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As for yeast nutrients, I've noticed that yeast does much better in a brew than it does when fed plain sugar, even when the brew is something like oak leaf wine, in which the only addition to plain sugar is a 'tea' of leaves. Presumably the leaves are providing nutrients, which I find a bit surpris...

OK, you really don't want to know what kind of yeast this started out as... Bakers? As for paying £1 if you're clever you only have to pay the pound once (and that isn't the most expensive you can get for yeast). You can culture the yeast and keep the live culture. The way you do that is when you g...

unless your recipe happens to have something bizarre like a chicken in it! :lol: Now who would ever do that? :oops: :lol: Anyway, back to the blackberry wine. I started my first batch today: 8 lb berries and 2 kg sugar with water up to approx 2 gallons, and yeast from the last thing I brewed, which...

As Zech pointed out, you'll not easily make a replica of a wine without getting the exact grapes that it is made from, or the yeast for that matter (yeast has a major input on flavour). So saying I do have a "How to brew wines like those you buy" book, but it is a bit faffy and uses far to...

A quick (rough, but easy) guide. crush the grapes to get the juice (at it's most simple a spud masher, or two boards). Take pH and sugar readings (at the most simple litmus paper and a hydrometer). Get the pH to what you want (around 3ish IIRC, but then I never worry too much about acidity) and the ...

US gallons are actually smaller than imperial. The use of 5L is for if you totally use metric. I have a couple of 5L demi johns. Just remember not to mix metric and imperial, the conversions are rarely exact, they normally work on the idea of a nice number to round to (e.g. 1 pint becomes 500 or 600...

Taken forever to get pics up I know, but here they are. All 56 (plus 1) tubes cut to size and sanded, ready to be put together http://s25.postimg.org/6wtmolv2n/P7310056.jpg Getting the measure for the framework. All tubes are in place. http://s25.postimg.org/ebiygzgy7/P7310057.jpg Bit of a slow star...

I've actually done both tea wine (currently doing my second batch) and celery wine (soon to open a year old bottle) both of which I enjoyed.

Brewtrog wrote:don't put more than 1tsp sugar per 500ml bottle

I should have pointed out that this sugar will do nothing for sweetness either - it all gets fermented so that the booze carbonates.

we're going to bottle it with a tot of sugar for fizz and a little less tartness. don't put more than 1tsp sugar per 500ml bottle otherwise you'll end up with potential bottle bombs. If it's too dry and you still want it fizzed then use a sweetener to get rid of dryness, otherwise stabilise it and ...

We've all done it at some time or another - find a recipe (or idea) that is so outlandish it has to be done, even if just for the shock factor. I'm interested to see what's the weirdest we can come up with. Bonus points if it turned out well. I'll start us off with my second and first 2nd place was ...

it is wort at that stage. You don't really get an accurate taste of the beer from the wort - lots of changes take place in fermentation.
I actually have a recipe for a mugwort porter (in booze for free) but wasn't too sure how much more bitter wormwood is for substitution.

As mentioned in the homebrew section, I've recently got my hands on a wormwood plant. Besides from the planned brewing and possibly looking into homemade absinthe (at half the abv). Does anyone know any good uses for wormwood?

Out of interest has anyone ever brewed one? I've recently bought a wormwood (artemesia absinthium) and it's growing merrily in the herb garden. The main reason I bought it was to try herb ales, rather than just using hops. Then I realised I didn't have a clue where to begin. On a tangent, any ideas ...

... It's a mix of metabisulphate and potassium sorbate - the sulphate kills most the yeast, the sorbate stops the rest from reproducing.... I can see I'm going to have to do my annual lecture again :iconbiggrin: Which annual lecture is this? Maggie, a good elderberry can hold its head up to any win...