Home brew? Homebrew? Winemaking

If you guys think bottling is soul destroying, try pulping and pressing 100kg of apples.

There is a reason I only do it once a year. And it is nothing to do with the apple season.

Moved into a new gaff with an apple tree in front garden. What's best/easiest way of making cider? Ta

Easy, cider? HA!

OK a difficult method?!

When doing biab how do people clean and sterilize the bag, I'm pretty sure that was the source of an infection in my last brew

Since the beer is boiled after you've taken the bag out it shouldn't be getting infected from it

Biggest faff is juicing. After that it's very(?) easy.

Get yourself Craft Cider Making, 3rd edition by Andrew Lea, explains lots.

That said... post to follow...

Last years cider was racked after fermentation settled then sat on secondary yeast until now. No activity other than checking airlock every couple of week. From 5l juice got 7 clear 500ml bottles plus another full but taking up alot of the yeast disturbed as liquid level got to bottom of demi-john. Assuming this will settle & still be drinkable if poured carefully?

Sampled already it tastes far better than I'd hoped for (had resigned myself to vinegar given my haphazard approach) and feels quite strong. It's in the 'bottle it' zone for dry cider on my hydrometer which is reassuring.

Won't keep for long apparently. Anyone around mcr fancies a taster hit me up for riverside ride & cider, bring a mug!

Pics included. Any input from those with deeper knowledge greatly appreciated, picked 12kg of apples for this years pressing today as they're windfalling now.

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Not quite in the same league as some if you guys on this thread but I've got a batch of mead (it's actually t'ej, essentially Ethiopian mead) on the go at the moment. It's taken a bit longer than it should to get fermenting as I started with cheap honey which I assume had been pasteurised. Once I added some raw honey I started to see some action. Tastes amazing at the moment and aparrently only gets better with age.

Ooh, interested in that. Was the method as simple as dissolving the honey in water and waiting? What make's it t'ej? I produce honey... a small amount this year but hopefully more next.

Completely missed this, yes that makes sense, I obviously was just not clean enough!

Yes pretty much. from memory the recipe/method is just dissolve honey in water (1kg into 2l water) in an open container and chuck in a handful of fruit (anything with an edible skin - I used apple and some sloes). Stir vigourously twice a day (or more if you remember) to aerate and distribute the yeast. Keep covered with a muslin or cloth to keep flies off but allow air and yeasts in.
You should get bubbles forming after a few days, wait about 2 weeks before transferring into a container with an airlock.
Store like this for a month or two before bottling (or drinking).
Should improve with age.

At some point you add more water to get a total of 4l of mead but I can't remember exactly when. The recipe is in Wild Fermentation by Sandor Ellix Katz, which I was given recently and has inspired me to try out lots more fermented stuff!

Oh and if your water is heavily chlorinated you might want to let the water sit in a bowl overnight to let the chlorine evaporate out of it first as it can kill the yeast. I didn't do this and it doesn't seem to have had an adverse effect.

Thanks. Dayumn, I have that book, been too long since I read it!!!!

There seems to be loads of good info in it, though I'm relatively new to this fermentation lark!

Someone bought some mead to my homebrew club recently. When they opened it the whole contents of the 500ml bottle shot up in the air, hit the ceiling and then cascaded down upon us csb

Anyone need some fresh hops?. Pick up west London. PM me

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Apples milled and pressed direct to demijohns, 10l this year, twice the fun. 2nd lot has about 20% cookers so could be foul interesting.

Edit: SG measured as 1.054 & 1.050 so looking at 7% dry cider when finished. Hic.

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Need some advice!

Really keen to get into home brewing so I bought a kit online. It came with the most ridiculously vague set of instructions i’d ever seen - Managed to piece together what I needed to do from various sources - here’s a step by step of my process:

• Sterilised all equipment
  
• Warmed up the malt extract / flavouring liquid by placing sachet in hot water for about 15 mins
  
• Dissolved sugar (1.5kg) in hot water in the fermenting bucket
  
• Added malt extract into fermenting bucket
  
• Topped up liquid to 23l and around 25 degrees
  
• Added yeast sachet and stirred
  
• Closed lid and fitted airlock
  
  

Admittedly I didn’t take a first hydrometer reading, and my brew has been at about 18 degrees for the past week which is under the temperature range it should be at (20 - 25 degrees). I haven’t seen any bubbles in the airlock but I know it’s been bubbling a bit on the surface. I’ve just taken a reading today (after 7 days) and it is at the approximate ’start’ level for beer (as labelled on my hydrometer).

As It’s been slightly below the recommended temp for this brew, should I just leave it longer and see what happens or have I missed some crucial step?

Normally I'd expect to see bubbles in the airlock by the next day. It is likely the yeast died during pitching or was not in good condition in the first place. A couple of things to bare in mind is making sure any cleaning product residues are not present and temperature is correct. Some people like to wake the yeast up first in a bit of water with some sugar and then add that to the fermenter.

Given that it has started fermenting so late, there is a risk that whatever is producing the bubbles is not the yeast provided in the kit. You can either roll with it or pitch some more yeast. If your not seeing vigorous bubbles right now I'd get some more yeast. Check out your local brewing store or Wilko.

I'd also suggest doing smaller 5L brews whilst you're getting the feel for things -less to lose.

Bring it up to 20c or so. Don't go over 22c. Once it gets going steadily, you may be able to sustain at 18c, but some yeasts will be quite slow at that temperature.

Just found out my brett beer has made it into the second round of Brewcon 😁 very excited to get that far, it's the first competition I've entered so not expecting much.

Brilliant!

Great stuff, Kat. Fingers crossed.

I came 2nd in my category, I'm happy with that