This started life as four cartons of Waitrose Grape juice. Just an experiment really. It was drinkable as-is, but we played around with some “non-fermentable wine sweetener” (aspartame I think), and found it was more drinkable with a little of that in.
So here we are. Six bottles and one glass of drinkable plonk, for about £4.50. I don’t think I would offer it to my father, but for every day knocking back, it is fine.
Popped on to the bottles using pritt stick. There is already a lot of sediment in some, which must have come from the dregs of the barrel. The colour in the sunlight was beautiful.
With the IPA bottled, I had nothing on the go for the first time in a long while. My researches on the IPA suggested that it won’t be at its best for three or four months (if it lasts that long). So I thought that I had better get going with my next kit, although it may not take as long to mature based on my reading up in Home Brew forum.
The kit was pretty comprehensive, even including the priming sugar. There are hops to add after a few days and a bag to help strain them off when syphoning. The instructions way better than the last one.
I warmed the bags of beer concentrate in the bucket whilst sterilising it. I liked the bags. Easier than tins to deal with, especially if you just cut off a corner.
After that it was all pretty standard: boiling water to dissolve the concentrate, then top up to 23 litres (5 gallons). Wait for it to cool down, then shove in the yeast. I just sprinkled the yeast on top this time rather than stir it in. By morning it was bubbling away pretty fast. My OG was a good bit lower than people in the home brew forum but hey ho, not much I can do about that.
| Date | Specific Gravity | Alcohol Content (%) |
|---|---|---|
| 13th February 2014 | 1,036 | 0 |
| 18th February 2014 | 1,020 | 2.1 |
| 22nd February 2014 | 1,012 | 3.2 |
| 28th February 2014 | 1,010 | 3.4 |
A couple of days ago I took the IPA off the “trub” and put it in to my vessel that has a tap. Today I had time to bottle it, and thanks to eBay I have a variety of colour caps to choose from. The final alcohol content comes up as 4% which is a bit odd, as the pack said 5.5%. I topped up with 80ml of sugar (half a teaspoon per pint) to add the fizz. And in the process I lost the instructions for how long to wait, but I guess usual rules apply – warm place for a few days then off to the cellar for another couple of weeks for testing in mid March although this thread suggests that you leave it far longer. I’m going to need more bottles if I have to store stuff for so long.
I find the tap/bottling wand awkward to use, so may investigate using it on the end of a hose. I have three sizes, so one should work.
I am also pondering labels this time. They looked cool on the cider.
| Date | Specific Gravity | Alcohol Content (%) |
|---|---|---|
| 27th January 2014 | 1,044 | 0 |
| 9th February 2014 | 1,014 | 4 |
This is doing my head in. Here are link(s) that might help me sort it.
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/19298077/cakephp-habtm-find-only-associated-model-data
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14946311/cakephp-find-habtm
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8783108/cakephp-habtm-relationship-and-find