Book

Book

I got given this book "Easymade WINE and COUNTRY DRINKS" by Mrs Gennery Taylor.

Its dirty, mouldy and on the verge of falling to pieces but its my first book on brewing and i have fallen in love with it at first sight.

Mre Gennery loved her wines and has lots or recipes i'll probably never make but she is passionate about her subject and encourages experimentation and thrift. A previous owner has annotated recipes with the dates that they tried them and i think thats fantastic because my fingers itch to doodle and annotate factual texts that i have occasion to read.

I think my reprint is from 1970 and the move towards decimalisation. One man's rubbish is another man's treasure.

smiles

adam (a happy brewer)

Bottles

Bottles

So far in my brewing i have been happy to use 2 litre plastic bottles, for cider, beer and even my experimental brews they are fine, but with drinks like mead on the go that need to be kept for longer periods and have a lot more effort gone into them i thought i had better investigate glass.

There are some flip top bottles at Aldi's (probably gone by now) that would be fantastic but at a reasonable £2 a bottle i just couldn't afford to buy a big load of them. So i resisted.

Enter luck/karma/god of brewing. Wandered into Sainsburys and looked in their alcohol aisle only to find bottles of Erdinger Wheat Beer for 50p a bottle... i asked why and the stockman said there had been a mix up with stock and as Sainsburys didn't carry them as a line they just wanted rid of them.

Checking the 50cl (500ml) bottles i learnt that the beer inside was bottle conditioned which should mean the good brown glass is safe for my brews to live in.

So i walked out with 16 bottles and told a friend who bought another 12. Took them home and chilled the beer before trying it. Someone up-out-or down there likes me as this wheat beer is light and lovable.

I ended up with a good bit of bottling capacity and lot of nice beer, so brewers and brewers to be... keep those eyes open, good things can happen.

smiles

adam

Prison Hooch - Tasting

Prison Hooch - Tasting

This Prison Hooch had a tangy, acidic taste and i have to say that i really enjoyed it. I don't drink fruit juice (unfermented) that often but i think Sunny Delight used to do a Tangy or With Pulp bottle that this is very reminiscent of, of course the sunny delight bottle was unlikey to have the warming alcoholic kick that this one does.

As an equal opportunities drinker, i tend to give anything a go and this may be the nicest fruity alcohol that i have had including alchopops and cocktails although i'd be the first to admit i haven't investigated this branch of drinking too far or too recently.

smiles

adam

Fruit Frenzy - Taste

Fruit Frenzy - Taste

A good breakfast drink for alcoholics who usually have a vodka and orange.

This drink was pleasantly tangy, slightly carbonated and not thick as i had thought. You don't get the individual fruit tastes as clearly as you would if you just had a cocktail but it has a warmth that belies its humble 5%ish nature.

Mellow, tangy, light fizzy, ideal for summer after a few more experimental batches.

This bottle was a little yeasty as i approached the bottom, but decanting would sort this out and as an early brew with a 4 litre yield i know a few ways to get better results out of the same recipe next time.

smiles

adam

Coopers Bitter - Ready To Drink

Coopers Bitter - Ready To Drink

The Coopers bitter has been in the keg for more than four weeks and its lost the sweetness it had whilst it was conditioning.

That said i think it is a gorgeous bitter and i am really impressed that it manages to keep its head all the way down the glass.

Very drinkable and as my first kit, where i had fears of sanitisation at the kegging stage i am really happy to have this brew in my kitchen, and i will be sad when it is gone, which probably won't be that far away.

Taste wise this is a full but not overpowering pint, its got a variety of tastes, starts bitter and then leaves a nice beer-y aftertaste.

smiles

adam

Bottling and Brewing 6 Hours Of Hobby (3)

Bottling and Brewing 6 Hours Of Hobby (3)





This was a long brewday for me and i ended up hungry, thirsty, tired but satisfied. With a cupboard full of homebrew.

For the really observant people out there you may have noticed that the Corridor of Brewing had another kit with water and enhancer, that was a lager kit that i was too tired to do and will be made sometime soon. (it was bought so that i could have tried my hand at beer, cider and lager kits)

Atomic Lemons, Tomato Tang, Mead, Mead Cyser and Turbo Cider were all made with the Champagne yeast slurry from the last batch of Turbo Cider Alpha that you can see bottled in the picture.

64 litres of various brews on the go breaks my previous record of 57.5 litres. If i get something going on Easter Weekend i can push this even higher. Or maybe i'll just have a little rest.

The marathon update draws to a close here with you all up to date with my brews which have all been fermenting for almost a week.

smiles
adam

Turbo Cider Demerara

Turbo Cider Demerara

Tired but impressed by the amount of brewing i had already done i decided to make another Turbo Cider and after tasting the demerara Turbo cider from the Turbo Cider Battle Of The Sugars i thought i would do a larger run of this.

So with 14 litres of juice and 1kg of Demerara sugar dissolved in warm juice i threw it in a fermentor and added some champagne yeast.

This one might work out at about 9% but i am hoping that it tastes good.

smiles

adam