Tag Archives: Sadlers Sav 2014.03

Bottling and Testing Wine

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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!).

Blue Boar labels and chitosan update

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2014-05-19 15.49.41I am a big Asterix fan, so it was inevitable that when I did the labels for the Blue Boar this time that the boar would come from those excellent books.

I also checked on the Sadlers Sav – the chitosan has had a marked effect on the wine, and I guess I should (very carefully) rack it off in to new demijohns some time soon <sigh>.  I think I need a more efficient syphoning technique.

Wine woes and a great local store

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Left to right: Sadlers Sav after filtering, Californian after filtering, Sadlers Sav after chitosan.

The Sadlers Sav was still cloudy, though improving.  I wonder if part of the problem was the filter not working properly?

So I went to the excellent May and Brett and described my problems.  The guy at the shop immediately rang Sadlers, they talked through the problem and the next day some new chitosan arrived in the post.  I stirred it in to the demijohns, and they went cloudy, as predicted.  We’ll see how it turns out.  I pushed the bungs in, but the next day when in the cellar for something completely unrelated I noticed that one of the bungs had popped off!  I pushed it back and checked the next day, but it had popped off again.  I suspect I had filled it a little full so the air pressure was against me.  Since that demijohn was a blend of the Californian and the Sadlers, who knows whether it has made a massive difference.  I popped in a campden tablet just in case.