Mixed Bag

Time sure has a way of getting away from you, doesn't it? I was going to post last weekend but just ran out of time to get things done. The reason for posting was that I began another brewing experiment. 'Another?' I hear you ask. Let's start at the begining . . .

In November last year I began reading about mead-making. I found several websites about it and also got books out of the library. Seems like it is a fairly simple process and I thought it would be fun. I could also get the necessary equipment for virtually nothing. I needed a bucket with a tight-fitting lid, an airlock, some honey, a little bit of citric and tartaric acid, an orange, some yeast and some time. I found the recipe and method I wanted to try. I use a 2 litre bottle of filtered water to provide both the water and the container for my mead and went to work. It fermented very slowly, but did do what it was supposed to, slowly inflating the balloon on top each time I squeezed the gas out.

After about 5 weeks I siphoned the very cloudy mead off all the organic matter and yeast in the bottle, and got enough to fill a 1.5 litre soda bottle, with a little bit left over. Tempted as I was I didn't try it at this point, but just tossed the excess out. I put the bottle back in the airing cupboard and waited to see what would happen. It slowly began to clear. It got to about Christmas time and things got very busy, we got sick and had a holiday (see previous posts). When I got around to checking on the mead again and miraculous change had occurred. It was really clear and golden coloured with a thin layer of yeast at the bottom of the bottle. There were soem little particles floating on top of the liquid, which caused me a little concern, but otherwise it all seemed to be going as it should.

I waited a little longer and then racked it off again into a fresh bottle. I wanted to allow a little more head space in the bottle, so I took a little of the mead into a small glass for sampling. The bottle got a Campden tablet to stop the fermentation, as when I tried it I found it to be about the level of sweetness that I wanted, even though the alcohol flavour was really rough! I will let it age for about a year before doing anything else with it. I will probably bottle it into sparkling wine bottles with stoppers at that point and let it age for maybe another year. We'll see how it goes.

While this was going on I started a second batch of mead. This one was a bit larger, being about 4.5 litres when finished (so, roughly six 750ml bottles). I'm thinking about adding some kind of flavouring to it once I get it off the primary fermenting trub. Maybe I'll do 3 different infusions in 1.5 litre soda bottles. If my passionfruit ever ripen I'd be very tempted to try that.

So anyway, while I was looking into mead-making I started to read about home-made wine and beer. The beer brewing seems like a lot of fun to me and you don't have to wait anywhere near as long for the product of your labours as you do with mead and wine. But, Christi doesn't like beer at all, and we have seen some wine-making on TV that really piqued our interest. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall from River Cottage fame made a gorse-flower wine in his latest series. And there were two things about that that we liked. Firstly, there is heaps of gorse around here, and secondly, he described the flavour and aroma as 'slightly coconutty', which really appealled to Christi.

So we looked at what it would cost to get the necessary bits and pieces together. The problem would be getting the fermenters. Big food-grade buckets with tight-fitting lids. Then I had a thought. Bakeries get their fruit pulp and fillings in those buckets, and then throw them out. I have managed to get two 10 litre, two 15 litre and one each  5 litre and 20 litre buckets, for nothing. The airlocks are cheap and the sanitiser, yeast nutrient, acid mix, yeast, Campden tablets and all the rest aren't expensive either. The only problem is that the gorse isn't flowering! Damn inconciderate if you ask me.

But, while we were away over the New Year period we picked some berry fruit. Blueberries and strawberries. We didn't get much of either one, but we had enough bluberries left over from the other foody things we made with them to allow us to make some wine. So last weekend I m started a blueberry wine. It has finished primary fermentation and today I plan to filter off the fruit and rack the wine into another bucket for secondary fermentation. Three weeks there and I will rack it again. Three months after that I'll bottle it, and then we only have to wait for about 9-12 months before we can drink it.

I haven't got any of the bottling things I will need for the mead or wine, but the bottles at least won't be an issue. Recycling day is great around here. I pass literally hundreds of bottles on my way to work each week. I've already started to collect beer bottles for when I finally get around to brewing. There is a bit more equipment and cost involved in getting that going so it will be a little while before I can start with the brewing. Plenty of time to read up about the hows and whys. I have found a great many sources of information online, including a lot of videos and articles on how to brew and heaps of recipes as well. One I particularly like is BasicBrewing.com. There is a podcast about some brewing-related subject or another virtually every, and the guys doing the podcasts are just average everyday guys who like to brew. Their style is a little bit geeky and very relaxed, but the biggest thing about it is that they obviously love brewing and they have a lot of fun doing the podcasts. They also have videocasts at irregular but frequent intervals. I highly recommend them to anyone looking at home-brewing or already in the hobby.