The sav didn’t clear. I decided to filter out, but it made no difference. Pectin haze? I’m leaving it for a while and will ask for advice next time I go to May and Brett. It is sitting in the cellar in five demijohns.
With the bucket free I started a new Blue Boar yesterday, this time with the arduino temperature control. It is bubbling away nicely.
The sav has had 20+ days at 20 degrees and had almost completely stopped bubbling. The instructions say add a fermentation stopper then a degassing solution. Tomorrow, in go the finings. All pretty standard now!
I have also been rather busy and forgot completely to report on the wine watcher, although it is blogged about in my geeky section. It has been on good form recently (after a bit of a haitus), so good that I have stopped checking it on an hourly basis. I managed to create a lovely thermowell for the container using plumbing pipe and by creating a new 15mm hole in the lid for the bubbler using my Dremmel.
We also tried the Golden Stag and although the plastic bottles seemed taught, there were no surprises and we both enjoyed it. Quite a result for my wife to enjoy an ale, but I had made it with her in mind.
The Sadlers Sav (controlled by the Wine Watcher) should be starting to reduce the bubble frequency now , but my feet have not touched the ground recently so I have not actually been in the room to check on bubble frequency – I need to make a sensor for that too!
I geeked out and made a brew controller for the wine. It looks at the room temperature and the brew temperature and does a nifty little calculation to determine whether the brew belt should be on or not. It then reaches out to the internet and posts the current values. This gives a nice little dashboard for me to look at.
Last night it got a little too cold, and despite the belt being on all the time, it could not keep the temperature up to the target. I looked around and found a perfect little jacket to help it along. My youngest grew out of it in the last few months, but I don’t think it was as tight on her as it is on the carboy!!
The brew controller is some way from completion and is rather Heath Robinson at the moment. It does the job, but I did have it working with a beautiful display showing the temperatures. But this turned to gobbledygook when it started switching the power to the brew belt. I’ll get there.
Lots of customisation is to come, not least an improvised thermowell to put the thermometer in to the middle of the brew rather than taped to the side.
The helpful guy at May and Brett (I really must ask his name) has been encouraging me to get a kit by these guys. He says that the quality bump is worth it for the £10 more per kit. since on the last kit I spent another £20 on a filter, I don’t mind giving it a go.
All pretty standard by now, though I noticed very late that there was a cheeky extra sachet (the black one) saying “Add with the yeast” on it. I could easily have missed it and not noticed for the next three weeks. It is bentonite (cat litter) and apparently absorbs stray proteins.
The same trick for filling it – not sure why I take this photo any more.
| Date | Specific Gravity | Alcohol Content |
|---|---|---|
| 11th March 2014 | 1,084 | 0% |