Brewnight: Red grape/blackcurrant/elderberry WOW

Roddy · Aug 30, 2016

Evening all....

One I've been thinking about for a while, so eventually got round to making....

Ingredients
15L Lidl Vitafit red grape juice
3 x 440ml Lowicz Blackcurrant
1kg Youngs Dried Elderberries (bogof on 500g bags at my LHBS)
30g Youngs French Oak chips
1.6kg sugar
5tsp pectolase
5tsp Youngs super wine yeast compound

Method
Pour 2L of grape juice into FV
Tip in sugar
Pour in a kettle full of boiling water (nice one chippy_tea)
Stir well
Pour in rest of grape juice, blackcurrant syrup, oak chips and Elderberries
Top up with cold water to 25.5L

Temp 22deg
SG 1.082
Est abv when fermented out to 0.990 = 12.05%

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Tau · Aug 30, 2016

Oh well you used the elderberries, did post that recipes suggest 227g per gallon, you might find you've over done the juice this time with the blackcurrant.

Roddy · Aug 30, 2016

Should be about right then 1kg for 5 gallons Ã°Å¸Ëâ¬

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Tau · Aug 30, 2016

:thumb

n elderberries, they do blend well with other flavours. I always find that theres too much tannin when I've made a quick wow using those Lowicz juice concentrates, probably be ok.

Personal91 · Aug 31, 2016

Roddy said:
Evening all....

One I've been thinking about for a while, so eventually got round to making....

Ingredients
15L Lidl Vitafit red grape juice
3 x 440ml Lowicz Blackcurrant
1kg Youngs Dried Elderberries (bogof on 500g bags at my LHBS)
30g Youngs French Oak chips
1.6kg sugar
5tsp pectolase
5tsp Youngs super wine yeast compound

Method
Pour 2L of grape juice into FV
Tip in sugar
Pour in a kettle full of boiling water (nice one chippy_tea)
Stir well
Pour in rest of grape juice, blackcurrant syrup, oak chips and Elderberries
Top up with cold water to 25.5L

Temp 22deg
SG 1.082
Est abv when fermented out to 0.990 = 12.05%

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this looks rather yummy!

did you freeze the elderberries the night before to help them breakdown easier ?
keep us posted,

Roddy · Aug 31, 2016

Personal91 said:
this looks rather yummy!

did you freeze the elderberries the night before to help them breakdown easier ?
keep us posted,

naw, just opened the bags and chucked them in :lol:

will see if it's any good, will probably leave for 2-3 weeks in primary

Personal91 · Aug 31, 2016

Roddy said:
naw, just opened the bags and chucked them in :lol:

will see if it's any good, will probably leave for 2-3 weeks in primary

i heard about soaking things like that in vodka and in the freezer before adding it to a brew aswell, i havent had the chance to do it yet but was wondering if you had anything to add to it or any experinces on the matter?

+ that seems like a good amount of time in the fermenter, maybe add a smidge more sugar at the end of the 2nd week just incase all the sugars havent been released by the fruit content to keep them yeasties lively :)

Roddy · Aug 31, 2016

This is my first experience of using elderberries and I dropped the litre of strong tea because I understand that the berries are quite tannic... so the bloke in my LHBS said anyway !

To be honest I've not accounted for the sugar content of the dried berries at all, the OG is purely on the juice and sugar alone, so whatever sugars are released from the dried berries will kick up the ABV a bit, which hopefully won't add too much onto the 12% odd that it will get from the rest.

I'm hoping that all the stuff (berries and oak chips) will drop to the bottom once it's fermenting/ed, otherwise it'll be a pain in the *** to rack, we shall see !

Roddy · Sep 5, 2016

It's down to about 1.010 already, but the elderberries are still floating at the top...

Anyone any ideas if they'll drop down ? Or will I have to use a racking cane with some muslin rubber banded to the bottom ?

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Pirate_Pete · Sep 5, 2016

Roddy said:
It's down to about 1.010 already, but the elderberries are still floating at the top...

Anyone any ideas if they'll drop down ? Or will I have to use a racking cane with some muslin rubber banded to the bottom ?

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Are all of them still floating?

Next time maybe tie them up in a bit of muslin. Or buy some hop bags.
I learnt my lesson chopping up sultanas and just chucking them in.
Bits everywhere. Never again.

Roddy · Sep 5, 2016

Yeh I actually saw that in other posts... probably should have done that !!!

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Pirate_Pete · Sep 5, 2016

Roddy said:
Yeh I actually saw that in other posts... probably should have done that !!!

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Don't you just love it when people come along after and told you what you SHOULD have done.:lol:

Roddy · Sep 5, 2016

Aye, but once I get the urge to brew, most logical stuff goes out of the window haha

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Pirate_Pete · Sep 5, 2016

Roddy said:
Aye, but once I get the urge to brew, most logical stuff goes out of the window haha

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You've been brewing long enough now to know there's nothing logical about it.

Shouldn't you be going to bed?

Roddy · Sep 5, 2016

Probably Ã°Å¸Ëâ¬need to be up in 6 hours....

Trying to finish off my nasty peach punch !

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Pirate_Pete · Sep 6, 2016

Roddy said:
It's down to about 1.010 already, but the elderberries are still floating at the top...

Anyone any ideas if they'll drop down ? Or will I have to use a racking cane with some muslin rubber banded to the bottom ?

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Actually Roddy.

Try banging the side of the FV with your fist.

That's what I was told to do to get the hops to drop to the bottom in my beer.
That seems to work. Although are the elderberries still whole?
Like bloated which is keeping them floating?

If they're still floating. Stop at the pet shop on the way home and get one of those little nets people use to catch their goldfish
when they're cleaning the fish out.

Roddy · Sep 7, 2016

some good ideas there mate.... I gave it a shoogle and a few dropped down but I think they are floating mostly

There's probably a solid inch or so of them at the top of the FX (it's a wide lidded variety)

I had a wee taste last night and I think it's time to get it racked, before the oak chips make it too musty, it's down to about 1.000 so will be fine from a finished point of view....

I think a muslin cover on my racking cane will hopefully do the trick, if I went down the net route, I think I'd risk introducing too much oxygen into it and spoil it....

silly question but is muslin all the same ie baby muslin squares from Tesco, will they do ?

Tau · Sep 7, 2016

Roddy said:
silly question but is muslin all the same ie baby muslin squares from Tesco, will they do ?

Think so, look the same though cost much more than buying a pair of cheap white pillowcases to strain.

Pirate_Pete · Sep 8, 2016

Roddy said:
some good ideas there mate.... I gave it a shoogle and a few dropped down but I think they are floating mostly

There's probably a solid inch or so of them at the top of the FX (it's a wide lidded variety)

I had a wee taste last night and I think it's time to get it racked, before the oak chips make it too musty, it's down to about 1.000 so will be fine from a finished point of view....

I think a muslin cover on my racking cane will hopefully do the trick, if I went down the net route, I think I'd risk introducing too much oxygen into it and spoil it....

silly question but is muslin all the same ie baby muslin squares from Tesco, will they do ?

When my missus got me some muslin a few months back she said the woman in the store sold her food grade muslin. I had no idea there was a food grade version.

I think you might run into problems trying to strain it like that though Roddy. I'm sure someone on here tried something similar.

If it were me I'd probably rack off most of it until the elderberries get near the tap. Then maybe rack the remainder into a different container.

Roddy · Sep 8, 2016

Hmm....

Might abandon the muslin idea, I was going to use it with my racking cane but after racking my Strawberry wow last night, I've noticed the tip of the cane has only a fairly narrow aperture with a removable filter thing so I might get away with it....

I've a feeling I'll be losing a bit of volume with this one... should have put the berries in a muslin bag to begin with Ã°Å¸Ëâ°

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Brewnight: Red grape/blackcurrant/elderberry WOW

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