Another Brew On

wow, I forgot to add a new brew, I must have been busy even tho i'm meant to be on holiday! Anyway, a few days ago I started a new brew. Roasted Green Tea & Ginger. I'll write up the whole recipe sometime next week, sorry for keeping you waiting. But some chat about it now .... its Roasted Bancha and it makes a cracking cup of tea, tho it is quite "stocky" kind of like mushroom stock, and smokey too. I'll be very curious to see how this one works out.

The recipe is basically a copy of this one (clicky), except

• The green tea is replaced with roasted green tea. 
• Because this roasted tea was strongly flavoured in comparison I diluted it a bit more than usual. So the 100g of the tea made 3 gallons rather than 2.5
• I made it into a quickie wine, OG (original gravity) was reduced and the sultanas were replaced with 2 litres of grape juice per gallon of wine.

Today I took the muslin bag of tea out and moved it to secondary fermenter. I haven't been good at stirring it (only done so twice since starting) but it is fermenting just fine. Good old Sauternes yeast (Ritchies), it really is a very dependable and robust yeast that is so clean and easy to work with. I can't recommend it enough.

Like i said, a proper recipe (with piccies - cos i did take some) will follow next week.

Today I was told that my 2008 Tanglefoot tasted like Vermouth, and you know ... it does! I didn't write up that recipe anywhere, but did write up the next version. You can find it here, but you do need to give it 3 years if you want it to taste like vermouth. It turned out 14.1% ABV and despite that high figure really is very good indeed.

It wasn't the right thing to have with a homemade, indian inspired, yoghurt marinaded, salmon fillet and pasta with homemade pesto. But what would be? a nice big red may have been the best choice, but so may have been a Green Tea & Ginger which is spectacular with spicy food, especially curry.

The sad news is ... it was the last bottle, and that means in the whole world!

Elderflower Dreaming

I can't believe its almost 3 weeks since i posted here! So what's new in the world of Critter wines? I'm afraid not much is because i've been too busy to brew. I did however take part in an event that i promised i would give homebrew tasters at. And it went down well. Tho i must admit to being over confident with one bottle. remember the mint wine, the one that was delicious but didn't taste of mint. So i added sprigs of mint to it. Well i took a bottle along and it was too soon. It tasted green, leafy, earthy (sometimes earthy works but not in this case). It was simply too soon. Luckily i had plenty of elderflower with me and that went down a storm. also some blackberry which went down just as well but was in short supply.

So elderflower dreaming ... it has happened, this years elderflower quick (batch 1) has arrived. and its a delight. I'm loving the thought of 5 gallons of it, so the gallon that's almost gone is the tip of the iceberg. and batch 2 will soon be ready, also 5 gallons. After the event i mentioned above myself and one of the other participants (hi Jay!) talked. Well that's an understatement. We got home around midnight and then sat up til the birds were in full song. We finished the mint wine, then the single unfinished elderflower bottle, then we opened another. I was delighted that he enjoyed it so much, a real pleasure to keep answering his question "can i have another glass" with repeated "please don't ask just tuck in, there is plenty more". So what can i tell you, we solved some of the worlds problems, discussed our differences of opinion, agreed to differ on some things ... all in all a great night of conversation and being human. Most importantly being human with acceptance of differences of opinion and no hard feelings over that.

Well i say most importantly, but of course that's not the truth! reality is as you all know it, if you have made this Elderflower wine then you'll know the most important thing was the wine. Without it all the wonders of the world would have remained a mystery. What can i say, it's a homebrew blog, no apologies.