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

M.Holloway

shandypants5 wrote: »

There is a website HERE that will have you making superb beer in no time.

Click on the green squares to the right of where it says Jims Beer Kit, to get started.

They are a nice bunch of brewers and you may even find ME posting in there.:D

The new modern kits are FAR better than the muck we used to make years ago.
I would recomend any of the coopers kits to start, easy and tasty.

Seconded. I make beer using these brupacks and they are simply delish.

Make sure you prepare everything hygienicaly and use steriliser where necessary.

Then get some finings to get the crap out of the beer and prove in glass bottles for at least two weeks.

Sunnyday

Not sure if this is the right place or not but i`ll try here first.

I`m making blackcurrant wine and i`ve recently strained all the liquid from the juice and put it into a demijohn, i found i`d got much more liquid than i`d bargained for so i put it into two demijohns rather than one and added a pint and a half of water to each demijohn to top up to the top.

The airlocks are bubbling really slowly and i`ve just realised that i`ve only added enough sugar for one demijihn of wine - soooooooo my question is what is the best way to add more sugar now?

I can only think to pour it into another demijohn and then syphon the liquid on top and hope that it dissolves, is this a good idea or does anyone know a better way?

I usually heat the liquid and dissolve the sugar before adding to the juice from the fruit but can`t do this now.

SD

Whistling_Gypsy

Hi Sunnyday,
I'm no expert, but you could maybe siphon off a pint or so of the wine (1/2 from each) and use that to dissolve the required amount of sugar.
Meaure the volume of the liquid you have created.
Siphon off a volume of the original wine equal to the volume of wine/sugar and replace with the wine/sugar mixture you have made (once it has cooled, of course) to the required SG.
Keep the 'spare' original wine in a sterilised bottle in the fridge until racking time and use to top up?

Hopefully someone with a bit more expertese will be along soon - but I do hope this helps - I have done it in the past with some success ;-))

Good luck - and do come back and post how you got along!!

Sunnyday

Whistling_Gypsy wrote: »

Hi Sunnyday,
I'm no expert, but you could maybe siphon off a pint or so of the wine (1/2 from each) and use that to dissolve the required amount of sugar.
Meaure the volume of the liquid you have created.
Siphon off a volume of the original wine equal to the volume of wine/sugar and replace with the wine/sugar mixture you have made (once it has cooled, of course) to the required SG.
Keep the 'spare' original wine in a sterilised bottle in the fridge until racking time and use to top up?

Hopefully someone with a bit more expertese will be along soon - but I do hope this helps - I have done it in the past with some success ;-))

Good luck - and do come back and post how you got along!!

Hi Whistling Gypsy,
thanks for your suggestion. I was a bit worried about diluteing the flavour of the wine if i added any more liquid. Think that i may do one demijohn one way and the second the way that you suggest and then see which works the best.

Wish i`d realised earlier and then i wouldn`t be worrying about it - it was one of those times when you know something isn`t quite right but can`t quite put your finger on it

SD

Whistling_Gypsy

Been there a few times.....getting better but it's a big old learning curve!! I started 10 Gallons of elderflower on a couple of weeks ago... on eof the 5G fermentors has finished (SG at .990) but the other is still at 1.020...what gives there?? Blummin things!!

Never tried blackcurrant - what recipe did you use? I'll have to check the hedgerows (I'm in Glorious Yorkshire too). Sounds delicious....mmmm

Last years blackcurrant is shaping up to be one of the best ever though!!!

Sunnyday

The recipe is really simple and is from a book called "A drop o wine" by Mollie Harris, it was recommended to me by someone on another thread and i picked it up really cheaply on Amazon.

3lb blackcurrants
3 and a half lb sugar
1 gallon of water
Half ounce of yeast.

I used frozen blackcurrants that i collected from the garden last year and only 2lb sugar as i found that the last recipe i tried was really sweet. Used a tsp of wine yeast too instead of the half ounce. The frozen currants are probably why i had more liquid and i also mashed them with a potato masher to get lots of juice out

I`ve only recently been trying other recipes out as i`ve only been making the fruit juice wines up until last summer when i tried my first fruit wines - elderberry and then blackberry and then parsnip. Just bought my first hydrometer and i`ve been recently looking at a 5 gallon fermenter I need to make it faster than its being drunk

Can`t wait for the elderberries to be ready for picking Think that one is the nicest red so far.

Just printed out a recipe for coffee wine which is supposed to end up like tia maria, think i`ll give that one a whirl soon. I`m S.Yorks btw :wave:
SD

rdpro

Sunnyday wrote: »

The airlocks are bubbling really slowly and i`ve just realised that i`ve only added enough sugar for one demijihn of wine - soooooooo my question is what is the best way to add more sugar now?
SD

try adding clear honey and swirling

(roughly weight-for-weight with sugar)

missychrissy

rdpro wrote: »

try adding clear honey and swirling

(roughly weight-for-weight with sugar)

I agree that adding honey is a good option. However, I like to add any sugar substance completely dissolved to a brewing wine, so I would add either sugar or honey to as small amount of hot water as possible into which it will dissolve.

missychrissy

I need some advice. I have access to quite a large quantity of apples at this time of year. I make my own wine and would really like to utilise all of the apples. I have been looking into buying an apple press or a juicer. The juicers are considerably cheaper than the presses. Does anyone know which is the best and why?

Tubbss

Hi

Having been inspired by this thread today I ventured into Wilkinsons and got the gear - demijohn, bung, air lock, sterilising powder, camden tablets and some apple juice. I warmed a little of the juice with 3 table spoons of sugar and mixed in a teaspoon of yeast and added this to the demijohn topping up with apple juice to 3 litres. This was at lunch time. After 5 - 10 mins the airlock begain to bubble and by 6pm there was a head forming in the demijohn. I have just been in to check on it and the head has now vanished but the airlock is still bubbling away quite merrily! The 1st post on this thread shows that there should be a massive head on the brew. Have I done something wrong? do I need to start again? Can any "brew-masters" help?

In addition. the elderberries will be ready soon - anyone got any recipies for a fruity beer or elderberry wine??