Welcome to our plot!

I'm Hazel, and in Nov 2006 my friend Jane and I took on a half plot at Hill Allotments, Sutton Coldfield - we want the satisfaction of growing and eating our own fruit and veg, and to improve our diet (and fitness!).

This is the story of what happened next...........

Thursday, October 01, 2009

Wine Wisdom...

I do like the fact that wine making is such a relaxed occupation. If you are too busy & don't have time to attend to your wines, then no worries - they will look after themselves, bubbling away, clearing or maturing until you have time to see what they are up to.

Admittedly, they won't thank you for sitting forever in their own dead yeast, but a week or two either way isn't going to be critical.

Alternatively, if you see sediment on the bottom of the demijohn & you have a spare half hour, then you can siphon the good stuff into a bucket (leaving the 'yuck' behind), see what the SG is currently at, have a taste, then bung it though back via a funnel into the cleaned demijohn.

Pop the airlock back in & nod in the satisfaction of a job well done.

This I did with apple mk II last night - it's still fizzing very slightly, but I thought I'd rack it off so I could measure the SG. I found it to be an astonishingly desiccated 984 - so I added 4oz of sugar which raised it to a more drinkable SG of 994, & will let it get on with it for a few days...
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6 comments:

  1. BilboWaggins2 October 2009 at 08:16:00 BST

    Pretty colours! Remind me because I am too lazy to go and look this up on Google - what is the relationship between SG and alcohol content?

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  2. Hazel2 October 2009 at 09:02:00 BST

    Alcohol content is calculated by dividing the total drop in SG by 7.36.

    So a wine starting with an SG of 1090 and ending with an SG of 990 (fairly typical values) will have a falling-down factor of (1090-990)/7.36 = nearly 15%!

    You can see why I've started to put the alcohol content on each bottle - these aren't for the faint hearted!

    You can stop the wine fermenting earlier than its natural stopping point - making a sweeter, less lethal brew - but so far I've just let the wines ferment out to where they want to be.

    I'll put more about the actual process of fermentation (and its implications) in a separate post soon, I think - it would help to get it straight in my own head at the very least...

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  3. Matron2 October 2009 at 20:52:00 BST

    Ahh happy memories, I used to make wine a long time ago. Happy drinking girls!

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  4. Hazel3 October 2009 at 01:23:00 BST

    Thank you for dropping by, Matron - lovely to see you!

    The question is, why on earth did you stop making wine...?

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  5. Carolyn3 October 2009 at 23:52:00 BST

    Lovely colour! Why is the demijohn standing on an upturned chair?

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  6. Hazel4 October 2009 at 01:02:00 BST

    Thank you for dropping by, Carolyn!

    There's no great plan with the demijohns on the upturned chairs - it's just that the wine (and drying beans at the mo) occupy the attic room, in which are stored a dining table & chairs which have occasional use downstairs.

    Putting the chairs when not in use on the table makes vacuuming (rare event!) that much easier, and it is a perfect space for a demijohn.

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