Tonight the little flurry of activity continued with bottling a gallon of the mightily impressive Blueberry & Cranberry Quickie Rosé and a gallon of Young's definitive Blackberry Country Wine. The latter is medium and nicely fruity, the former a little drier and crisper. Personally I like the former better but there isn't much in it and probably boils down to a matter of taste. However, consider this .... the kit is 5 months old, the quickie is only 9 weeks old! Pricewise the quickie is way cheaper.
If I compare the kit to the Elderberry and Blackberry wines I made from foraged fruit then this is my conclusion. The foraged ones win out on quality but you have to wait longer for them. The kit will be as good as it gets within 2-3 months. The foraged wines will take longer. The full bodied red will need at least a year, but then you'll get something with a nice pucker, dryness, edge, body and some complexity. The kit in comparison is uncomplicated easy drinking (nothing wrong with that). The foraged wine made from a second run on the fruit is a little lighter all round, will be ready within a year, and if it's not a great big rosé then it'll be a red. Both foraged versions are way more effort, but way more rewarding too.
Got the time, the recipe, the know how and the passion? do it yourself, you won't regret it. Want a quick fix? get the kit, you won't regret that either. You pays your money and makes your choice, you're always a winner with home-brew.
Saturday, 11 December 2010
Friday, 10 December 2010
Vieux Chateau Du Roi
Well it's been a long time coming but finally it's happened. Way back in the summer I bought this Beaverdale kit. It's meant to be the nearest thing you can get to a Chateau Neuf Du Pape and many home-brewers rate it highly. I tried my first ever kit wine based on other home-brewers recommendations. That kit was a Beaverdale Shiraz and it did not disappoint. Beaverdale are mid price-range kits, so it's gonna cost you a couple of pounds (sterling) per bottle, but if you follow the instructions then you'll get something worth 3, 4 or more times that price. How long you wait is up to you but from 6 months old they are good!
So here's a piccie of the box it comes in and everything in the kit.
The demi-john and airlock are not included with the kit. And here's a close up of the various sachets.
2 for clearing agents (clear sachets), oak chips, yeast and stabilisers. Those and the grape juice is all you need, no added sugar, just water.
Follow the instructions and you're laughing cos within minutes you'll have something like this
whoaaa, hold on, now that frothy head isn't a super bionic instantly activating yeast getting going. That came about from giving it all a good shake to mix the grape concentrate with the water. If you don't then you'll get poor mixing meaning layers of concentrate and diluted juice in the demi-john. This will make for a problematic ferment. If you look closely at the picture you'll see the oak chips on the head. It all got a good mix again when the yeast went in.
Tuesday, 7 December 2010
The Usual Processes
Tonight, more degassing and stabilising. The Muscat Grape Wine was very slowly clearing while I was busy with other things. Tonight I had some time so gave it a glance and decided to rack and degas it. Plenty of gas came out, as you can see from the piccie below. I split the 2 gallons and degassed half a gallon at a time. Just quicker and easier that way.
While I was siphoning I stole a taste, wow, it tastes like the grapes that it was made from and is pretty dry! However it's also very sharp. Perhaps not surprising given that it's very young still and all the grapes were not properly ripe. If you remember the wine was not made with pure juice, rather with diluted juice and just as well! - It's easier to make a light wine than a big wine, and if something is likely to be out of balance then this is a good way to make corrections manageable, but also keep the character of your ingredients. Anyway, after degassing it should be a little less acidic, tho maybe not enough to be noticeable. I am very hopeful for this wine tho, it's still very early days, the taste of the grapes is wonderful, and the only fault is that it's not quite balanced because clarity will come.
The plan then is to stabilise it (additions of metabisulphate and sorbate) then leave it to clear, rack again and then leave it for some time to mellow. If it remains sharp I'll try shoving it outside. Hopefully the cold will cause some tartaric acid to drop out of solution and crystallise, then I'll rack it off the crystals and hey presto acid content is reduced and so is sharpness. If that doesn't work then a little sweetening will bring it all into balance.
While I was siphoning I stole a taste, wow, it tastes like the grapes that it was made from and is pretty dry! However it's also very sharp. Perhaps not surprising given that it's very young still and all the grapes were not properly ripe. If you remember the wine was not made with pure juice, rather with diluted juice and just as well! - It's easier to make a light wine than a big wine, and if something is likely to be out of balance then this is a good way to make corrections manageable, but also keep the character of your ingredients. Anyway, after degassing it should be a little less acidic, tho maybe not enough to be noticeable. I am very hopeful for this wine tho, it's still very early days, the taste of the grapes is wonderful, and the only fault is that it's not quite balanced because clarity will come.
The plan then is to stabilise it (additions of metabisulphate and sorbate) then leave it to clear, rack again and then leave it for some time to mellow. If it remains sharp I'll try shoving it outside. Hopefully the cold will cause some tartaric acid to drop out of solution and crystallise, then I'll rack it off the crystals and hey presto acid content is reduced and so is sharpness. If that doesn't work then a little sweetening will bring it all into balance.
Been a Little Busy
Yikes, it's almost 2 weeks since I posted! But I have been doing bits and pieces, such as bottling more Blueberry & Cranberry Rosé because it's going down so well that we keep creating empties. So here is a gratuitous piccie of bottles of said Rosé.
Lots of screw tops because this wine doesn't get a chance to age in bottles. So no point wasting corks, simply re-use those screw tops time and time again. It's a nice colour eh, and we're now down to our last 8 gallons! Thanks also to the folks who took the time to write and tell me they have taken the plunge and have some 3 gallons of this on the go. You know who you are.
Lots of screw tops because this wine doesn't get a chance to age in bottles. So no point wasting corks, simply re-use those screw tops time and time again. It's a nice colour eh, and we're now down to our last 8 gallons! Thanks also to the folks who took the time to write and tell me they have taken the plunge and have some 3 gallons of this on the go. You know who you are.
Tuesday, 23 November 2010
More Racking and Degassing
Late last night I squeezed in a little more brewing activity and racked the next 5 gallon batch of Blueberry & Cranberry. Started degassing it too. Busy times!
Saturday, 20 November 2010
Racking and Degassing
A day in the brewery that feels like an immense amount has been achieved. Well moving 30 bottles of wine one step closer to imminent drinking would do eh!
So this is the 5 gallon batch of Blueberry & Cranberry Rosé, today I racked it and started degassing it by swirling and rocking each DJ. It's a funny thing but it gives me a nice connection to my wine, I always want to call it "burping the baby". Place the DJ in your lap and swirl/rock it while you watch the dissolved gasses (mostly CO2) come out of solution and bubble up through the airlock. This is what the end of 4 degassing sessions, on 5 DJ's, looks like. I love the colour and clarity of this wine and it's not even 8 weeks since it was started. Tastes fine too! But will need more degassing yet before stabilising and bottling.
and this is what it looks like the moment you stop the burping
You'll get a "head" on your wine each time you do this for some time. But it is worth it, the wine will be still. If you don't it'll have a slight fizz (I think the poncey term is frizz). Personally I quite like it, but if folk are not expecting it then they'll either be suspicious of your abilities, or if they are wine competition types then they'll tell you it's a fault and "mark you down" for it.
I kinda see what "they" are aiming for. There is nothing bad about wine with this frizz, it's just not fashionable in those circles. But once upon a time new world wine was sneered at too. Fashions change, whether you're in the inner circle or not. But I think I'm a bit of an odd-ball brewer anyway. I choose my yeast to suit my preferences (low foaming and extra esters). And also to suit the conditions; rather than change the conditions (temperature with a heating belt/mat for example) to suit yeast. I avoid all finings if at all possible and prefer to wait. I have never filtered. I haven't failed to clear a bottle of wine for a few hundred bottles but if offered cloudy or hazy homebrew I'll drink it as long as it tastes right. And I won't sneer at it either. Cos I love home-brewing and as long as you keep it a pleasure then you will too.
So if you're starting out, or still pretty new to it all, then take it slow and easy, don't fret about the small stuff, you'll still love drinking what you made. And by the time you know enough to make "improvements" then you will have given your senses something out of the ordinary. So then you can decide whether or not you want to change it. There's nothing wrong with making a generic wine, and it's easy enough to do, there's plenty of step by step recipes for those wines on the web. But making something unique and quality, well that's special.
Was that a rant?
So this is the 5 gallon batch of Blueberry & Cranberry Rosé, today I racked it and started degassing it by swirling and rocking each DJ. It's a funny thing but it gives me a nice connection to my wine, I always want to call it "burping the baby". Place the DJ in your lap and swirl/rock it while you watch the dissolved gasses (mostly CO2) come out of solution and bubble up through the airlock. This is what the end of 4 degassing sessions, on 5 DJ's, looks like. I love the colour and clarity of this wine and it's not even 8 weeks since it was started. Tastes fine too! But will need more degassing yet before stabilising and bottling.
and this is what it looks like the moment you stop the burping
You'll get a "head" on your wine each time you do this for some time. But it is worth it, the wine will be still. If you don't it'll have a slight fizz (I think the poncey term is frizz). Personally I quite like it, but if folk are not expecting it then they'll either be suspicious of your abilities, or if they are wine competition types then they'll tell you it's a fault and "mark you down" for it.
I kinda see what "they" are aiming for. There is nothing bad about wine with this frizz, it's just not fashionable in those circles. But once upon a time new world wine was sneered at too. Fashions change, whether you're in the inner circle or not. But I think I'm a bit of an odd-ball brewer anyway. I choose my yeast to suit my preferences (low foaming and extra esters). And also to suit the conditions; rather than change the conditions (temperature with a heating belt/mat for example) to suit yeast. I avoid all finings if at all possible and prefer to wait. I have never filtered. I haven't failed to clear a bottle of wine for a few hundred bottles but if offered cloudy or hazy homebrew I'll drink it as long as it tastes right. And I won't sneer at it either. Cos I love home-brewing and as long as you keep it a pleasure then you will too.
So if you're starting out, or still pretty new to it all, then take it slow and easy, don't fret about the small stuff, you'll still love drinking what you made. And by the time you know enough to make "improvements" then you will have given your senses something out of the ordinary. So then you can decide whether or not you want to change it. There's nothing wrong with making a generic wine, and it's easy enough to do, there's plenty of step by step recipes for those wines on the web. But making something unique and quality, well that's special.
Was that a rant?
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