Thank You!

Many huge thanks you for our much appreciated seed voucher! Will enjoy spending!  Thank you! xxx

Brewday: Ginger Wine (part 2)

Well the ginger wine from last week has been macerating for a week now, with the yeast and nutrient added, so it's been fermenting slowly the sugars from the raisins and the ginger (if any).

In a clean demijohn, 450g (1lb) of demerara sugar was added.

Then the ginger wine was put through a strainer on top of the sugar and given a good old shake to help disolve it.

Looks merky and muddy right now, but this wine clears really well later on.

The Ginger wine has already started fermenting the sugar that was added, so it will now sit for another week and then another 450g of demerara sugar will be added, fermented for another week then yet another 450 g of sugar added to the demijohn (3 lbs of sugar in total).

Once all the sugar has been added, the wine will be racked and left to ferment out.

Brewday Update: Ginger wine (part 1) / Coopers stout

This post is a bit late, but once the ginger wine had been sat overnight and then had cooled down, one teaspoon of yeast and one teaspoon of yeast nutrient was added to the fermenting bin.

This is now left to sit and slowly ferment for a week (7 days) before straining the liquid into a clean demijohn. There is still a few more days left before this will be done, so for now that's the end of the post before the next stage.

As a side note, the Coopers stout has almost done it's fermenting, SG is at 1010 at the moment down from 1044 so we are at 4.5% ABV. I'll check it again tomorrow and then move it to the brewshed to cool condition

The Floodwaters Have Receded, Clean Up Time

With sunshine in the sky, not a cloud in sight and 4 bags of chicken manure, we headed down to the allotment today to have the first proper tidy up of the year and see what mud is left behind after all the flooding.  The soggy corner is still very muddy but apart from that it is all much better than it has been.  So jobs done today -

• spread the chicken manure


• moved the shed back to its original position and put it on corrugated iron and blocks


• put all the shed bits that were in the greenhouse back in the shed (and had a good clear out at the same time)


• cleared all the old chilli plants out of the greenhouse in preparation for the new season


• shifted all the old pallets


• moved the polytunnel frame to its new position


• general tidy around


• harvested some leeks for tea (and very flavoursome they were too!)


• harvested some chard for the chickens

The soggy corner, onions need a good hoeing when it drys out a bit more, and lots of digging to get done before the beans etc. go in.  Still too muddy underfoot yet though.



Shed back in its rightful place and new spot for the polytunnel though that is still subject to change.  Lots of weeds coming up, must be Spring!



Tidier greenhouse, ready to be fumigated and sulpher bombed and cleaned before the chillies head down there.  Lots to do yet!!

GIFT: HOME MADE WINE SECRETS By Peggy Hutchinson

Another lovely gift came in the post the other day from my Wish List, Home Made Wine Secrets [Hardcover] by Peggy Hutchinson, Revised Edition (1976).

It's a great historical wine making book that was complied before the Second World War, this revised (1976) edition includes metric measurements for all the recipes. There are loads of recipes from Almond Wine through to Yarrow Wine all listed alphabetically in the book. There are even a couple of beers listed.


I'm sure to have a go at a quite a few of the recipe, so a big Thanks to Em for adding it to my Library 

Brewday: Ginger Wine (part 1)

I have made this wine with this recipe before and it was very good, we are down to our last bottle of Ginger wine so today I have made up another batch.

Ingredients:

• 125g Root Ginger
• 3 Lemons
• 450g (hot washed) Raisins
• 1/4 tsp of chilli flakes
• 1.4 kg Demerara sugar
• Yeast & nutrient
• Campden tablet
• Boiling water.

Method (Part 1)

1. Wash and chop up the raisins (Food processor) and add to the fermentation bucket.
   
2. Thinly peel the lemons and add the peel and the juice to the bucket.
3. Smash the ginger up (bruise) in a couple of plastic sandwich bags and add to the bucket.
   
4. Add 1/4 tsp of chilli flakes to the bucket.(optional)
   
5. Top up to the 5 liter mark with boiling water and leave to stand for 24 hours
   

Tomorrow I'll add the yeast and yeast nutrient, but I'll blog more on this tomorrow.

Brewday : Coopers Stout 40 Pint Beer Kit

It's been  quite a while since I have made up a home-brew kit and I had forgotten how easy and quick they are to do without much in the way of clean up afterwards.

 

I received the Coopers Stout kit for Christmas and we are now in March so I thought it was about time I got it going. Plus it'll fill my pressure barrel nice and fast so I have draft Stout ready in the Brewhouse when the warmer evenings come along.

The kit was just made up pretty much as standard, the only changes have been the addition of a old tin of Black Treacle that needed using up in the cupboard about 400g in total and the yeast used is an open packet of Mauribrew Ale yeast that also needed using.

SG has started at 1044 so if all goes well the ABV should come out at 4.5%