Brewday: Blackcurrant Wine (Tinned Blackcurrants)

Grabbed another wine making deal from the supermarket again today. £0.75 per 300g tin. They only had the 4 left so we got them all to make another wine.

Opened all the tins and dumped the contents into the 5 litre fermentation bucket, mashed the fruit with a potato masher, then added 2 liters of boiling water on top. I'll add 1 tsp of pectolase just in case of any hazing.

Stirred in 1kg of Sugar, then topped up to 5 litres with more boiling water. Stirred everything up and is now cooling before I'll add some citric acid, yeast nutrient and the yeast (1 tsp of each)

I took a SG reading as I didn't know what the sugar content of the tins would be, and at the moment it's at 1082, so at the moment it will be around the 10% mark. I'm after a sweeter wine for this one so when I transfer the wine into a demijohn, I'll add another 300g of sugar to bring the SG up to around 1105 or around the 14% ABV mark.

I'll leave this to ferment on the fruit in the bucket for about 5-7 days, before it gets transferred to the demijohn and the extra sugar is added.

Brewday: Youngs Definitive Country Strawberry Wine (Kit)

Popped into my local homebrew shop today to pick up a couple of supplies and my Good Lady found another Strawberry wine kit on sale, normally these kits are around £10, so at £4.75 we grabbed it.

Started this kit off today, and it's very much the same as the other strawberry wine kit we have done apart from there is no Strawberry sachet to add, as the Strawberry flavour is combined with the contents of the tin.

As with the last kit we made I will be following the enclosed instructions, but this wine is getting plain old tap water but it did get brewing sugar.

The wine in the demijohn is very much darker than the other Strawberry Wine, and smells much more of strawberries. We will know if it's better in about 20 days time.

Without any extras,  a 750ml bottle of wine should work out at around £1.10

Climbing Bean canes all ready for this season

We do love our climbing beans, and they store well too. Jane has lots of seed this year, I think 4 or 5 different types.

So I spent the afternoon putting up the canes ready for when Jane direct sows later this week.

Two lines of canes with string strung between each. 10 inches apart for each plant, a little closer than last year, but we had lots of wasted space between the beans that I have moved them all a touch closer.

From memory, I think Jane has now got vertical platforms for around 60 climbing bean plants, so that should keep us going for a while.

A few other things have also gone in the ground this week.

My crystal cucumbers, gardeners delight tomato, tigerella tomatoes, outdoor wonder melons, are all in the polytunnel and doing well, along with the Tomatoberry plants and the two remaining Aubergines. These have all been planted directly into the ground this year and not in growbags.

A few courgette plants have gone in as well, but outside, along with my Pumpkins for making a pumpkin beer later in the year. These are covered with fleece at the moment, as the weather man reckons a frost this weekend.

My HOPS are now over 7 feet in height and looking great.

Bottling Day : Wilko Strawberry Wine + a quick taste

The Strawberry wine has now been bottled. 22 days from start to finish, so really quite good.

 It cleared to a nice bright Rosé colour, crystal clear as well. With only a thin layer of yeast in the bottom of the demijohn.

We got a full 6 bottles of wine from the kit (750ml) with a glass left over for testing.

After a small sample of the Wilko Strawberry wine by myself and the Good Lady, we have named this wine Strawberry Rosé, as that is what it is like, a very nice Rosé with strawberry aroma, following on later with flavour overtones of Strawberry. Not a huge Strawberry hit, but subtle quite acceptable Rosé wine.

	Total Cost	£8.87
Amount Bottled	6	£1.48 per Bottle
	Per Glass 175ml	£0.34

The Party Keg

Well emptied the Old Speckled Hen keg last night. Removed the the top bung nice and easy, cleaned the inside out. Then gave it a nice new paint job.

It came out really well, and looks great now in the Brewshed. Just need to fill it with Beer.

Fermenting : Yellow Plum Wine (Songold Plums)

The Yellow Plum Wine has been macerating in the 5 litre bucket for the four days as the recipe states. So today it starts it's journey into a sweet wine. I say sweet due to the fact 1.75kg (4lb) of sugar went into the demijohn.

As normal, I strained the liquor onto the sugar in the demijohn. Gave it all a good shake to dissolve the sugar, then added yeast nutrient and Yeast (1 tsp of each) and gave it another good shake up.

Nearly got a full demijohn, I'm glad of the headspace this time because the last few have blown their tops off when they first start the ferment. I'll top it up in a few days once it dies down a bit.

My Good Lady's chickens are now feasting on the barley and plums left over in the bucket. So nothing is being wasted with this wine.

Keeping them Birds off!!

Last year we planted quite a bit of fruit, red,white & black Currants, couple more Gooseberry bushes, some raspberries, a blueberry, along with the Jostaberry and Rhubarb.

We only managed to get a total of 500g of fruit from all the bushes. The birds got to almost everything, but as the bushes where in their first year we didn't expect much from them.

The fruit we did manage to save ended up in a very very nice Elderberry & Mixed Fruit Wine.

So this year I have covered the lot with netting, we want plenty of raw material for our wine making this season.

I had already moved the old arches that the Hops grew up last year, so part of the netting frame was already in place, the rest is on canes, with bottles on top to stop the netting pushing through.



Other things around the plot are doing well, Jane's Broad Beans are starting to grow, direct sown this year over a few weeks.

My hops are doing great guns, with the Fuggles now around 5 foot high, all busy winding themselves up the strings.

The Chillies and the Sweet peppers took a hit with the cold in the greenhouse (-4'C), lost a couple but the others are on the mend, with new growth showing and some with a flower or two.

Again this year the aubergines are not doing much, in fact from the 4 that went into the polytunnel only one is still alive, I'm going to have to do some research into growing these dam things.

The tomatoberries are doing good in there though, lots of new growth and it won't be long before I move the other tomatoes and the cucumber seedlings in there as well, it'll be like a forest inside the polytunnel when they all get going.