Home brewing kits ....

From my first attempt earlier this year, Young's Harvest Bitter

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I've got some Geordie Mild brewing at the moment, smells really nice.
 
Jonny69 said:
This is pretty much what the old Boots high alcohol brew kits were. You'd brew up a lot of sugar in a gallon of water with high alcohol yeast, a yeast nutrient and a bit of citric acid. Then activated charcoal was added to absorb the odours. Then finings were added and it would clear. Once syphoned out you'd have clear, theoretically flavourless, liquor. Into that would go a sachet of concentrated schnapps flavouring and more sugar to taste.
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I went to my brewshop today, were two couples in there getting started on their brewing adventure - nice to see.
Anyway, I bought some charcoal. What do I do with it? Just tip it in before racking?
 
Tonyator said:
More to come in once it's fermented...
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Mine is similar to yours. I used the juice of 15 lemons (cheaper from the market, I think they were £1) and 1kg of sugar. Fermentation took a few weeks and it took some time to clear. I bottled it yesterday but it has been clearing for a good few months now.

Ahleckz said:
I went to my brewshop today, were two couples in there getting started on their brewing adventure - nice to see.
Anyway, I bought some charcoal. What do I do with it? Just tip it in before racking?
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I *think* the kit specified to put the charcoal in and shake it well, then shake it once or twice a day for about 3 days. Then you tipped in a sachet of finings (which I think was chitosan) and it cleared down in about 2-3 days with all the charcoal and yeast sat quite compressed at the bottom.
 
I knocked this up at lunchtime:

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Can you tell what it is yet?

/Rolf

It's a prop to make syphoning easier. When you get to the bottom of the demijohn you have to tip the bottle a bit to make sure you get the maximum amount of booze out. I've been propping it up on books so far, but I always end up sloshing it around a bit. This way I can sit it on there a day in advance and everything will have settled down :)

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Hahaha, very nice, and totally unnecessary, I love it :D

I've got loads on the go at the mo. A Czech Pils, an APA and 2 nice white wines. Drinking a nice barrel of Nelsons Revenge, and have some Grand Cru maturing in bottles :D
 
The blackberry wine I made was with jam. Other half had made our foraged blackberries into jam but put waaaaay too much sugar in. I dissolved it down, added more sugar for the brew and let it go!

Just put a turbo cider on for the third brew with 3 Lidl 1.5l apple juices, a mug of tea and 200g of sugar. I'm going to do a gallon of Wurzel's Orange Wine because it seems to be in high regard on that forum. Just waiting for my pectolase in the post and I can get it going. Might stagger it for a few weeks so as to take the workload off :p
 
Ahleckz said:
My pal made some fruit cider, which he bottled last night and said it "doesn't taste too bad!". I'll get the recipe off him later.
It's worth experimenting I suppose!
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Yo Ahleckz any news on a recipe :)

Ahleckz said:
Tonyator, the turbo cider does get better with age amazingly. It's rough now but gets surprisingly smooth a few months down the line.
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You're right, even after around 2/3 weeks in the bottles it's a lot nicer :)

Jonny69 said:
Just put a turbo cider on for the third brew with 3 Lidl 1.5l apple juices, a mug of tea and 200g of sugar.
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What does the tea add to the TC brew?

Also is that filter used in that link any good?
 
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HeadlessChicken said:
Yeah I am tempted to try that. Problem being is that Apfelwein gives me a stinging headache the next day after drinking, whether I get drunk or not. Puts me off these juice wines.
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Do you let it brew out or do you stop it with campden and sorbate? Quite a few people have said you get some nasties in the first part of any brew, but the yeast breaks them down when you leave it to finish. Halting the brew prematurely with campden and sorbate and then forcing a clear with finings would surely leave all that stuff in there?

Tonyator said:
What does the tea add to the TC brew?

Also is that filter used in that link any good?
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The tea adds tannin. Not used a filter, but in the CJJ Berry book he uses a filter.
 
Oh I meant specifically... What do the tannins do to the brew, would you recommend adding tea to every TC?


Bought a few bits and pieces... some filters, some fining, campden tabs, yeast nutrient, a couple of airlocks and some super yeast.

When the stuff gets here gonna get a 5 gallon TC on the go... and possibly a 5l fruit cider, blueberry maybe?
Lemonade still seems to be bubbling away slowly :)
 
Ah right, dunno. I spotted earlier that the tannin can stop the drink tasting too acidic. Maybe I should add some to my super lemonade because it's killer lemony. It's tempting to re-brew it with more sugar and nutrient and see what I can get it up to :D
 
Roight. It's 10 days since I put the brews on and they've both stopped fermenting. No movement in the airlocks. I had a little taste yesterday and they both taste completely dry. The cloudy apple is quite sharp so it'll need a bit of sweetening; the perry, well that tastes a little odd so I'll sweeten it until you can't tell :D

Today I've racked both off the yeast and added campden and sorbate to stop any further fermentation. That way I can add sugar to sweeten with no risk of fermentation kicking off again. The apple racked off fine and I think it's going to be a cloudy one once cleared. The pear didn't rack so well. Because it's pulp, it's mainly sat in suspension halfway down the demijohn. I basically left just the bottom bit in the original jar and I'm going to have to leave it for longer to clear and I'll probably end up losing quite a lot of it in the quest to get a pulp-free liquor. I probably should have run it through a muslin to start with but, meh, you live and learn :D
 
Alcoholic Lemonade

Edited


This is not a tested recipe and may fail... it's inspired by HeadlessChicken's Two day alchoholic Ginger Beer & Lemonade Thread and a few recipes around the interwebs.

Ingredients
8 Lemons
2 Limes
~500g Sugar (to get to ~5% alcohol)
Water (used out of the bottle I bought)
~tsp Yeast (using Cider yeast as I have a few sachets)
A little pectic enzyme to help the juice a bit (optional, but I've got some around)

Method
  1. Boil a few litres of the water and dissolved the sugar in it.
  2. Juice the lemons and limes and cut the zest off.
  3. Chuck the zest in the boiled sugar water to steep and let it cool a bit.
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  4. Put the Sugar water and Zest into the bottle along with the juice.
  5. Sprinkle a little pectic enzyme in the bottle.
  6. Add the yeast, wait a few minutes and mix it.
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  7. Leave in a warm place until fermentation completes

    Fermented out... no more bubbling (tbh I Couldn't be bothered to check with a hydrometer :p)
  8. Put it into sterilized 1 litre bottles with a teaspoon and a half of sugar and shook it up.
  9. Leave some where warm until it's settled/cleared and hopefully carbonated.
 
Ok, so bought a few bits and have tried 2 things...

First
Raspberry Turbo Cider

So I just used the same TC recipe from my first batch (here) and replaced a bit of apple juice with some frozen raspberries...

Ingredients
4L of Apple Juice
100g frozen raspberries
~50g Sugar (to get to ~6-7% alcohol)
~1tsp Cider Yeast
~1tsp pectic enzyme
1 yeast nutrient tablet

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Method
  1. Add the juice and sugar to the fermenter
  2. Crush the raspberries and add to the fermenter
  3. Add the yeast nutrient tablet and Pectic enzyme to the fermenter and shake well
  4. Add the yeast, wait a few minutes and mix it
  5. Leave in a warm place until fermentation completes
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    ...
  6. Syphon into sterilized bottles, through muslin or filter paper.
  7. Leave some where warm until it's settled/cleared for a few weeks

Secondly
20% alcohol

Ok this is an experiment to make some 20% alcohol using super yeast, sugar and water... fingers crossed :)

Ingredients
8kg sugar
Water (@40c) to top up to 23L
Campden Tablet
Alcotec 48 Turbo Super yeast
Alcotec 24 Turbo Klar

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Method
  1. Added the water to the fermenter and added the campden tablet (as per instructions on tablets)
  2. Add the sugar and stir to dissolve
  3. Add the yeast sachet and stir for 1 minute
  4. leave to ferment at 20-32c for 5 days without an airlock (according to the instructions on the yeast)
  5. Use Turbo Klar to clear it, and syphon to bottle through a filter.
This is an experiment and may fail.... but if not, 23L of 20% alcohol for ~£10
 
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