ginger and lemon wine

[the.fee.fairy]

right, so (sorry about the stupid questions - don't want to blow the shed up!) i need to get a fermenting cork. Or a cork with a hole in it? If its a cork with a hole in it, does the air getting in cause a problem?

[chadspad]

I just bought some large corks and my hubby drilled a hole for me to put the airlock into. Dont just put a cork in it as it will probably explode, as my plum wine did last night! Ive woken this morning to plum juice flowinf freely across my kitchen floor and cupboards - oops - In my defence tho, the recipe wasnt clear enuf!

[the.fee.fairy]

got some fermenting locks today!

Started the ginger wine.

Bought 12 bottles (grolsch types so i can use them again).

Need to buy some root ginger and lemons now (using powdered ginger for the beer - thats what the kit gave me) oh...and some yeast.

Cant wait!

[elfcurry]

Silly question but do u really enjoy drinking the wines u make or do u drink them cos u made them? The one ive made so far tastes exactly as homebrewed wines has always tasted to me when others have amde them - sour and quite honestly, pretty duff.

I suppose if a batch was a bit naff I'd feel I ought to drink it because of the effort and ingredients. So far that hasn't happened though. My most recent lot was some plum wine made from plums in punnets reduced to very low price in my local Co-op. The wine (two demi-johns!) turned out very sweet - to the extent that I felt quite disappointed when I first tasted it. One friend virtually spat it out though she said if I keep it, it will improve and be great around Christmas time. On further tasting, it's not as sweet as I thought and I enjoy it (as have 9/10 others who tried it).

I'm now typing under the influence of a couple of glasses of it and after preparing the next batch, also from Co-op reduced plums. A little less sugar this time I think.

I've made some extremely nice balckcurrant wine in recent years and some reasonably good stuff from gooseberries. Maybe I've been lucky. The worst wine I made was my second ever attempt: some red from a kit that was just awful. That was some years ago and I can't remember whether it was consumed or poured away.

[the.fee.fairy]

got the ginger...got the lemons...got the yeast.

Fermenting bucket sterilised....

We have lift off!!

I'm rather overly excited about this...

[chadspad]

Have just tried my ginger and lemon wine and its superb!!! Im so pleased as the others so far are disgusting but this has given me the incentive to carry on. Its gotta be bottled now so hopefully it will be even better after a couple of months.

[Shirley]

That's good news!!!!

[the.fee.fairy]

right, my wine appears to have slowed down on the bubbling. Does this mean it needs to be racked off? I have a siphon somewhere that i bought for the job.

When does it have to be bottled? Does it have to be clear? And how long does it need to stay in the bottle for until its ready (if at all?)? And, hopw do i know its done!?

Sorry for the questions. Don't want to wreck it!!

[chadspad]

fee.fairy - Have u got a hydrometer? If so, whats the reading? And what was it to start?

My understanding is that if the SG is about 0.990 then it has finished fermenting, u can rack it then. If its still bubbling, even slowly, leave it til its stopped. Once uve racked it, top-it back up to within and inch of the top with sugary syrup water, made up to the ratio of sugar in the recipe. It may start to ferment again due to the extra sugar.
It will have to be clear before u bottle it, that takes patience, unless u wanna use loads of chemicals! Ive just topped-up and mine has started fermenting again when I was convinced it had finished - but its also clearing now which is good.

Think ive got that right (sure someone can readvise if its wrong!), im a newbie too but learning a little more everyday!

[dibnah]

I'm making this wine at the moment and just put it in the demijohns. At first I thought nothing was happening then when I looked again all summy bubbles are coming out of the air lock, so it's working.

Is there any chance it will be ready for xmas?

[shiney]

Dibnah,

All I can hear at my pc is the plink, plink, plink of my bottles going ten to the dozen in the kitchen!

It's good to know yours is up and bubblin'.

Fingers crossed we'll be testing it soon.

[dibnah]

my utility room smells of lemon ginger and cider it's great I can't stop going in there and watching the bubbles.

[the.fee.fairy]

Does anyone know how to use a hydrometer? Or have linkage to some instructions for idiots (like me...).

I have a hydrometer, but i have no idea how the thing's supposed to work, and i'd like to use it on my wine.

A hydrometer can tell you roughly how alcoholic something is...right?

[dibnah]

A hydrommeter measures the density of a liquid. It is used to measure the potential alcohol of what you are fermenting not the finished percentage.

here is a link but there are manyhttp://www.honeycreek.us/SpecficGravityTables.htm

[chadspad]

When uve done your primary ferment, u want the hydrometer to read as close to 0.990 as possible - this means all the available sugars have been turned to lovely alcohol and youre ready to move onto the next stage - racking and topping up with sugar water.

Without wanting to type out the complete section on hydrometers in C.J.JBerrys book, the simplified version is:

To calculate the final strength of the wine, write down (omitting the decimal point) the SG at the start of the ferment (ie after the suagr was added (but not the yeast)). Subtract from it the final SG, and divide the answer by 7.36, that is the percentage of alcohol by volume of your wine.

Example: Starting SG 1090
Final SG 995
Drop 95

95 divided by 7.36 = 12.9 % alcohol by vol.

Make any sense??