Have I Ruined My Brew?

[John506]

Hey guys,

I bought a young's 6 bottle kit to give brewing a go. I started it on Sunday night, mixed my sugar with my boiling water, added the grape juice, topped it up with cold water, added the yeast, nutrients and oak chips, and have left it there to stand until today.

It was kept in a small fermenting bucket and the instructions said to just loosely put the lid on and leave it, so I did.

Whether it was necessary or not, I was worrying a bit about bacteria getting into my brew. As we have a cat with a litter tray, and sometimes the whole flat can stink when we come home from work (yukky I know) I was thinking maybe there wouild be alot of air born bacteria about.

So I went out today and bought an air lock and a bung, my attempt to cut a neat hole in the plastic lid failed and wouldn't keep an air tight seal. So after sterilizing a big old whisky jar I have, I mixed my brew about to disturb all the settlement in the bottom of the plastic bucket, and began pouring it into a jug and transferring it into my whisky bottle.

Problem is, there was a small amount left in the jug at the end, which I thought wasn't much wastage and bunged my bottle and put my bubbler on, it was bubbling, happy days!

When I went to wash the jug out I tipped it into the sink and there was a fair amount of oak chips in the bottom of the sink, yikes!

My brew is now bubbling away and frothing over a little bit, so I have a few questions...

Should I add more yeast as I may have lost some in the bottom of the jug?
Should I do anything about the frothing or just let it settle? (my airlock is now full of wine)
Should I leave it for any longer than the instructions because I have majorly disturbed it?

Any other advice would be great, as I really want this to turn out well and be the start of a great hobby!

Thanks!

 

[Moley]

Welcome to the forum :

No, you don't need to add more yeast, anything which is settled on the bottom is usually muck and dead stuff, and there are literally billions of yeast cells floating around in the wine doing their thing.

Don't worry about the frothing, it happens when a jar is over-filled, just stand it on a tray and clean out the airlock from time to time.

Leaving things a little bit longer than the instructions say is usually a good thing anyway.

 

[John506]

Hi Moley, thanks for the welcome!

I'm glad you have said that and my batch is still good to go!

If the kit is a 7 day kit, how long would you recommend to leave it for? - I've done this kit before in the past, and bottled it after the 7 days and I didn't think it tasted that good! Would leaving it give it a better taste?

Sorry for the 21 questions, just want to be sure :)

 

[Cussword]

If you leave it four fourteen days, you will see that it has gone a little clearer. The point is, usually, the longer you leave it the better it gets :thumb:

 

[Moley]

If the kit is a 7 day kit, how long would you recommend to leave it for? - I've done this kit before in the past, and bottled it after the 7 days and I didn't think it tasted that good! Would leaving it give it a better taste?

Look, I have never made and would never make a Young's kit wine, and I would never even contemplate buying anything which claimed it could be ready in 7 days.

Whatever timings they give, I would probably treble them, and then give it at least a month in the bottle before I even tested one.

I have tried a couple of the mid-priced Beaverdale kits, they were drinkable at one month, compared to commercial wines they were probably up to the “three for a tenner” bracket by 3 months, and maybe nudging the fiver by 6 months.

 

[Damsonite]

Years ago I used to kick the odd CWE kit off (do they still exist?) and some of the stuff turned out surprisingly tasty but although it said something like 14 - 21 days on some of them, I always gave the wine a minimum of three months and, dependent on the type (e.g. a vermouth), six months. Anything less than three months simply proved disappointing, but if you give the stuff the time it needs to mature then the only way you'd ruin it is by not drinking it! :party:

 

[otuatail]

I leave the top of my fermenter as I have to put a heater in and the lid wont fit properly. I just place the lid on best I can and put a bath towl over the top. Works fine. if it does ferment over it will get captured by the towl and not go over the floor and you can wash the towl afterwards.

Desmond.