Todays "master plan".......

Ha! Ok, so I'm getting nagged a bit as there's too much WIP.... a.k.a. wines in progress littering the dining room floor (well it wasn't until "she" decided the dining room needed a change round and all of a sudden the wine isn't just "out the way" etc).

So, what to do?

Well, some of it needs to be aged for longer, some is still clearing, some needs filtering and dare I say it, bottling.........

Bottling?????  Aaaaaarrrrrrrggggggghhhhhhhh! The bain of the wine maker (unless you make huge quantities and have some bottling machines to make life easy..... like an ozone generator and plenty of money for bottles by the pallet, etc etc).....

Anyway, I went out with the intention of pillaging some of the local flora for the last of the elderberries, but it started to rain (still is), so I diverted to the local HBS for kit and ideas...

The kit was some plastic bottles and ascorbic acid to put the gallon of steam extracted elderberry juice in (some that I did 2 weekends ago, sorry, forgot to do a write up/article on that).

While at the HBS, inspiration struck, with "how the hell do I get out of having to piss around sanitising bloody bottles etc" ? The inspiration was a small display of "Bag in a box" kits.

You get a flat packed box, an "aluminiumised" plastic wine bladder and a tap.

It's a shit photo but here you are.......

That's the "aluminiumised" bag, with the box behind and the tap in front, the gallon of wine chosen to test drive (an 08 Canned Strawberry) and on the left is the gravity filter unit (an old boots one, not the more up to date "Harris" one - I can still get the filters so it'll do as I was given it by my aunt).

This picture shows the box made up from flat, with the wine bladder in place and the wine is filtering straight into it.

This (one of my less artistic efforts - crap camera work, but it was with my phone) shows the path from DJ down through the filter to the "bag in a box" setup.














Now, I should mention that this is a bit of a pain to do, but it's infinitely better than having to de-label old wine bottles (too tight to buy new ones), then clean them, rinse, sanitise and drain them (you will, if you've got the wine properly cleared, racked and filtered, get a full 6 bottles to the gallon, though in reality 5 and a half).

So, the "master plan" is by using the "bag in a box" kit, the wine has all air removed by holding the tap open and squishing the bag until some wine comes out. Then as the wine is dispensed by the glass, the bag sucks in on itself until it's nearly empty, by which time you just pour yourself the last bit into a glass. Thereby reducing the chance of getting any air into it and oxidation problems that you get by having a part opened bottle of wine.

The same thing can be done by using a "cornelius" keg system, which is pressurised with an inert gas (not CO2 as that is absorbed by the wine and you get a sparkling/fizzy wine, where you'd have wanted a still wine), which will have purged all the air/O2 but also provided enough pressure to dispense the wine. The difference is that a bag in a box kit is about a fiver, a "corny keg" even second hand/used will cost considerably more (seen them go for 30 quid plus on ebay).

Right, I'll close this for the moment so I can go and check to see if the wine has finished running through the filter (it's the one thing that's a bit of a pain, as the filter pad gets blocked by sediment, the slower it runs.... unless you have a mini-jet pump/filter device or similar)...

Will edit and update with a picture of the wine - which does smell of canned strawberry but I have no concept of what it'll taste like......

Some of my meads (and other stuff)......

Ok, this is what some of my means look like once made, racked, filtered and possible topped up.

Without getting them out from under the stairs again, that's (from L to R) "Greek" honey (nice and cheap from the local brand of Lidl), then Winter mead (recipe found on the net), a traditional type made with Oklahoma Wild Flower honey (thanks Keith, it's lovely honey) and a modified JAO recipe, though made with lemon and lime instead of orange.

As you can tell from my earlier post, I wasn't sure what to do, so I thought "fuck it" and just ran them through my gravity filter and made sure that they were topped up to the brim and then just put them away for ageing (the JAO, Winter and Greek are already about 2 years old).

It remains to be seen whether they improve any further........

Of the other wines/meads etc, I'm gonna continue racking, filtering etc, but not until I've got a "bag in a box" set up. So then I don't need to bottle any of the fruit wines that are a couple of years old, just get them used up......

I think I'll also end up making up the last few 1 gallon batches, but then move over to making less batches, but 5 gallon ones, instead of the smaller ones. It's a lot of effort and messing about for just 5 or possibly 6 bottles........

Occasional moments of confusion and indecision.....

Ok, so here's where I'm at........

I have a number of 1 gallon batches, some need bottling, some need racking, some need...... well something.......

I don't really want to bottle what needs bottling, because I like bulk ageing meads, I also like how they look in a 1 gallon glass demi-john jar.

So what's the problem?

Well, if I rack the ones that need racking then there's always some racking loses, so you'd normally top them up with something. Water ? Well I don't want to reduce the body of a finished mead/wine/whatever, or reduce the alcohol content. I can use "a similar mead/wine", but I don't really have anything that will do the job.

Then there's the ones that need bottling. My enolmatic vacuum bottler and it's associated filter tend to lose more than if I used something like a "Harris filter" type device - I actually have the older "Boots" filter, but I'm still not a big fan of those as they seem to rely on sitting on top of a demi-john 1 gallon jar, and the wine then splashes into the receiving jar below. I don't like the idea of splashing the wines as it can lead to oxidisation (yes I know that meads don't tend to suffer as badly as other wines, I still don't like the idea......)

What the hell, I might just do that anyway and then just top them up with some of the chenin blanc "panic" wine - it might change the flavour a bit but does that really matter ??? As once it's filtered etc it'll just be put away to age (forgotten about ;-D ).......

Damn! I don't know, I just can't make my mind up what to do next.......

I just want to do something, because then I can start again, and hopefully try and be considerably more organised than I have been up to now..........

Blackcurrant Melomel (clearing out the fridge.....)

Blackcurrant Melomel (soon)

Ok, so one of the things that Clare wants to do over the weekend is to make me some "Lemon curd". Which is wonderful (nice that she's making it and nice to eat, on bread and butter :-p ).

So after having a look at our stock of empty jars (jam, honey, pickles etc etc), we find that we're running low on them.

I remembered that after last years visit to the local PYO, we came home with 6 or 7 pounds of fruit (don't recall the exact amount) and I promptly put it all through the steam juice extractor (reduces the size/volume of original fruit - excellent for "red" type fruit) and jarred it, the jars went straight into the fridge once cooled.

I also had the last of the 6 jars of generic Polish honey that my friend Sebastian brought over with him, last year or the year before. The were all crystalised anyway and would need warming through to use.

So I figured that as Clare needed some empty jars and I'd been thinking about what to make next, presented an opportunity/idea. Black currant Melomel.

Now I love black currant anyway, so the picture is showing the empty honey jar (1.3kg size), the last of the re-sealable jars of steam extracted black currant juice and the bucket being used as the primary fermenter (containing the honey from the jar, a jar of juice the same size as in the picture and 3 x 1lb jars of fruit juice).

The reason why I haven't put all the black currant juice in, is that I'm going to ferment this, but once it's finished and racked off the lees, I'll add the last of the juice to make it more fruity/black currant in flavour. The honey taste is less important as it's nice tasting but it's processed and of unknown provenance.

I haven't taken a gravity reading yet, just mixed up the honey, black currant juice and made it up to just over a gallon with water. That in turn, has had about 2 teaspoons of pectic enzyme and 1 crushed campden tablet whisked into it.

I'll leave this for 24 or maybe even 48 hours for the pectic enzyme to do it's thing, as the BC juice seemed a little thicker than I remember, and while it tasted fine, it's probably set a little pectin from when the juice was being extracted, hence the 2 tsp per gallon amount used (I'll probably have to add more once I add the rest of the juice anyway.....)

I haven't decided on which yeast yet, though as black currants are a malic fruit, it might be sensible to use 71B, due to it's property of being able to metabolise some of the malic acid. I'm also in 2 minds as to whether I really need to add any tannins as there's gonna be some in the fruit juice.

Finally, whether this ends up as a 1 or 2 gallon batch is dependant on the gravity when I measure it today or tomorrow.

TTFN!

Batch news......

So, I decided to check to see how the latest batch was getting on (the Oklahoma Wildflower mead batch that is).

It started at a gravity of 1120, now with the presumption that finished is 1000, the 120 point drop would be, as far as I can work out (shit at maths) 16.3% ABV.

The yeast I've used (Lalvins D21) is apparently good for 16%, though maybe, with a little luck, it could go higher.

Where was I, Oh yes, so after carefully suspending the hydrometer in the batch (fully sanitised of course), it said that it had a gravity of 1070, which is actually a little lower than the 1080 1/3rd sugar break. Not to worry, it's close enough.

So I figured it was time to add the rest of the nutrients, and as per previous posts, the guidance I'd been given suggested that 2 grammes of the DAP and 4 grammes of Fermaid-K would be in order.

Now I was thinking about this today and I remembered what it was that I left out of the batch so far, that would be any acid addition and tannin of some sort. So I thought that this batch should now be stable enough to take the last pint that was taken out to give it some head space, and hatched the master plan of putting the pint of honey/water must into the liquidiser and then adding the nutrients, acid and tannin. Lots of sanitising spray and that went smoothly (the whole lot was the colour of the "head" in the milk bottle on the left of the main DJ).

So I carefully put the DJ in the sink, and start adding the mixed/aerated must and nutrient/minerals to it. It wasn't one of those fast "fuck fuck fuck" type foam eruptions, it was a slow but steady one that ended up with me having to sanitise the turkey baster in a rush and use it to suck out some of the foam.

For the moment, I've re-air locked it and put the rest of the must/minerals etc back into the milk bottle so the foam can settle out of that and I'll have another go at gently pouring it into the DJ when I get up for work.

So, TTFN

New Batch ingredients - extra info

Ok, so this morning, its obviously finished it's "lag phase". So, because I wasn't sure about how to work out it's exact nutrient requirements, I posted a question at Gotmead and "Medsen Fey" was kind enough to post this response.

"I really like the approach Wayneb describes in This Post. For D21, you have a medium nutrient requiring yeast, and you are starting at 28 Brix which is moderately high. I'd probably shoot for around 350 ppm YAN. There is a YAN calculator that has been put together, but it generates numbers that are quite high, and even I get a little timid about adding that much. Of course, I used to be timid about adding the amount hightest recommends, and now I find that isn't enough in most cases.

In any case:
1 gram of DAP per Imperial Gallon gives 46 ppm YAN
1 gram of Fermaid K per Imperial Gallon gives about 22 ppm YAN

Typically, I like a 2/3 Fermaid K, 1/3 DAP mix to ensure plenty of micronutrients and yeast hulls. So using 8 grams of Fermaid K and 4 grams of DAP would give about 360 ppm YAN. The honey itself may provide 10-20 ppm.  That is the way I approach nutrient additions."

So I've followed that guidance (not that I understand how to use the YAN (Yeast Assimilative Nitrogen) calculator, so initially it's had 4 grammes of FermaidK and 2 grammes of  the Ritchies yeast nutrient (Diammonium Phosphate and something else that I forget the name of - but I'll include it when I've looked it up).

I'm quite glad that I took a pint out of it and then when it was time to give it a stir to aerate it, that I stood it in the sink as I got an excellent foam eruption out of it. The picture shows it after it's settled down again. I'll check the gravity before I aerate it this evening to see how it's getting on, the intention being that I want it to hit the 1/3 rd sugar break before adding the second half of the nutrients.

TTFN

Apples in season, pressing etc etc......

It's often been a bit of a nuisance when the apples are in season, as I'd dearly love to be able to make use of some.

Whether it's for apple wine, cider or whatever.

Part of what stops me is the price of the kit this should give you some idea of the costs.... very nice, but IMO, over priced.....

Whereas, I recently found this absolute fucking master stroke it's simplicity is brilliant especially if you look further around the net to find the designs for making a press from some framing, pressing boards and a hydraulic bottle type car jack. Or even a smallish, machine shop hydraulic press. You can obtain something like 10 tonnes pressure on the pulp.

The idea of using a "garbage disposal unit" for a grinder is brilliant. Giving a nice, even, "apple sauce" type pommace ready for wrapping up as a "cheese", ready for pressing.

The only downside of that link is the constantly annoying reference of pressed apple juice as "cider". That's more of a language barrier thing between the UK and US (we speak English, they speak "American" - similar, yet very different). It doesn't matter whether the apple juice is clear or cloudy, it's still fucking apple juice. If it's then fermented, it's fucking cider, not "hard cider", just fucking cider!!!!!

Hey ho! be a boring place if we all spoke the same......... Either way, "his" idea and suggestion are, IMO, brilliant......

TTFN!

New Batch ingredients

In an earlier post (about treasure) I showed some stuff that Keith was kind enough to send over for me. In the picture is the remainder of the Oklahoma Wild flower honey mixed up to a gallon (imperial) with water (nothing special, just tap water).

To work out how to proceed, I've taken a gravity reading which tells me that it's quite high, at 1120. So presuming a drop to 1000 to consider the ferment finished, that should give me about 16.3 %ABV.

There was about four and a half pounds in weight of the honey left so I figured I'd just make it up "as is" and just age it.

Hence it doesn't really matter if it ends up with an "alcohol hot" taste when the ferment has finished.

As I had no idea what the gravity would end up at, I wasn't sure what yeast I would use, but as its 1120, I'll just run with some D21.

The intention is to rehydrate the yeast with some GoFerm and then add FermaidK and some DAP once the lag phase has finished.

I'll be aerating it twice a day to the 1/3rd sugar break (1080 in this case).

D21 is listed as having moderate nutrient needs so I'll be checking the mead calculator over at Gotmead to make sure about the nutrient requirements.

Will it taste like shit ?

Raspberry Melomel

Ok, so I've just racked the raspberry melomel that I mentioned in an earlier post. I'd been a bit lazy, but also a bit pressed for time recently and it was left in the bucket with too much air space, though in truth most of that air space will have been CO2, not just air.....

So, from memory, it was initially 1.3kg of blended Polish honey, some steam extracted raspberry juice and some red grape juice. The yeast ? from memory it was Lalvins 71B.

Now when it was nearly finished, I added about another 600 to 700 grammes of honey (actually what was left in a jar that I'd been using for other stuff - about half a jar).

That went in and I left it, then when I tested it to see if it was finished, it was just below 1.000, about 0.998 or something like that. So then I thought about making it a bit more "raspberryish" as the whole point of the exercise was so that it didn't taste so much of the blended honey.

So I pinched a bag of frozen raspberries out of the freezer and chucked them in too.

Now as I already said I want it more raspberryish tasting. I finally found a few minutes to get it racked, not really to remove all the yeast etc, but to get it off the fruit and start it clearing. With that in mind, I did rack it reasonably carefully but it's still very cloudy as you can see. I got that gallon in the picture and another 750ml wine bottle full (the wine bottle full is in the fridge - because when I checked it - it was showing a gravity of about 1.005 which is where I want it but in a wine bottle I don't want it starting to re-ferment if it should warm up a little.

I did take a taste of the little bit that was left in the bottom of the test/sample jar - hard to tell how it's gonna finish really as it's very yeasty tasting etc.

The gallon in the picture was racked onto a half teaspoon of stabiliser/sorbate and 1 crushed campden tablet.

Why I've posed the question of "will it taste like shit", I know that I haven't made many fruit meads/melomels and those I have done haven't in my view been that successful. Well, Ok, maybe they were, but they didn't come out how I expected them too - I haven't managed to find any commercially made fruit meads/melomels to compare to so I really don't know. Hence not knowing whether they're any good or not .............

One thing I did do, was before flushing all the pulp/fruit, was to pick out a raspberry and taste it. I now understand what is meant by seed bitterness. There was a bit of raspberry taste left, but not much, but I got a distinct bitterness taste as I squashed the fruit in my mouth. Strange, as I'd never associated raspberries with being bitter. Sharp and/or acid yes, but not bitter.

I only knew of that from reading stuff.

I'm thinking that if it stays tasting like it does now (not the yeast element, but the rest staying the same) what will it taste like after it's aged ? Should I just say bollocks to it and back sweeten it once it's clear ? I'm quite happy to do that with honey as any tiny amount of yeast sediment that continues to drop out is gonna be 71B which is, as I understand it, Ok for ageing a wine/mead on.

After all, I won't be drinking it for a while anyway. Maybe I should just stick a couple of teaspoons of malt extract into it ? Or sugar syrup ?

It doesn't taste very acidic as the yeast metabolises some of the malic acid in the raspberry, so it's possible that I might still need to add a little of that as well.

Hum ? still a bit of a quandary eh! Maybe I'll just see if the bottle full in the fridge has dropped most of it's sediment and then experiment a bit with it, even though it's really there for topping up........

It's supposed to be 6 bottles to the gallon so if I started with pouring off the mead once it's cleared/cold crashed a bit, then I might just try 1/8th teaspoon of acid and then about the same of malt extract to see how that works. If it gives some sort of improvement (well to my taste anyway) that'll do.

I really don't understand why it is that I "don't get" this mead making with fruit etc, it just seems wrong to my way of thinking. Sure I know that lots of people make them like that and I have to presume successfully as well - it's just that I don't get it.........

Right, off to put some more thought into this......

Novelty Air Lock.......

One of the newer members over at gotmead obviously decided to make a batch of "JAO" and then took the "use a balloon with a pinhole in it for the airlock" just a little further than normal.

Hence my thread title of "novelty airlock". If it works, then WTF! eh ?

TTFN