White Wine

I have recently deviated from my usual deviation of making wine from anything but fruit by making a batch with green grapes to make a traditional white wine! I didn't follow a recipe as such and just "winged it". The grapes were acquired from an abandoned allotment near my fathers. Here is a rough idea of what I used.

• 1.5(ish)kg of grapes
• 1.5(ish)kg sugar
• 1 teaspoon of yeast
• 1 teaspoon of yeast nutrient
• 1 teaspoon of pectolase
• 1 tablespoon of citric acid
• Enough water to make upto a gallon

My method was as usual from making from frozen fruit. I put the clump of frozen grapes in a bowl with the sugar and covered in boiling water. Then when the water was cool enough to out my hand in I added all the other ingredients and covered for a few days. I then strained it all through a muslin square and put in a demijohn. It is now happily bubbling away. I have no idea how nice this will taste but at the moment it smells like white wine so I must have something right!

Once I'd finished this wine I made another batch of elderberry wine but as there is no difference in then recipe and method I've already used then I won't repeat it.

Green Grapes

A few days of fermenting and a little squeeze to release some juice

Getting ready to put in a demijohn!

Wakefield and Pontefract Beekeepers: September Meeting

The time of year has come again when my local association hold their Winter meetings. Although as I write this it is near to the October meeting, I am only just writing about Septembers! I seem to have less time to write lately and I'm putting this down to my daughter; she has an in built sensor that detects when I get the laptop out and then just wants to climb all over me thus making writing rather tricky!

This months meeting was a little bit different to any I have attended before in that rather than there being just 1 speaker, the room was set out with multiple tables, each with a microscope set up. The purpose of the meeting was to get a look at microscopy. The first table I sat down at was all about pollen and looking at how different plants produce different pollens. We also looked at a few different parts of the Bees anatomy such as the mandible mouth parts.

The next table was all about looking at the contents of the Bees guts to see if any diseases are present. The main disease we were looking for was nosema. The first thing that was needed to be done to check the Bees gut was to mash the Bees up using a pestle and mortar and then add a small amount of water. A sample of the liquid is then studied under the microscope; I believe they were 900x magnification. The presence of nosema can be identified as small rice grain shaped cells within the liquid. Each sample that we looked at had nosema present  but only in small amounts.

After we had spent about an hour looking through the microscopes we did the raffle. The last thing for me to do was to pick up something that I had ordered from one of the members, which was a 25kg sack of sugar. This is a huge amount of sugar however in Beekeeping and home brewing a lot of sugar is used and this was at a bargain price!

Elderberry Wine

Me and Steph have recently been out collecting Elderberries to make a batch of wine. The recipe required 1.5kg of Elderberries so we had to do more than one trip to get them but luckily we have an abundance of them near to where we live. Once we had picked the berries we then had to remove them from as much stalk as possible; we managed to do this while Lauren was asleep or otherwise busy causing chaos elsewhere! Hopefully at some point next year we will have a few bottles of Elderberry and Elderflower wine ready together, here is my post of the Elderflower wine. Below is the recipe, a few photos and a bit of a method to follow if you want to make your own.

• 1.5kg Elderberries
• 1.5kg of Sugar
• 1 tsp Citric Acid
• 1 tsp Yeast
• 1 tsp Yeast Nutrient
• Water to make up to 1 gallon

Elderberries ready for processing

Using a fork to remove the berries

Finally got 1.5kg of berries!

Small bits of stalk are ok to go through

1.5kg of sugar

Add boiling water, about 1.5 litre (or a full kettle)

Once the water had cooled I added the citric acid, yeast and yeast nutrient, stirred the mix then covered with cling film and left for 5 days.

After 5 days I put the mix through a muslin square and squeezed it to get more juice out

When I had all the wine mix in the demijohn I added more water so it was a couple of inches off the top and have now left it to ferment

Elderflower Wine - My 100th Post!

I'll start of by giving a quick mention to this being my 100th post. When I started this blog I never expected to actually be still going this long. My expectation would be that I would get bored of it quickly and just use it as a tool for logging my beekeeping rather than writing it in a note book! It has actually turned out to be so much more. In the couple of years I have been blogging I have met new friends through other bloggers and extended the subject range to include home brewing and also increased my writing skills although I still rely heavily on my proof reader and wife, Steph, who is also now an author for this blog. There has been a few time when I have said I will just write a quick blog and ended up writing a several hundred word essay so I will change the subject now and start the real post which is about wine!

In the last few weeks the elderberry trees in the area have started producing their flowers so me and Steph decided it would be a good time to go out and collect the flowers to make some wine with! In just one short walk near some farm land where we live we managed to pick nearly a full carrier bag full of the flower heads. We made sure we left plenty of flower heads on the trees as later on in the year we will probably try to make some elderberry wine as well! The recipe I'm following for elderflower wine can be found here. In the recipe it gives measurements for making either 1 gallon or 5, I am just going to make 1 on this occasion. Below is the list of ingredients copied direct from the website.

The quantities below are for 5 gallons, with the quantities for 1 gallon brews given in brackets.

• 110 heads of elderflowers (24 heads)
• 1kg of sultanas (200g)
• 75g of citric acid (15g)
• 375ml strong black tea (75ml)
• Wine yeast compound (or yeast nutrient and yeast) as per packet instructions
• 5.5kg granulated sugar (1.1kg)
• Stopper/stabiliser powder

After the walk I spread the flower heads on the table at home and left them a couple of hours to let any bugs make their own way off the flowers. When I came back I could see loads of tiny bugs on my brand new kitchen window, I imagine they were from the elderflowers!

The recipe says to use 24 heads that should be approx 1 pint of flowers when they are trimmed from their stalks. I didn't bother to count the heads and just measured out a pint of heads. With the amount of flower heads I had collected there was enough for the batch I'm making leaving 2 pints that I bagged up individually and have popped in the freezer for later.

After I had chopped up the sultanas and weighed out the sugar and citric acid I placed them all in a large bowl with the pint of elderflowers and the tea. I then poured 2 pints of boiling water over it all then covered with a tight covering of clingfilm and forgot about it until the next day.

The next day I added the yeast and yeast nutrient and another couple of pints of water, this time cold water. I then covered it up and left it for 4 days. Each day I opened it a small amount and gave it a small stir.

After 5 days in total I poured the mixture into a demijohn using a sterile washing cloth to filter the debris off, then topped the liquid up to a gallon with cold water. At this stage it had a very inviting smell developing. When I checked it later the airlock was bubbling away nicely. I will now leave it to clear and rack the wine a couple of times and it should be ready for Christmas (which is only 173 days away) but will taste best if left until next summer!

Ginger Ale!

Over the last few weeks me and my good wife, Steph, have been enjoying fresh, ice cold, tangy ginger ale and I am now going to share how easy and quick it is to make.

First off a list of ingredients. This is for making a 2 litre batch but can be scaled up or down if you want, the most important thing is to use plastic bottles to make your ale, I'll explain why later.

An empty 2 litre PLASTIC pop bottle
1 Lemon
Approx 1 inch of ginger (more if you like it strong)
2 Cups of sugar (or 400g)
1 Packet of bread yeast

If you are making bigger batches it's easy, just use 1 cup of sugar per litre, or 200 grams if you don't have cup measures. If only increasing to 3 or 4 litres then I don't think you need any more yeast but you will need to use more ginger and lemon. That is why I zest my lemon as well as juicing it as I use 3 litre bottles but you can still zest it if only doing 2 litres, if you are making 4 litres then I would use 2 lemons. This is a good recipe but once made do feel free to experiment and alter the quantities to suit you, I like to add a lot more ginger to make it really strong, just be careful when opening and ALWAYS USE PLASTIC BOTTLES!

...and that's it. Now to the method, which again is really simple!

1. The first thing to do is wash out an empty 2 litre plastic pop bottle . Once that has been cleaned and thoroughly rinsed out you can put all your dry ingredients in, which are the sugar and the yeast; if you have funnel this is easier.  
2. Grate the ginger into a measuring jug or bowl using the finest grater that you have, I don't think it makes too much difference if you just have the regular large grater used for cheese! I used the grater to also grate some zest from the lemon in as well but this is optional. If you have lots of ginger stuck to the grater then you can rinse it gently under the tap collecting the liquid that runs off in your jug or bowl.
3. Juice the lemon and add the juice (but no seeds!) to the bowl of grated ginger, this should now be a gingery lemony slurry! This is now added to the pop bottle. Again a funnel comes in handy but if you have used a lot of ginger it tends to clog up the funnel so a skewer or something similar is useful for helping it through!
4. Top up the bottle with cold water leaving about 2-3 inch at the top. Put the lid on securely and shake vigorously until all the sugar has dissolved. 
5. Leave the bottle in a warm place for 24-48 hours. Depending on how warm it is will affect this time. What is happening at this stage is the yeast is starting to convert the sugars to alcohol with the by product being carbon dioxide, or CO2. With there being no where for the CO2 to go it is absorbed back into the liquid causing it to be fizzy when opened! 
6. After 24 hours check the bottle by squeezing it, if it is really tight and you can hardly press the plastic in then it is ready for the fridge, if not leave it another day and it should be ready. This is why we use plastic bottles, if glass bottles where used there would be a risk of shattering if the pressure gets too high. With plastic it will stretch a bit and if it does over pressurise then it is no where near as dangerous!!!!!!!!!!!
7. Leave it in the fridge for up to 24 hours to make sure it is really cold. While it is in the fridge the fermentation will slow down but not totally stop. When it has been in the fridge long enough to make it cold it is ready to serve. Be very careful opening it and if possible open it outside or over the sink as it can be very lively! I found out the hard way with a batch that was a little over lively; It's lid flew off when I had loosened it slightly and then a second later the bottle erupted like a bottle of champagne! Don't be put off by this though, just be warned! 
8. To serve you can pour it straight from the bottle but I prefer to pour it through a tea strainer as this collects all the grated ginger. For a extra special treat fill a glass with ice, a shot (or 2) or rum, squeeze half a lime in and top up with fresh ginger ale, delicious! 

Before showing a few photos of the process I will add a little note on the alcohol content of this brew. Although There will be alcohol in there due the fermentation of sugar with yeast it will be of very low levels, probably less than 1%, though I would guess even lower. I haven't tested it but due to the short length of time it is left to ferment then there is not enough time for it to get too alcoholic. If in any doubt at all by all means either test it or enjoy on non driving days!

A nobbly chunk of ginger!

A zested lemon!

Juicing the lemon

Lemon juice

A cup of sugar

Pouring the sugar in

Yeast

The recipe says 1 packet of bakers yeast but as I had a tin of it I just used a cap full and it worked fine

Rinsing the juice from the grater

A nice out of focus shot of the lemon and ginger slurry going in

"We have a blockage, bring me a skewer!"

After 2 days the pressure test, this is me pressing hard but getting nowhere!

Poured through a tea strainer or sieve

All them bits from such a small glass of ginger ale!

Mmmmmmm, bubbly!

Coopers Mexican Cerveza Lager Kit

Yesterday I started a new 40 pint batch of lager. This one is by Coopers and it is their Mexican Cerveza. I have heard good things about this lager so I'm hoping it will turn out good. One difference I've made is to use golden syrup instead of sugar as, again, I've been told this makes a nicer end product. I also used 200g of sugar as the golden syrup doesn't quite have enough sugar contents to complete the fermentation. When I checked on it this morning I could see that fermentation has started. I do intend on using a slightly different method to prime the lager when bottling but I will mention that when I bottle the lager in just over a week!

The beer kit - Enough for 40 pints!

The home brew kit and the golden syrup.

200g of sugar weighed out

Rhubarb Wine

The time of year has come again when in my dads allotment there is a ridiculous glut of rhubarb. He has about 3 large plants and possibly a couple more smaller ones and each can produce a good amount each week. Within quarter of an hour I'd managed to pick all the stalks I needed to make a gallon of wine with plenty left over to eat and give away. The recipe I used was the first that came up using a google search and can be found here. I took pictures along the way so you can see what I did.

Rhubarb growing in the allotment; this is a tiny portion of what my dad grows.

Just over 1.5kg of rhubarb

Exactly 1.5kg of rhubarb once the ends are trimmed!

Cut into pieces; the recipe says about 6mm but I didn't measure!

Add 1.3 kg of sugar

After a short stirring the rhubarb is already breaking down in the sugar and releasing juice.

Cover and then leave for 3 days.

Each day I took the cling film off and crushed it to release more juice

On the third day I had loads of juice.

Using a new cloth and sieve combination I started straining the juice away.

The juice was collected in a food grade bucket.

What was left over when all the juice was squeezed out of the pulp.

250ml of grape juice was added.

Finally using cooled boiled water filled up a demijohn. I added yeast, yeast nutrient and pectolase enzyme at this stage and it is popping away nicely!

All that remains now is to leave it a few weeks then rack it away from the sediment at least once, maybe twice, then bottle it up to mature or just drink! I'll let you know how it tastes!