The rosé has had a little more than its allotted time, and finished bubbling some days ago, but this can only  be good.  The photo shows the wine before the chitosan but after the fermentation stopper.  I was interested to see how clear it was, and the answer was “pretty clear”.  But not quite clear enough, so in goes the chitosan and in a few more days I will bottle.  I have splashed out on real bottles that need corks, together with shrink wrap lids for the final touch from the lovely people at ballihoo. who were extremely helpful on the phone.

The gravity is as expected at this stage and it is already pretty drinkable.  It looks and tastes as it should, so all is well.  A few days to clarify then bottling begins.  I am pondering sterilising the bottles in the oven; there will be about 40 and washing is so time consuming and messy.  I guess you put them in at 80 degrees for 20 minutes or so then bottle as they cool down.

Herewith the temperatures of the cellar and brew in this hot weather.  The kit says that the temperature should be 16-20°C.  In the days before I started it the mean temperature of the cellar was 16°C so I chose 17°C, since lower temperature gives more flavour.  The Sun then came out, and the cellar temperature slowly climbed (red line).  The variation in the cellar temperature is either the freezer switching on and off or the fan that keeps the humidity down.

You can see that the brew, which started at house room temperature, cooling down then the fermentation kicking off and the brew temperature rising again because of the respiration.  It appears to be levelling off now, and I am hoping for a cool spell.

Brew fridge next?