GIFT : Ben's Adventures in Wine Making (paperback)

Got a new book on booze!!! Cool, a lovely gift from my good lady Jane. I had not heard of this one and it wasn't even on my Amazon Wish List.

Book Description

Publication Date: 10 Oct 2011

Ben s Adventures in Wine Making is a home brewing book with a difference. It is a tale of one man s attempts to create delicious and interesting wine from unlikely ingredients. Ben Hardy takes us on a journey, in diary form, from picking his raw materials to drinking the final product. From the superb blackberry to the undrinkable potato wine, and thirty-one flavours between, Ben both amuses and informs in his efforts to produce the nectar of the gods. He is refreshingly honest about what does and does not work, and carefully records the triumphs, the disasters, and his long-suffering friends and family s reactions

I have only read the first few chapters, and it's very good. It is written a little like a diary, with how each wine is made along with tasting notes on each wine, even if the results where bad. The Amazon description above seems to cover the content of the book, so I won't go into it to deep. But I would happily recommend it.

RACKED: Mutant Parsnip Wine & Elderberry Wine

Grabbed a hour from the day today to rack the Parsnip and Elderberry wines. Fermentation has slowed down on both of the wines now with just the odd bubble now and again. Racked both the wines on top of 1 tsp of bentonite mixed into 1/4 of a pint of hot water that was allowed to cool for 30 minutes.

I add this direct to the clean demijohn and then rack the wine straight on top. Both these wines will now sit in the warm for another few weeks just to make sure they have finished fermenting. Once they are a bit clearer, I'll hit them both with a campden tablet each, slosh them both back up and them move to a cool place to fully clear before getting ready to bottle them both.

Bottled :Townhouse Ale

Well the Townhouse Ale has been sitting in the fermenting bucket for 12 days or so and has finished fermenting as far as I can tell, the Final SG is at 1006 down from 1068 giving a ABV of 7.7%.

I was hoping it would clear a lot more than it has, but I'm not to concerned as very old Ales made with Honey from my research are cloudy as a rule. I sure that as time goes by and it conditions in the bottle I will get a lot clearer. Each bottle has been primed with a 1/2 tsp of Brewing Sugar as I don't want the Ale to be very fizzy to replicate Ales of old.

I had a little glass of the Townhouse Ale (which looks like Prison Hooch) and it's quite drinkable, it certainly won't win any competitions. The hops come through the Honey okay, and it's bitter enough on the pallet. The honey has taken center stage as I knew it would with that amount in the brew.

I'm quite pleased on how it turned out, it's a drinkable Ale and I hope after warm conditioning for a week or so, then a few weeks in the cool, it will clear out lovely. If not, so be it, I'll still drink the bugger. :)

Bargains : Brewing Equipment

Grabbed a couple of bargains this week, the first was a couple of bags of Dextrose Monohydrate or Brewing Sugar for the costly sum of £1.60 per 1kg bag.. Always handy to have around the brewing cupboard. I also needed a bag to make up the Stout (Coopers) Beer kit I got for Xmas.

Next mega bargains where found at Dunelm where I only popped in to get a few cheap beer and wine glasses for the Brewpub that we are now building. 

We found a reduced section with a load of Muntons beer equipment on sale all at big Discounts.

Got a Siphoning kit for 55p, was just after the tap really as I keep misplacing mine. Found a Co2 injector to go with my barrel for £4.75 and loads of bulbs to go with it. In fact I got all the Co2 bulbs they had, so they should last me quite a while. 7 packs of ten Co2 bulbs for £6.93

Gifts : First Steps in Winemaking by C.J.J. Berry

Good old postie dropped of a present for me this week from my Amazon wish List,

 First Steps in Winemaking by C.J.J. Berry 

Having heard so much about this book it very nice to have it in my collection, and after a quick flip through it looks as tho' it may be a well referenced book, as it has lots of recipes and information.

Many thanks for the book must go to my lovely Wife Jane.

Tasting : Pumpkin Beer (Bit early)

Well as I sat in front of the TV last night, it was bound to happen. I opened a very young bottle of Pumpkin Beer, it had only been in the bottles for 2 full days, warm  conditioning in the dining room. It was still a little cloudy but that's fine by me. This one was a little sweeter than the last batch, mainly due to the increased use of pumpkin flesh I would think. Anyhow it's a lovely drinking beer, so I had another just to check.

I'll try and leave the others to condition properly but we will see.

Potted up The Chillies & Aubergines

The time has come to properly pot on the Chillies, Peppers and Aubergines and fill up the capillary system in the grow box.

Twenty one days from sowing the seeds they are all coming on great guns, now that they have been potted into the small pots with Westland John Innes No 2 Potting-On Compost the little seedlings should hopefully put on quite a bit of growth in the next few weeks.



I've got the following all potted up :

• Aubergine (Black Beauty) x 5


• Sweet Pepper (Telimena) x 3
  


• Sweet Pepper (Big Banana) x 4


• Chilli Pepper (Habenero Orange) x 4


• Chilli Pepper (Bulgarian Carrot) x 2