John Bull Masterclass Irish Stout – Bottling

What a huge job sterilising 40 odd bottles is! I mixed up some sterilising solution and filled 8 bottles. After about 5 mins I poured the solution into another 8 bottles and rinsed the first 8 out with cold water. I continued this technique until I had sterilised all the bottles. I then piled the bottles in the draining rack to dry.

Gravity was 1012 which is just borderline for bottling. I primed all the bottles and started filling them. The siphon flipped out of the barrel, not for the first time. I have previously used cellotape and hairclips but have never found a decent solution. The best I have found so far is my girlfriend Kerrie. So she stood there holding the tube in plae while I filled the bottles. This worked beautifully but is not a technique I will be able to use too often. If anyone has any suggestions I’d love to hear them.
Capped all 43 bottles with gold caps and stored in living room in the normal spot next to the hot water pipes.

Plum wine v2.0

I hooked all the plums and swollen raisins out of the wine with a seive. Then transferred the wine into a couple of demi-johns. There were quite a lot of large chunks that managed to make there way in, so I’ll have to rack it pretty soon. It has a lot more colour than the previous batch as you can see by the photo, which I am assuming is due to using raisins rather than sultanas (the raisins did look bleached when I pulled them out).

Valpolicella – Bottling

What a shame I forgot to add the finings before bottling this. I found the pouch in the draw after I had corked and labelled all 6 bottles. This shouldn’t affect the flavour of the wine but it’s likely to end up pretty cloudy. This kit came with it’s own labels in the same style as the Pinot Noir so look pretty smart when complete.
Gravity was 0996

Plum Wine v2.0

This weekend I had the enviable job of defrosting the freezer. There have been a bag of Chris’s plums in there from last year so this was the perfect opportunity to make use of them and my new 2 gallon bucket. Using the scales I estimated I had around 3kg of plums so I added 2kg of sugar and a 500g bag of raisins to add body. I added a few kettle loads of boiling water to defrost the plums and dissolve the sugar. Once the plums had defrosted I used my hands to burst them all open to ensure all the flavour and colour was released. I didn’t do this with the first batch and I’m hoping it results in a colourful wine.
I topped the bucket up to a bit over 2 gallons to take into the account the weight of fruit. I dissolved 2 tsp and added it along with 2 tsp of wine yeast. Here’s how it all looked.

I had a quick look this morning ( less than 1 day later) to make sure it had started fermenting. I have a feeling that’s not going to be a problem.

Valpolicella

I was introduced to this Italian wine at ASK the Italian restaurant, it is beautiful with pasta which is why when I spotted it I had to give it a go.
This is another connoisseur wine like the Pinot Noir. Simply empty the bag of grape juice into the demijohn, top up to 4.5 litres and add the yeast nutrient (dissolved in hot water) and yeast.

John Bull Masterclass Irish Stout

I worked from home today and the delivery arrived just around lunch time. This gave me a chance to use my lunch hour to good effect.

As per all these type of kits I dissolved the wort in about 2-3 litres of boiling water and topped up with cold water from the mains kitchen tap. I measured the temperature which was just under 22 degrees, perfect! I added the yeast gave a good stir and covered. Easiest 40 pints of stout ever.

Here’s what it looked like before I covered it. Before you ask I didn’t put that tea towel there deliberately, that’s where it normally lives, when I stood back I thought it was worthy of a photo. I just hope I can brew some stout that even the dublin guinness brewery (where I bought the tea towel) would be proud of.

Brupacks Colne Valley Bitter – Bottling

The Colne Valley Bitter gravity hasn’t changed in a week, it’s stuck at 1012 so I decided it was time to bottle.
With the small extension added to the end of the tap the bottling went pretty smoothly. The beer was already gassy so a head formed in each bottle even though I was filling the bottles from the bottom.
Before you get worried I didn’t forget to prime each bottle, I added 1/2 tsp which I’m hoping won’t make it too gassy, like the stout. I got 44 1/2 bottles. I capped the last bottle just because the new bottles came in packs of 15 so it filled a full 3 trays. I’m storing it in the living room next to the hot water pipes until secondary fermentation is complete.

Coffee Wine

I know sounds strange doesn’t it! I found this recipe in my C J J Berry First Steps in Winemaking book and just had to give it a go. If I’m honest I’m not expecting much, I am just curious. Here’s the recipe:
1 tbsp instant coffee
1kg sugar
1 tsp yeast nutrient
1 tsp citric acid
1 tsp yeast

I dissolved the coffee, sugar, yeast nutrient and citric acid in 2 litres of boiling water and left it to cool. I added this to a demijohn and topped it up to a gallon with warm water and added the yeast. It wasn’t long before it was bubbling once a second.
I can’t help but think this is just going to taste like alcoholic coffee but we will see.

Elderflower, Apricot and Pinot Noir – Bottling

I had a bit of time saturday so I bottled the wines made from kits. The parsnip wine is still not clear enough to bottle and will probably take a few months. I used a tip from Dave which was to put a small piece of tubing on the end of the tap, this had 2 advantages:
1. The bottles fill from the bottom which means the wine is less exposed to air
2. With the tube in the bottle I can leave the bottle to fill without having to hold the tap in place

As I had 18 bottles to fill I started a bit of a production line. Whilst each bottle was being filled I corked and labelled the previous one. This proved to be very efficient and I finished the bottling fairly quickly.
Just a quick note on the labels I use – I bought some Avery A4 J8163 address labels from Staples and use OpenOffice Writer (New->Labels) which then allows you design each label and print it without having to do any formatting.
Here’s the result:

Beer order

The brupack’s colne valley I’m brewing at the moment is my last kit. I’m finding that as each one takes around 3 weeks in the bucket, I need to start a new kit straight away to keep up a constant supply, so it’s time to order some more.
Ideally I’d get the kits from Harvey’s Homebrew as I don’t have to pay delivery but after a bit of research I had my heart set on John Bull Masterclass Irish Stout. Harvey’s doesn’t seem to stock this and the cheapest I found it was for £14.99 at http://www.leylandhomebrew.com/ (see blogroll). With £5.95 delivery it does make it quite expensive so I decided to order a couple more kits. After much deliberation my order consisted of:

• John Bull Masterclass Irish Stout – An exta dark, highly roasted brew with a smooth hoppy flavour.
• Sherwood India Pale Ale – A British pale ale for the Indian Empire. Lots of hop character, with a smooth well-balanced body. Brewed near Sherwood forest in Nottinghamshire.
• Edme Superbrew Gold Weizen – A smooth golden beer with a rich Bavarian-style character. It is crisp, refreshing and distinctive being made from both wheat and barley malt. Edme is owned by Munton’s

I also ordered another John Bull Masterclass irish stout for Dave bringing the total to £56.96 I needed £3.05 to bring the total to over £60 and get free delivery. So I also got:

• 8 gm. CO2 Bulbs – The only way to get pressurised CO2 delivered
• Hambleton Bard Carbon Dioxide Injector – Connects the CO2 bulb to the S30 valve on my keg