine in the warmest place. I was worried that my wine might not ferment because it was so cold in my house but it has. The elderberry is gorgeous so I reckon if it's good going into the bottle it can only get better. The rosehip has a sort of burnt toffee flavour very moreish. I will report on the others as they get to drinking stage. I have been really surprised how easy it has been. I am going to try the recipe someone posted on here using cranberry and grape juice. I will let you know. I'm also lucky enough to have a large cloaks cupboard in my hall in which I have stacked several strong wine boxes on their sides to use as wine racks. It's cool and dark in the cupboard so should store wine quite well.
Itsmells like a brewery when I walk into my utility room but who cares. I'm becoming more and more self sufficient.My sons think I'm slightly wacky but they are quite happy to sample anything I produce. I know what you mean about stuff getting in the way. I store my empty wine bottles in the garage until needed, again in old wine boxes. Any other equipment not in use I put in the loft.

Primrose

Storage of fermenting demijohns etc is one of the major problems for winemaking in modern houses. There is often never enough space and when making elderberry wine you have to be particularly careful to ensure it doesn't ferment too vigorously in the early stages and spill over and stain everything. At one stage we had all the demijohns in the main bath as we could use our ensuite but it was a real pain taking them up and downstairs every time we needed to do something to them. It's times like this when a nice big utility room would be a godsend. We once stored a case of elderberry wine for about 8 years. (Only rediscovered it at the back of the garage when we moved house. It had been unbearably dry when we first made it and a keen winemaker recommended we just put it away and forgot about it. We certainly did, and it was absolutely superb by the time we eventually got round to drinking it.

Gigervamp

A large boiler cupboard sounds ideal! Think I may have to clear out the bottom of my airing cupboard. The bathroom smells like a brewery. I put some tinned peach wine in a demi-john the other day, so that's the one in the bathroom. Although the heating's off, when the water comes on, the bathroom radiator warms up for some reason, so it's a good place to get wines going.

That rosehip sounds interesting.

missychrissy

My boiler cupboard is very like an old fashioned airing cupboard so it's ideal for brewing. It has a ceramic tiled floor too so easy to mop up spills though only had one wine frothed over and that was the apple. I like to do 3 - 4 galls at a time in a five gall fermenter so tends to avoid frothy overflows.
My grandmother used to brew her wine in an old fashioned pantry but I think she used to bottle a bit too soon cos she used to have lots of explosions. My dad was telling me about it the other day. My ex husband, years ago when we were first married, used to ferment his wine on sunny windowsills for the warmth, but I read somewhere that that tends to fade the colour of the wine so I havn't tried it. Space is definitely the biggest problem with homebrewing. I had nowhere to do it in my last house but this one has a utility room (one of the reasons I bought it) and quite a big boiler cupboard. At the minute I have 5 five gall buckets and fermenters sitting in the middle of my kitchen floor being sterilised so hard to move around and I'm not sure where they going to go when fermenting. I thought I'd take advantage of the warmer weather and get as much brewing done as poss cos as I've already said my house is quite cold in the winter.
I was quite surprised when I tasted the rosehip wine. It wasn't what I was expecting. It reminds me of the brown caramelised bit on creme caramel or maybe even cinder toffee.