Posted in Fermenting, Rose on May 1, 2008 | No Comments »
I stated in my post 3 days ago, about kicking off the rose (Chablis Blush), that I made a silly mistake and filled it too high in the demijohn. I left it as it was, rather than pouring away the extra, as there was still an air gap, and it felt wrong to pour away [...]
Posted in Fermenting, Plum on May 1, 2008 | No Comments »
Three days after starting the plum wine going, it was time to top it up to the full 4.5 litres. The instructions simply stated it should be ‘tepid’ water. I took this to mean basically the same temperature as we wanted the wine to be fermenting in, so 20-25 degrees. I tried pouring just a [...]
Posted in Bitter, Fermenting on April 30, 2008 | No Comments »
So, 3 days after I kicked off the Sherwood Forest Bitter, it is time to add the bag of hops. I stupidly added them before taking a picture, but it was basically a small seal bag, about the size of a couple of postage stamps next to each other, full of what looked like a [...]
Posted in Fermenting, Stout on April 14, 2008 | No Comments »
Having got back from a weekend away, I decided to do a quick check on the Stout, to check that the gravity was still falling:
Disappointedly, I took this to be another reading of 1.013 meaning no more movement. I know Phil got down to 1.012 and ideally I’d like to be a fraction lower, therefore [...]
Posted in Fermenting, Stout on April 9, 2008 | No Comments »
I recently did some research into whether the 6 weeks that my previous brew spent in the fermenting bucket was too long (mostly on Jims Beer Forum - see my blogroll). It is clear that while modern yeast should be fine for up to a couple of months all being well, its certainly not advisable. [...]
Posted in Fermenting, Linthwaite Light on March 17, 2008 | No Comments »
On Friday, I decided it was time for a quick check on the status of my second home brewed beer, before going away for the weekend. I dropped the hydrometer in and went to look for my camera to take a picture. Unfortunately, I had already packed it, and my phone doesn’t have a flash, [...]
Posted in Fermenting, Linthwaite Light on February 28, 2008 | No Comments »
While I was on a roll, I decided to check on the beer too. It has been about 15 days since I started it going, so it should be coming along nicely.
There is clearly still activity which is pleasing given the gravity is currently at 1.016, with a target of 1.010 or less. I’m [...]
Posted in Fermenting, Strawberry on February 28, 2008 | No Comments »
After checking on the Merlot, I decided to see how the Strawberry was doing too. After leaving the hydrometer to soak in the sanitising solution for a couple of minutes I rinsed it and dropped it gently into the strawberry wine. Again, I photographed it so that I had a definitive record to compare against [...]
Posted in Fermenting, Merlot on February 28, 2008 | No Comments »
With the prospect of a free weekend on the horizon, I wanted to take a reading of the Merlot to have something to compare against at the weekend to see if it has finally stopped fermenting. Hopefully it will have done, so that I can transfer it to secondary and begin the final stages before [...]
Posted in Fermenting, Strawberry on February 21, 2008 | No Comments »
After checking on the Merlot, I realised I hadn’t done a bubble count on the Strawberry in a while, so I sat down by the demijohn with a watch and timed how long it took, on average, between bubbles:
Day
Time per bubble (secs)
Gravity
0
infinite
1
8
3
4
1062
6
1.5
12
50
Comments:
The bubble rate has dropped massively, but I did forget to take any readings [...]
