Summer fruits cider

Summer fruits cider had always been an easy brew over the summer but last year my usual summer fruits juice went suger free and I could taste the sweeteners.

This year I decided to use real fruit so I used 1.7kg of summer fruits from aldi (£2.99 i think per 1kg) and added 1kg of slugger then pored over 2 kettled (about 4 lts) of boiling water. Once it was all mushy i blitzed it with my stick blender, added pectolase and campton and left for 24 hours. I then added 5 lrs of apple juice and topped up with water untill gravity reading was at 1.032 (approx 12lts bottled water). I then added wine yeast. The wine yeast should give me a final reading of 1 (sometimes 0.998). I would expect the cider to be around 3.8%

St peter's golden ale

So no post in a while but I need to record this one.

Picked up a st peter's golden ale from Colchester home brew supplies. Sterilised all the kit and got the brew on as usual. Kit should do 36 pintd but I added water to make it 40 pints. This will lower the alcohol from 4.7 to hopefully around 4%.

Given the weather at the moment (it's very hot. Hit 32 today) i decided I didn't need to submersible heater.

The starting gravity was 1.042

There is a hop enhancer in the kit I will be adding that later in the process. This should add a little bitterness and more fragrance

Stout

I've been meaning to do a stout for a while. Last week i ordered the simply stout kit from amazon. Really simple to following (as you would expect given its name). I added dark brown sugar as i wanted to give it a treacle taste.
I. G. Was 1.038. I did over fill, was probably closer to 25 ltrs than the 23 I was supposed to.

Usual set up in the garage, with submersible heater set a little lower than usual. I was hoping that by it being a little cooler the fermentation would be a little less aggressive

I'll update when I do the next reading

Overdue update

So it's been a while since I've added anything to the blog. Ive done quite a few brews, a few ales, a red wine, 2 or 3 batches of larger and a lot of cider. I am going to attempt to keep it up-to-date so i can keep track of what I've been doing. I may also add a few updates on the fruit in the garden as i intend to do fruity cider again this year

Making Larger from home brew kit

first video upload using "Make your own beer" kit

Time for an experiment

Thought I'd try an experiment.  This could turn out ok could turn out awful.

22/3/2016

Really simple
300gms ovaltine (original not instant) £2
150 gms golden syrup (i used the squeeze one for convince) £1.30
Beer yeast (i had this lying around).

Add it all (except the yeast)  to a clean sterilizer demi john top up with water, lid and shake to mix it all together. Add yeast and lid with airlock.  Leave somewhere to ferment



Initial gravity reading 1.038

23 march update

Stopped off at my local homebrew shop and picked up some target hop pellets. Have added 10gms now and will add another 5 or so a few days before bottling

Cider on a larger scale

With nothing on active brew and everything either aging or carbonating I was after something to do. I stopped off at Aldi and picked up the necessary and decided to do a batch using the brew bucket in stead of a demijohn

Equipment

25 ltr brew bucket fitted with air lock (mine is also fitted with a submersible fish tank heater as my brew goes in the garage)
hydrometer 
sterilizing kit 

you will also need bottles. I reuse 500 ml plastic screw top bottles that can be found in any home brew shop (technically you could use fuzzy drinks bottles they are the almost the same thing but don't quote me on that)

Ingredient 
12 x 1 ltr Aldi apple juice (59p each)
3 x 1 ltr Aldi Cranberry and Raspberry Juice (59p each)
5 lemons (juiced approx 100ml) (99p)
Pectolase (£1 from wilco you will probably have half left)
yeast nutrient (£1 from Wilco you will probably have half left)
wine yeast (i like dry cider and wine yeast can handle higher alcohol so will ferment out all of the sugars) (£2.50 from wilcoyou will probably have half left)
1 lrt relay strong tea (I make it with 4 bags and leave it untill its cool before removing the bags) (already had some)

Not including the equipment (I already have that), teabags (I had those) or water (just turned on the tap)  and this batch cost me 

£8.95 in juice
99p in lemons
£4.50 in stuff from wilco (although i already had all of this left over from previous brews)

total £14.44

I recon ill get at least 40 - 45 bottles which makes it  between 32p and 36p a bottle. result 


What to do

sterilize brewing kit
add 4 teaspoons of pectolase and yeast nutrients to the bucket. 
add lemon juice, Tea (no bags please) and all the juice to the brew bucket 

take reading. 

add water until initial reading is at the initial gravity you want (you may want to put the brew where it will ferment before adding the water, 23 ltr is a bit tricky to move with out spilling)

I had to add 7 - 8 ltr to get the initial gravity to 1.036. 

I then set my heater to 24 C and lid. I like to leave it for a few hours to warm up before adding the yeast so the yeast can get to work easier.

add 4 tsp wine yeast

lid and leave. I'll check it is fermenting tomorrow and then every few days until it stops bubbling and then decide what to do (probably leave it a few more weeks to clear)

I'll update when its time to rack it. (pour it into a clean bucket) and secondary ferment (ready for bottling)


Readings

Initial reading 1.036

How I work out the approx. alcohol %

I work on the basis that the final gravity will be 1. to work out approx. volume take final gravity away from initial gravity and multiply by 131

in this batch the formula would be 
 (1.036 - 1) x 131 = 4.7

meaning the cider will be approx 4.7%. 

I have had some brews finish at 1.002 ( this would be approx. 4.4%) and some at 0.998 (this would be approx. 5%).

I tend to use this a a guide to make sure that my brew isnt going to turn into rocket fuel. without adding the extra water the cider would turn out to be over 7%