Oud Bruin Beer / Ale Kit FINISHED

From a Beer Kit. Brewing now.
 09.12.2010 sweet and not very good but it has not been 2 weeks yet. Keep for a few days more and bottle? Need to check SG because it has been a bit cold recently. At this point it is not too good and shows a typical homebrew character. Disappointed.
2010.12.27 - Still fermenting in the barrel.
in 2011.04, drunk the last bottle, excellent beer, without a fault, very mellow and not too sweet.

Merlot from Beverdale Kit: FINISHED

A kit bought from a shop. Used red grape juice instead of water in the recipe. Small, 6 bottle kit.

SG = 1110 (quite high) Not fermenting visibly a day after. Hope it starts fermenting when I get back home after work.

Update: 2011.11.30 Yup, fermenting nicely now.

I really wonder how it comes out. Because I added grape juice instead of water it should be really red. The taste might be too sweet though. Maybe I should add some acid? I will add 1 small teaspoon of tartaric acid.

2010.12.26 - Racked and SG=1020
2011.01.22 - Racked and SG=1018
2011.03.29 - fermentation very slow or finished. Bit too sweet. Will need to kill it soon.
2011.03.31 - checked SG=1011
Stopped!
Really good wine, although due to adding juice instead of water it is too sweet. Could have used other yeast - for strong wines.

Red Heavy Prune and forest fruit wine:FINISHED

Ingredients:


500 grams prunes
1 litre water
500 grams sugar
5tsp lemon juice
1 tsp citric acid
1 tsp tartaric acid
"Fruits of the forest" frozen fruit from lidl - 500 grams
Sultanas 100 grams
pectolaze, yeast nutrient,
Sherry yeast.


Preparation:

Boil the water with lemon juice, acids and sugar.
Add the fruit, prunes and raisins. Bring to high temperature and leave to cool later.

Once below 30 degrees Celsius add pectolaze, activated sherry yeast. Leave in primary fermenter.

To be continued.

After a few days strained and SG was 1030 (after about 5 days on the must)

Update: 29.11.2010 Strained, added 300 grams sugar

05.12.2010. Racked. Strained, added 300 grams sugar.
09.12.2010. Still fermenting rather nicely. No stuck fermentation. ufff

2010.12.25 - Fermenting nicely. High SG still - SG=1030
2011.01.22 - Racked and SG=1021

2011.03.02 - tried it - very nice but too sweet, not unpleasant.
2011.03.29 - Stopped. SG=1021.
Very sweet. Slightly sherry taste, good class. Very tasty but strong.

Strawberry Wine. FINISHED - 5

2010.11.12

Strawberry wine - first time making.
750 grams frozen strawberries.
Lemon juice and citric acid - 2 teaspoons.
Sugar up to 1100 SG, Yeast nutrient and yeast.
about 3 litres of white grape juice, 100 percent . 1 litre of water so that the juice taste is not too prominent, what interests us here is the strawberry taste.
Pectolaze, Half a banana. Some orange juice

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In a pot: pour 500 milliliters boiled but not hot water on the strawberries. Add acid, chopped banana, and 500 grams sugar. Do not boil. leave for a few minutes.
Pour 2 liters of juice to the demijohn . Add lemon juice and Pectolaze. Add the strawberry mixture.
Leave to cool down to room temperature and measure SG, if not enough - add more sugar or I will try with some golden syrup. Aim for 1000 SG.
Ferment for a week, strain through a sieve. Leave to ferment for 1 week, rack, ferment and check for SG. Put it to 1005 or a bit more.

20.11.2010 - Racked and checked SG, still quite sweet, SG 1051. Will leave it for one more week before checking and racking again. It is currently fermenting really nicely. I have added some white grape juice to it so I do not really know how much sugar there is now... I will be more careful next time. There should be some science in it after all.

05.12.2010 - Racked. SG 1010. added 240 grams sugar. SG 1030

20.12.2010. SG=1020 , filled 2 pressure bottles with it.
Very good, bit too sweet

How to raise specific gravity

Roughly :

2.7 grams of sugar raises 1 litre of must by 1 point on the SG Scale..

12.15 grams raises 4.5 litres by one point.

60 grams raises 4.5 litres by 5 points

120 grams raise 4.5 litres by 10 points.

For instance

to raise SG from 1092 to 1120: 1120-1092=28

28 SG points of 4.5 litres is: 28*12.2=340,2 grams of sugar.

Such SG results in alcohol content of about: 16.3 (potential alcohol content) if fermentation goes well.
If I stop the fermentation at 1000 making a dryish wine, it will give me SG difference of
1120 - 100 = 120.
To check the alcohol content = 120/constant value in this case people use 7.4 so 120 / 7.4 = about 16 percent alcohol content. That is actually too much... So instead typical wine would be 14 percent, or?
I would then need to add less sugar, say, about 220 grams. (220/12.2= about 18 SG points) 1092+18=1110, that is

Provided the yeast survive and there is no infection. I will add the sugar with a bit of yeast nutrient - not too much though!!! It creates an unpleasant taste if not used up.

If fermented to dryness though, there would be more alcohol.

Red with Black currant syrup. FINISHED

Ingredients:
Red grape juice from Lidl - 4 litres
0.5 liter orange juice.
1 bottle 440 milliliters of black currant syrup - Polish, 64 percent sugar.
70 grams raisins / sultanas
Dried currants - 50 grams.
1 banana
193 grams sugar (because I did not have anything else)

French Oak chips - 3 small tea spoons.
Red Bordeaux wine yeast.
Pectolaze

Tartaric acid
Yeast nutrient.

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In a pot: pour 500 milliliters boiled but not hot water on the strawberries. Add acid, chopped banana, and 500 grams sugar. Do not boil. leave for a few minutes.
Pour 2 liters of juice to the demijohn . Add lemon juice and Pectolaze. Add the strawberry mixture.
Leave to cool down to room temperature and measure SG, if not enough - add more sugar or I will try with some golden syrup. Aim for 1000 SG.
Ferment for a week, strain through a sieve. Leave to ferment for 1 week, rack, ferment and check for SG. Put it to 1005 or a bit more.
NOW! Rack carefully and put half into sparkling wine bottles - plastic or buy some special corks and use glass bottles. Prime slightly and leave off in a coldish place to ferment.
The rest - stop fermentation with fermentation stopper and campden tablet, leave for 4 days, de-gass, clean with clarifying means. Bottle.

After 2 days fermenting - SG is 1052. I want to raise it to 1100. I will need to add sugar. Sugar - 120 grams sugar * 5 = 600 grams

20.11.2010 - SG of 1001, racked, added 180 grams sugar.

29.11.2010. Fermenting slightly.
05.12.2010. Racked - SG 1013, added 120 grams sugar. Added half a teaspoon of yeast nutrient. Added a bit of tartaric acid. SG=1023
10.12.210. Actually it stopped fermenting ... SG=1020-22, 1010 would be nicer. 1005 would be perfect. Maybe there is some non-fermentable sugar in the syrup?
2011.01.22 = Racked and SG=1020, Taste is not too bad actually. I will leave it for a while longer so it will certainly improver a lot.

quite sweet in 2011.03
2011.03.21 - actually fermenting slowly.
2011.03.21 - fermenting slowly, SG=1011
NOT too bad but taste of syrup prominent. should be drier

Introduction

This blog is meant to help me organize my recipes and remarks on wine and beer making. It will probably not be very well written since I hope to use it more for personal refenrence but I will try to make it at least understandable for any guests that happen across it.

I will put some notes in the spreadsheet on the right side as well.
Any comments will be moderated and might be removed without notice.