Wine Tasting

Ok so with the lovely weather we have been having over the past week, we decided to have a BBQ on Sunday.

I put some of my 1st batch into the fridge and also bottled two of the the Zinfandel Blush Wine.

As you can see on the picture, it has cleared well and with it being 1 month old, was ready for drinking.

Gillian had one bottle in the evening, and from what she has reported it is lovely, I tasted a little bit but am not a wine drinker anyway.

The other bottle is sitting chilling in the fridge, not sure how long it will last though ;-)

More bottling

The Apple with Raspberry & Lime kit I had on was ready for bottling. I had been collecting 2 litre juice bottles, so decided that I would use them for this brew.

Once all cleaned and sterilized, I added the priming sugar to the FV along with the flavour add-back. This is basically what gives the cider the Raspberry & Lime flavouring though would be better with real fruit!

It should hopefully be drinkable within a couple of weeks, but again the longer you leave it ageing the better it should get. Fingers crossed!

Productive Day!

After a few days away down south at the Bearded Theory Festival in Derbyshire, to which I did take a few bottles of the 1st batch of homebrew which seemed to go down well, I had some work to do today.

So first today I racked off the Apple, Blackcurrant and Cranberry which ended up at 1.000 so making that around 7.2% ABV. Tastes nice and fruity too, but perhaps a bit sweet.. might need to fix that somehow!

Also racked off the Apple & Fruit Cocktail TC, which didn't look too clever with all the pulp/sediment in it but it looks all good now. Tastes very strong though, and if my readings are correct it seems to be about 8.5%.. ooft!

Also the rose wine was looking a lot clearer, so racked that off again and that is that ready for drinking, so will bottle it shortly. Gillian took a little sip, and seemed to like it.. so a success I think!

Finally, the third batch of kit cider was fermented out, so transferred that to my other FV and will bottle that tomorrow.

Productive day :-)

Apple, Blackcurrant and Cranberry TC - Update

So after the slow start (see HERE), and now being brewing for 19 days, I have noticed the bubbling from the air lock has slowed down quite a bit.

Decided to take another hydrometer reading for this cider which read as 1.006 so still to come down a little bit before racking off. Ideally it should be about 1.000 so ends up about 7% ABV.

I sampled a bit of course, and was really sweet but could definitely feel the alcohol on the mouth.. nice though!

As you can see in the picture below, it is a lovely colour and should clear quite a bit more too hopefully.

Stock so far!

So below is a pic of what is brewed so far.

• 23 Litres of Brewmaker Deluxe Cider (14 Litres left)
• 23 Litres of Youngs Brewbuddy Cider (21 Litres left)
• 23 Litres of OTR Raspberry & Lime Cider (Fermenting)
• 5 Litres of Apple TC (Ageing)
• 5 Litres of Apple, Blackcurrant & Cranberry TC (Fermenting)
• 5 Litres of Apple & Fruit Cocktail TC (Fermenting)
• 5 Litres of Zinfandel Blush (Clearing)

Not bad considering only started 10 weeks ago :-)

Wine Update

So the wine has stopped fermenting, finishing up with a SG of 1.000 so this means it will be quite dry to taste, so  I have added some Youngs Wine Sweetener to sweeten it up.

I've racked it off into another demijohn and added the Wine Finings that come with the kit to clear it. The wine needs agitated a few times over the next 24 hours as this helps it clear, and it should be ready to drink in 7-10 days. Again, like cider, this is minimum time to drink it, and of course gets better the longer it is left to age.

On The Rocks - Apple with Raspberry & Lime

So while I had racked off the Apple TC and made the Fruit Cocktail TC, I thought I might as well start the other cider kit that I had bought a couple weeks ago.

With kit ciders, it really is as simple as following the instructions supplied with the kit, and all you really need to add is sugar and water. This kit comes with a flavouring sachet which gets added before bottling.

Water & Yeast added

Sugar & Can contents

No recipe required

So as you seen in an earlier post today, I got some more ingredients and equipment for making another 1 Gallon brew.
I didn't have a recipe in mind when I went to the supermarket, just that I was planning to try another one with another variety of juice.
I went to Sainsburys and got 3 litres of Apple Juice (56p each) and looked for something different to make it up to the 5 litres.
I saw in the chilled section, a 2 litre carton of Fruit Cocktail Juice for £1.39. This was from produced  from concentrate which is important for the fermentation progress and contains no preservatives so didn't need boiled off.
I just followed the same receipe for the previous two TC's I did the other week, adding Malic Acid, Pectolase, Tannin and Yeast.
Also added an extra 160g of sugar to make this around 8% once again :-)
No idea how this one will turn out, but then it's not exactly costing much anyway if it turns out disgusting!