Something With A Kick.

I now have an empty brew bin... It would be a waste not to fill it.. I thought I'd make something a little stronger this time.

6Kg of sugar and 22 litres of water. Gives an SG of lots... 1.095. This equates to 15-16%.
Turbo-Mega-Ultra-Fast-Hulk Yeast added.

7 days start to finish... according to the distructions.... really?  We shall see.

Santas Winter Warmer

I decanted the Santas Winter Warmer into a pressure barrel on Sunday night. The SG was below 1.014 for the past few days. I had a little taster and it very promising. The instructions say 2 days for secondary ferment and 14 days to clear.... however, the same instructions said 6 days for the primary fermentation and it took over 12 days.. I’ll check the SG in a few days for an indication of the secondary fermentation. I read on the forums that it’s at it’s best after 6 weeks....

Behold !

Behold ! The Cooks Un-Patented CO2 Production Measurerererere...

To complete this project you need

1 Upturned Vase
1 Avent Baby bottle
1 5ml Childrens medicine syringe
A length of straw from the insides of a childrens drinking bottle
1 Medicine bung for dispensing childrens medicine from a bottle
some plasticine to close any leaks

From this, I worked out that my cider is producing about 5ml of Co2 in 30 minutes

To Carbonte, we need about 2 Parts Co2 per Volume i.e 9 Litres of Co2 dissolved in 4.5L of cider

So, that's 37.5 Days...blimey ! Better get bottling.

Other issues is final Sweetness tho...

1 Litre of CO2 at 1 Atmosphere weighs about 1.8g so I need 16.5g of Co2


Sugar converts to roughly 1/2 its weight in Co2 when it ferments...so that's about 33g Sugar I need to add in order to self carbonate whilst ending up at the same SG it is today...

So...I'll be sweetnening today/tomorrow to my target of 1.012 (it was that after last sweetening but I guess it's falled since it's been bubbling away again)...then adding 33g and sticking the lot into 2 plastic bottles....in 37.5 Days time I'll kill the ferment with campden unless the bottles have killed the house first ;-)  I'll also need to de-acidify it as it's on the acid side...that will probably cause an almightly fizz bomb if I do it at the end of fermentation (as it'll be carbonated hopefully)...so might be needing to do that first..or at least get it slightly less acidic than it is....

Festive Foam

The festive bitter is bubbling away like mad.. The instructions say fermentation should take 4-6 days to 1.014 at 20 deg c and the brew would be 5.7%. That seems like a very short fermentation? Can it really brew that fast? I'll check the sg on Saturday.

I've invested in a pressurised barrel for this batch.. Beer on tap! 4 week settling time... Just in time for Christmas.

Something amazing has happened....

First batch that I made, the one with the cider yeast.

I racked it off a week ago after it had cleared, and sweetened it to SG1015 and popped it into the airing cupboard to see whether it would have another little ferment. Nothing doing for 7 days but this morning, wonder of wonders, it was bubbling gently to itself.

Tonight I have bottled it to capture some natural fizz and in doing so I tasted some. It's bloody lovely. Seriously. It's a little "young", but it's a very nice drink, even now, and it has a very nice aftertaste. Give it a month or two to mature in the garage and I think it'll be a cracker. Ready just in time for the festive season in fact.

I genuinely can't believe it. I'm so chuffed.

Something Festive

Here's the next brew. "A strong, mellow ale balanced with choice aromatic and bittering hops". Bring it on!

Ginger Beer Bottled

18 bottles of Ginger beer.. SG 1.005. 6.5% ish. Added a little sugar to each. Not sure if it was needed? Tastes alright, considering it's full of yeast, flat and slightly warm.

Now that the brew bin is empty, I thought it would be rude not to fill it with another brew!! New post to follow....

Mud mud glorious mud

Thanks for your efforts the other night. By the time Ant and I had finished nurdling around there were 5 demijohns of alarming looking mud. However, 48 hours later, the dust has settled and there is a beautiful golden coloured liquid left on a large layer of sediment.

I will deliver the Draper bottle to their residence tomorrow morning. Ant R - do you want one to love and nurture?

For any that I keep, once fermentation is truly underway I am going to move it into the garage as a slow fermentation is by all accounts a better fermentation. Or so they say...

Warren cider....racked off

So, my cider seemed to have stopped - no bubbles visible when looking with a torch and it had cleared well. SG of 1005 which from a starting point of 1055 makes it about 6% alcohol by my calcs. I wanted to take it up to 1015 to encourage a bit more fermentation and add a bit of sweetness so I could bottle it and get it naturally carbonated.

Worked out that I needed 200g sugar per demijohn, dissolved that in water, added to a demijohn and racked the cider into it and I got 1015-ish. Hard to be exact.

I'm going to pop these into the airing cupboard for a few days to see whether I can provoke them into fermenting some more. If I get any action, it's into bottles and into the garage for a couple of months to round off.

The couple of mouthfuls I got when starting the racking were certainly drinkable, and that was without the added sugar. I'm hopeful that with a little time, it'll be a nice drink all in all.