Friday, May 20, 2011

Clearing out the cupboard 2......

Well would you credit it eh ? I did just that i.e. chucked it in the bucket (including sprinkling the yeast on top) and waited to see if it would do anything.

The "lag phase" was about 2 days and then I heard it "bloop", so that evening I gave it a good stir, well actually I just sprayed the electric whisk with sanitiser and gave it a bloody good spin.

Yesterday evening, I decided to give it a stir (spoon this time) and give it a check. It measured up at 1.090, a 40 point drop in about 3 days. So this morning I measured out about 1 teaspoon of FermaidK and a half teaspoon of DAP, then gave it a good stir to de-gas it, then tipped the nutrient in while still stirring.

I could see the foam erupting from the ferment, though not enough to worry about. So it's time to leave it alone.

The only thing I'm not really sure of, it whether to leave the fruit in there, or whether I should strain most of the pulp out. After all, it's peeled, broken segments of mandarin from a tin. So apart from the actual fruit, there's nothing in there to cause the pulp to impart any off flavours.....

Ok, I've convinced myself, I'll leave it alone and strain the pulp when it's finished.

TTFN

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Clearing out the cupboard.....

I was tidying some stuff this morning (shock, horror) only to find that one of the tins of broken mandarin segments had blown.
After I'd cleared up the mess, it occurred to me that I should've used the damn things up by now. They're only about 3 years out of date.
So a quick dig round and I found about a kilo of "Mexican clear honey" and a tin of white grape concentrate.
The picture of the must in the bucket, is the above ingredients, plus a couple of teaspoon of FermaidK and a teaspoon of tannin.
I'm not expecting much from this brew, its just a "sling it in the bucket and see" mix. I didn't bother rehydrating the yeast, I just put some D21 in it and airlock the bucket.
I've made it up to about 6 litres as there'll be a good amount of the mandarin Orange pulp to strain out. The starting gravity is quite high, at 1.130 but I intend giving it a stir at least once a day until it hits the 1/3rd sugar break.
If it ferments dry, then fine, though I'd prefer it to have a final gravity of about 1.010
I'll have to wait and see