Well, we had a bottle of the rice and raisin with dinner last night. Without food it was not great. With food it was OK. Ish. It tasted like what it was really, 50p a bottle wine.
Tag Archives: Rice and Raisin 2014.01
Bottling and Testing Wine
The new chitosan had made a massive difference to the Sadlers Sav, so I racked it in to clean demijohns. I then thought it would be good to bottle some up. I duly did this, bottling the blend of the Sadlers Sav and Conniseur Pinot Gris. At the same time I realised that the Rice and Raisin was not going to get drunk, sitting in the demijohn, and as it is supposed to be drunk relatively young, I bottled that as well.
The rice and raisin is OK, but has the homebrew tang that I don’t like “up front” before settling down a little on the palette. I sort of quite like it, but I am not sure I would offer it to friends (though I did give a bottle to my home brewing sister-in-law, together with warnings!).
Quince and Rice
I racked on the quince wine and the rice and raisin wine today. I used my cobbled up solution to bottling with the bottling wand on the end of the syphoning wand. I also found a cork with a big hole that would hold the syphoning wand securely. This worked well until I wanted to tip up the demijohn to get the last bit out. I needed three hands at this point and the situation was not helped by my jury-rigged hose-to-bottling-wand link failing at the same time.
Both demijohns needed a good top up with water, but it did not seem to affect the gravity too much.
The quince tastes like it will be pretty nice when we come to drink it in a few months.
Quince Wine 2013.11
| Date | Specific Gravity | Alcohol Content |
|---|---|---|
| 4th November 2013 | 1,110 | 0% |
| 13th November 2013 | 1,070 | 5.3% |
| 27th December 2013 | 1,038 | 9.5% |
| 15th February 2014 | 1,035 | 9.9% |
The rice and raisin is very very very dry! I have never seen such a low gravity.
Rice and Raisin, 2014-01-11
| Date | Specific Gravity | Alcohol Content |
|---|---|---|
| 12th January 2014 | 1,090 | 0% |
| 18th January 2014 | 1,040 | 6.6% |
| 15th February 2014 | 992 | 13% |
I popped a campden tablet in to each to (hopefully) restrict fermentation.
Rice and Pinot
Pinot Chardonnay
Day 20 of the Pinot Chardonnay. Not much to report other than it has moved along exactly as per the instructions. The brew belt keeping the carboy at a pretty constant 20°C and the gravity was right on target. It now looks like wine and pretty much tastes like wine. I I added potassium metbisulphate (“antioxidant, antioxidase and antiseptic agent against micro-organisms. It gives better phenol stabilisation” – it may also stop fermentation, but my brief researches were inconclusive on that). It now has to be stirred every few hours to degas before adding the finings and putting in its last resting place before bottling next week.
| Date | Specific Gravity | Alcohol Content |
|---|---|---|
| 30th December 2013 | 1,080 | 0% |
| 6th January 2014 | 1,002 | 10.3 % |
| 18th January 2014 | 994 | 11.4% |
Rice and Raisin
I also moved along the rice and raisin. When I decanted it in to a demijohn I found I had slightly underestimated the volume. Lesson learned there. The gravity was 1.040 so I whipped up some 1040 sugar water and popped it in. The rice wine has a lovely condensed milk colour at the moment, so I suspect it will be rather pale once the fermentation has worked itself out.
Rice and Raisin, 2014-01-11
| Date | Specific Gravity | Alcohol Content |
|---|---|---|
| 12th January 2014 | 1,090 | 0% |
| 18th January 2014 | 1,040 | 6.6% |
| 15th February 2014 | 992 | 13% |
A Starter for the Rice and Raisin
Just a quick update on the rice and raisin. I followed the recipe and realised it wanted a starter. A starter? A quick flick through the book said I should have set this up the day before too. Rather than exhibit patience, I knocked one up with yeast, nutrient and sugar, waited until it was frothing, then bunged it in with some warm water.
I mucked up again, because I had assumed that I could just top up to 1 gallon. But as I sloshed in the water I realised I was already pretty much there because of the displacement from the rice and raisins. <sigh>.
So I judged it by eye and measured the specific gravity, which was an OG of 1090. That looked about right so I didn’t fiddle any more and just left it to ferment.