Topping Up

I decided to add white grape juice to the quickie elderflower gallon that needed topping up, rather than sugar solution. Why? Well there isn't much juice in this wine anyway (2 litres/gallon) so topping up without some more fruit juice seems a bit optimistic, especially when a litre was needed. The juice weighs in with an OG of 1070, so it's not dissimilar to the OG of the original brew, I may adjust it with a little sugar solution for the last 100ml or so, to maintain additions with a very close gravity to the OG. It just makes calculating the %ABV easier.

These additions should make this gallon of wine noticeably different to the other 4 gallons started from the same base brew. I'm not sure how much so, it'll be interesting to see when the time comes. It will of course need a little longer as this gallon will be fermenting for some time yet, while the others have more or less stopped and will be degassed and stabilised soon.

It's Hot in Much of the UK

Some of you, like me, will be fermenting at the mo. Some of you, unlike me, will be concerned that your brew is getting to hot (I put a wetsuit on and tried body-boarding in a surf-less sea, still had a nice day out tho). You'll probably be wondering about all sorts of ways to cool it down. But before you start emptying the freezer to make ice consider this low tech but very effective method....

Wet a towel, or some tea towels. Squeeze them 'til they stop dripping and then drape them over your fermenting vessel. Put them in a well ventilated spot, like next to an open window. As the water evaporates it cools the contents of the fermenting vessel. All you have to do is keep wetting the (tea) towels. If you have a fan then this will help, and if you have a cool stone (tiles, cement etc) floor this will further help.

This is all due to something called latent heat of evaporation. In a nutshell it takes energy to get water to evaporate, this energy comes from heat, the heat comes from whatever is in the fermentation vessel.

Elderflower Shuffling etc

The Elderflower wines have been demanding attention, so they got some!
Yesterday I took the flowers out of both batches.
Today I moved the larger one to 5 DJ's, one of which needs a top up (sugar and water at around 1070-1080). I'll label this DJ separately, it'll be interesting see how much difference the topping up makes.
Also today moved the smaller batch (3 gallons) to the secondary fermenter.

The Amazing Bottle Opener

Gah! Not another gratuitous piccie! This is the bottle opener that I know as an "Ahso". Tho this one is stamped "Italy" and "FGB". I think the "Ahso" came from the Far East, as you would expect of such a neat gadget.

You place the longer of the two prongs between the cork and the bottle neck. Then wiggle it down until the shorter prong reaches the cork on the other side of the neck. Another little wiggle ensures it is properly in on both sides. Then you "rock" the opener down, side to side. When at the bottom you stop rocking and start twisting upwards and hey presto out comes the cork, undamaged, No push-ins, no crumbling no problems. And the real magic is that by doing the opposite (twist down and rock up) you can reinsert a cork! And they are cheap as chips.

Cork Thoughts

So what's this gratuitous picture then?
These are corks recently pulled from 2 bottles of wine. As the astute amongst you will be aware I didn't use a corkscrew, I used a two-pronged type bottle opener. The first one I got to know went under the brand name of "Ahso" if i remember right. Anyway the cork on the left is the type I have been using most often for med-long term storage. The one on the right was the type I was using 2 years ago. It had leaked every so slightly, you couldn't see any volume change, but the neck of the bottle was sticky and the top of the cork a little sticky too. It was also a little grey/green in the "grain" of the cork. The ones on the left don't seem to do this. And I'm telling you all this because the right one came out of tonight's bottle of Rosehip & Star Anise wine (see earlier post) and it hasn't suffered at all for this.

I'm still not sure which cork is best, but when I opened the Rosehip & Star Anise it felt like I was opening a 50 year old bottle and was quite exciting!

Tidy up & Quality Control

With the 5 gallon Elderflower ferment slowing down now I've been thinking ahead a little. So today had a bit of an organise; washed and sterilised some bottles, starting checking the empty DJ's for dodgey smells and found a couple, so washed and sterilised them too. Almost ready to go for racking now, just to make sure I remember which DJ's I checked.

Checked the wine rack for vacancies and found there was none of last year's Elderflower in it, neither Rose Petal. So put that to rights with full labelling, and then found that I hadn't put simple labels on the Rose Petal wine (I don't bother with a full picture label for my wine unless they are gifts or on display). So put that right too.

Felt pleased with myself for being prepared and organised ... and avoiding finding an unlabelled bottle of wine in a few years and not having a clue what it is! So I grabbed myself a bottle of almost 2 year old Rosehip & Star Anise.

What a delight. Warm, med/dry, star anise is there but my taste buds are asking is it licorice, aniseed, star anise, fennel, not quite sure, but definitely good, you smell it a little before it reaches your mouth. Once there of course you taste it, it's not overpowering but isn't subtle either. There's also well rounded fruit flavours, tho I can't put my finger on them, if I try hard then I'd say perhaps pear, apricot and a little pineapple and raspberry. So I'll stop trying cos that just sounds way confusing!

Anyway it's made my mind up, I'll do another batch of Rosehip this year, I won't bother with the Cinnamon version. Instead I'll just do Mace (also works well) and Star Anise.

If you want to know the recipe but can't be bothered to wait til I post it then it's more or less the recipe in CJJ.Berry's book, except I added a single whole Star Anise flower to each DJ when it had finished fermenting, and left it in for a few months. Then I left it for about12-18 months longer. It definitely needs time to age, At 6-12 months it was hooch, coarse, hot, loopy juice. Now it tastes great and is rounded.

OK, this is an edit some 30 minutes later .... I just had a big swig and knock me down with a feather I can taste raisins, this is what is behind the anise flavours, giving it all body. Talk about not seeing the wood for the trees!