New to the sport!

[ReadingBrewer]

Hiya there!

My girl friend and I are in the process of buying our first house together, meaning we'll soon have the storage space needed to start brewing, and the financial incentive!

Primarily I'm interested in producing Mead and Wines from seasonal British fruits. Until a recent career change I was cheffing, so the idea of provenance and doing everything from scratch really appeals to me!

I'm looking to hopefully get a gallon of something on the go this coming weekend pending some further research and getting to the local Brew Shop. Any suggestions for something that I can have an attempt at and get bottled within about 6 weeks would be great, just due to the probable time frame on the house move.

I look forward to learning from, and hopefully contributing to, the forums!

:

 

[joe1002]

Welcome to the forum :

How about trying a WOW - see here. You could always use a 5l supermarket water bottle to ferment in with cotton wool stuffed in the top if you don't have an airlock.

 

[ReadingBrewer]

Heya, and thanks!

I've actually had a read through that post since I did the introduction. However I have just found out what WoW stands for on re-reading the post title you linked - google searches were only showing a popular online game, haha!

I think I'll give that one a go then as it comes reccomended, will post some pictures over the weekend, and no doubt some more questions!

 

[dennisking]

Hi and welcome.

 

[oldbloke]

A great entry-level wine is fruit teabag. Cheap quick and easy to make, ferments out pretty quickly, tastes great even when young.
There's a long thread here somewhere about them, but the basics are: couple of litres of grape juice, a full box of 20 fruit teabags (your choice of flavour), maybe some raisins, acid (mix preferred but citric will do), bit of tannin (esp if no raisins), kilo of sugar, nutrient, yeast.
After that you'll have covered the basic techniques.
It's the time of year for parsnip and carrot wines, many recipes about.
Natural fruits etc get a bit rare Jan-Mar so that could be a good time to try some mead, or some weirdy stuff like coffee wine. Or knock out a quick turbocider.
Then you get into dandelion and nettle season.
Then a gap for your summer holiday and come back to start on berries and stuff like plums.

 

[ReadingBrewer]

Heya, thanks very much Dennis!

Ooh, Oldbloke that all sounds very interesting as well! Silly question regarding yeast, is it possible to use too much? The only reference point I have with yeast is in bread making, where too much can definitely impart a flavor which is less than desirable. Although from what I've read so far, the alcohol content leading to the rapid demise of the yeast at a certain point, and subsequent racking should avoid too much too much undesired flavor being imparted?

 

[oldbloke]

Putting more in than necessary is just a waste, but afaik doesn't really impact on flavour - it's not like bread where it's all in the final product. There should be almost none in a finished wine; bottle-conditioned beers and ciders will of course have a bit.
If you get dried, it'll be 5g or 7g sachets, enough for up to 5 gallons of wine. But if you do smaller batches (like me) you can't use 1/5 for 1 gallon coz of the way the yeast colony grows itself. And though it will keep a while once opened it's better to just use it - you'd maybe get 3 separate gallons from a sachet, I generally stick to 2.

 

[ReadingBrewer]

Ah ok very good now, 1 gallon DJ's were what I was thinking of starting with myself. And the yeast itself, in the research I've done so far on the 'Winey' end of the scale people seem to reccomend sparkling wine yeast? Is this something I can request from my local home brew shop wihtout being run out of town? Or are there better options out there?

 

[ReadingBrewer]

Ah, I believe I've found the thread you mentioned actually!

http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=2291

That the puppy?

 

[oldbloke]

Ah ok very good now, 1 gallon DJ's were what I was thinking of starting with myself. And the yeast itself, in the research I've done so far on the 'Winey' end of the scale people seem to reccomend sparkling wine yeast? Is this something I can request from my local home brew shop wihtout being run out of town? Or are there better options out there?

I try to use a red wine yeast for berries and white wine yeast for root veg/flowers. High tolerance yeast for mead coz I like my mead very strong.
Lots of people just use Young's all-purpose wine yeast. You have to have made the same recipe many times before being able to tell what different yeasts contribute to it.
I wouldn't use a yeast designed for sparkling wine except for a sparkling wine, though it's believed some cider yeasts are the same strain as some champagne yeasts.
I tend to but something like a dozen sachets at a time, online, from somewhere that'll let me choose a mix. I often use Gervin yeasts, but Lalvin, Ritchie's, Young's... they all work.

 

[oldbloke]

Ah, I believe I've found the thread you mentioned actually!

http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=2291

That the puppy?

Yep, basic recipe 1st post

 

[Papa G]

Hi, welcome to the forum :

 

[ReadingBrewer]

Thanks Papa G!

Thanks for all the advice Oldbloke, I'm feeling much more prepared to embark on the brewing haha, looking forward to putting the theory into practise!

Couple of questions on that first recipe from the link that I'm gonna try on Saturday. They refer to allowing the 'initial woosh' to subside in a bucket. So could I do this initial stage in a plastic tub of the sort from my local brew shop, plastic water bottle etc (sterilised of course). Also should the bucket be covered at all during this stage? I know that it will vary based on temperature and the yeast etc, but roughly how long will this initial woosh be? Will a noobie spot when it is over? I just spotted that entire paragraph could be misconstrued horribly but I'm not gonna reword it as I'm on the mobile, haha!

Cheers for all the advice so far!

 

[oldbloke]

The 1 gallon buckets from the homebrew shops are great , if you get one from somewhere else you have to know it's food grade plastic and didn't have anything nasty in it before.
In a demijohn, you need to leave a lot of headspace for up to 5 days; in a bucket, being wider at the top, you can leave less headspace - a couple of inches will do but more is safer. Depends what you're making. Not all wines need to wait 5 days before topping up, but it doesn't hurt to wait that long. It's not always obvious when the first vigorous phase is done, but 3 days will almost always lead to a messy escape, and I've had airlocks clogged with gunk after topping up at 4 days depressingly often. 5 days seems to be generally OK.
If there are no lumpy solids that will need straining out after the first few days, it's simpler to just start in a demijohn with an airlock.
A bucket needs a lid, mainly to stop stuff falling in. Few lids seal perfectly so the gas generated by the ferment generally manages to get out somehow. If it domes up a lot you can just release a section briefly to let the gas out. As far as I know they all come with lids, but you could use clingfilm or even just drape a clean teatowel over it if that's all you have.

 

[ReadingBrewer]

Ah ok , awesome stuff! So I can just do the whole process in the dj? So initial mix in, leave 5 days (with airlock presumably), top up to just above the shoulder and complete as per the recipe? Well that seems a lot less hassle than I was trying to make it for myself!

 

[Stone Cold]

Welcome!

 

[mattyhall22]

Welcome :