Brews on today!

[avinabacca]

Spent this afternoon in the kitchen, making a rose WOW with Tesco finest red grape juice, and a Hooch-style lemon-pop experiment (in the style of Skeeterpee but with plenty of fresh lemons instead of the concentrate). Should be there or thereabouts in time for Bank Holiday BBQing... :

Also swopped the current TC into a clean DJ and added more apple juice and a quarter-cup of strong (cold) tea for the tannin. Tasted sharp but good from the syphon tube, so let's see what a bit of time does for it.

Got the brewing bug back big-style :)

 

[RobWalker]

i'm adamant that something like this would make a wickid Hooch clone;

after all, the sugars that are eaten in lemonade can no doubt be replaced with sweetener...

 

[avinabacca]

Now that's a thought, actually. Certainly cut out the middleman and save chopping up loads of lemons... :hmm:

TC and lemon-pop going hard at it right now - will be bottling the cider this week (probably drinking a good portion of it at the weekend, actually - likely to be a tad harsh, but see how it goes) and I'm quite pleased so far.

The WOW is a bit underwhelming, though. I mean, nothing wrong in and of itself - seems to be enough action in the DJ, a happily plipping airlock and if it were, say, another TC I suppose I'd be reasonably happy with the progress.

But it's day three of a WOW and I haven't yet had the vigorous bubbliness. I'm sure everyone else's first WOW resulted in a horror of fruity magma clogging up their airlock, while I've got a sedate quarter-inch or so of mildly pulpy head. But this is ok, right? :wha:

 

[weepete]

Its fine mate, I've done a few wow variants now and the red grape juice or blueberry ones seem to take a bit longer. Never had any bubble up out of the airlock either and they turned out fine. As long as you have the fermentation going then just give it time.

 

[avinabacca]

Thanks Weepete - aye, topped up with water to the neck and it seemed to liven up a fair bit; plenty of activity going on now (with both the original and the second batch I put on last week) so happy to see where it goes.

It's a big time thing, isn't it - going to have to practice and learn the patience all over again...