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I know the CO2 needs to escape! That's why it was my first question! I even said "Lid"! LOL but then I take a photo and it's all, "HOLY CRUD EXPLODEY!"

I'll get an airlock tomorrow. It's a holiday today.

Bonnie - wine tasting ar your house?

Ok luv, that's assuming you survive any impending explosions!

Heya Elizabeth, i use a cork that fits the top of my fermentation vessel with a hole bored through it using a drill - i then buy some clear plastic tubing from the local hardware store poke it into the cork and seal the top around the tubing with some melted beeswax. (bees wax is more flexible than paraffin wax) the other end of the tubing goes into a glass jar filled with water and sit bubbles away quite merrily! This also provides a handy container for my cat to drop the skinks she catches into!
You can also use rubber bungs instead of natural cork, if you do, then you just need to make sure that the bung doesn't touch the wine as it will impart nasty rubbery flavors to your wine (and if the wine is touching the bung your fermenter is too full and will probably spill out through your airlock!)

richierobins wrote:

ElizabethBinary wrote:I know the CO2 needs to escape! That's why it was my first question! I even said "Lid"! LOL but then I take a photo and it's all, "HOLY CRUD EXPLODEY!"

I'll get an airlock tomorrow. It's a holiday today.

Bonnie - wine tasting ar your house?

I really must stop trying to blow young ladies to pieces.

I do aplologise. I had in mind a bucket with a two-inch headspace-space, not a screw-topped bottle. A picture is worth a thousand words.

Oh my, you're such a flirt.

YOU GUYS. This is giving me nightmares!!

I was tossing and turning last night and my man wakes me up and I BOLT up screaming, "I NEED AN AIR LOCK!!" I had dreams all night I was counting campden tablets to make sure I had used one, but I kept counting different numbers... and was it one teaspoon of tannin or a quarter teaspoon... *heaveheave*

Just thought it was funny.

Started some rhubarb wine yesterday. :D

Good grief, Elizabeth - that's 24 hours without a question.

Are you OK?



Mike

MKG wrote:Good grief, Elizabeth - that's 24 hours without a question.

Are you OK?



Mike

Because it's going well!!! :) It's all fermenting and nothing's exploded and I might've licked myself some peach that came out of the jug when I took the cap off and it was delicious.

when you brew it yourself, there is nothing better

Minnesota wrote:when you brew it yourself, there is nothing better

Um.. lol do you know what that smilie means? Hahahha. XD

Anyway OMG you're right!! My ginger beer, which is done, is AMAZING. I hate ginger beer. HATE IT. But this stuff made with fresh ginger root from my garden.. it doesn't COMPARE.

And four day old peach wine with yeast bubbles still in it is AMAZING. I can really taste the soul of the peaches. I can't even imagine when it's cleared what it will be like.

And then rhubarb wine is being made.

And I found out watermelon is coming in next week's co-op, so I will have that! Watermelon wine? Watermelon cider maybe?

And my husband is a SERIOUS coffee freak.. can I make like coffee wine? or a coffee liquor?

ElizabethBinary wrote:
And then rhubarb wine is being made.

Me too

ElizabethBinary wrote: And I found out watermelon is coming in next week's co-op, so I will have that! Watermelon wine? Watermelon cider maybe?

Apparently pea pods make a distinctly melon-ish wine! But if you can get cheap melons why not experiment. The other thing i can recommend is making a small hole in the side of a water melon and filling the puppy with vodka (or similar) the putting the melon in the deep freeze (hole side up) to turn into alcoholic sorbet

ElizabethBinary wrote: And my husband is a SERIOUS coffee freak.. can I make like coffee wine? or a coffee liquor?

Personally, i would forget coffee wine, im yet to taste one that is pleasant, coffee liqueur on the other hand is a very achievable goal and can be very nice - think kahluer

ElizabethBinary wrote:

Minnesota wrote:when you brew it yourself, there is nothing better

Um.. lol do you know what that smilie means? Hahahha. XD

Well, I thought the little feller was drinking some homebrew.

If the frothing of peach wine bothers you, don't even think about coffee wine. It goes bonkers. It's the stuff of horror movie sets. And it's difficult to get a decent result (not impossible, though - it needs a lot of residual sugar). Watermelon wine? Hmmmm. I don't know, but I suspect you might be disappointed - there's not actually a lot of taste there.

Mike

Minnesota wrote:

ElizabethBinary wrote:

Minnesota wrote:when you brew it yourself, there is nothing better

Um.. lol do you know what that smilie means? Hahahha. XD

Well, I thought the little feller was drinking some homebrew.

Erm.. heehee... okay then, that's what he's doing. :D

Darn on the watermelon wine and hmm on the coffee wine.

ElizabethBinary wrote:No I'm not! D: I saw them at the shops but thought they were for beer.

Here's a photo of what I have:

If you have a food grade bucket pour your must into it. At the moment you are fermenting on the pulp [with large pieces of fruit in it] and a top such as you are using is okay if you know EXACTLY what you are doing.

Let me step back a little. You need to empty what you have into what's called a primary fermenter [a food grade bucket]. I suspect that your ingredients need to be chopped a wee bit.

Have you added the yeast? If so, did you take a hydrometer reading?

A hydrometer costs just a couple of pounds from a home brew shop or online. It is worth the investment.

If you haven't, don't worry. At your earliest opportunity, get one.

The important point is if you ever find yourself in this position again, chop your ingredients up as small as you can. Imagine you want to cook potatoes in double quick time - the smaller the faster. In your bucket, or whatever [no metal pans - keep metal well away ... you must have tasted metal in some of the canned soft drinks you have consumed - believe me, that taste will be amplified if you ferment it].

Let your wine start nice and easy with enough water to do the job - if you now have an hydrometer, make sure there is enough sugar to get the must to at least 1.080 - this will give you an alcohol level of between 10% and 13% depending upon how good your yeast is.

Your must will benefit from a lid just placed on top; and being stirred at least twice each day. This is called aeration - a vital input for the healthy growth of yeast. Remember without healthy yeast and sugar, your wine is going nowhere.

If you have bought a hydrometer, test until it reaches approx 1.020 [1.000 = water]. Once it has reached this point, skim off any pulp and pour, some siphon but it's not the best way to do it, into a DJ or a secondary fermenter of your choice. Keep some of the liquor in a bottle. Add an air lock. Once everything has settled to your satisfaction add the contents of your bottle to the DJ [or your secondary fermenter] until it reaches just under the neck.

If you insist on using a sealed secondary fermenter [such as a sealed DJ as in your pic], you must release the pressure several times each day. If you don't, do not go into the room where your DJ is because you have a time bomb waiting to explode. If it explodes, you'll know about it.

Yeast, wine yeast [beer yeast and bread yeast are different - bread yeast is designed to produce air and beer yeast can not really cope with wine and will give a beer taste to anything you produce ... general purpose wine yeast is so competitive in price I don't think it's a problem (and I have limited income)] will do two things at the same time. First of all, it will convert sugar to alcohol, secondly, it will give off carbon dioxide [I hope I've got that right]. These gasses need to escape. If you are note using an air lock - £3 for two air locks and bungs at Wilkinson's - you really do need to release the pressure about two or three times per day.

The primary fermenter is not your DJ. Your primary fermenter is a food grade bucket where you get your wine on the go and each day you submerge the 'cap' [the crusty bit on top] and enjoy the aromas that hit you, full force, at least two or three times each day. The primary fermenter is where you look into your must and see all of those bubbles hitting the surface and you say to yourself "come on my little darlings "

The primary fermenter is where your yeast really does produce more yeast and rips into your wine. The primary fermenter is where your pulp [the fruit/veg/flowers/juice] is taken to the nth degree and left to be skimmed when your liquor is moved into the secondary fermenter which is usually the DJ.

Don't worry that you've jumped a step. Enthusiasm is good. Until you know, you're diving in at the deep end. Just how did you get so many big pieces of fruit through such a narrow neck without misshaping it?

Softly softly. You'll get there. The pic I looked at seemed to show a lot of bubbles. Bubbles are good. Just remember, if you are not using an air lock, you must release the pressure several times each day

I have no idea how I got the fruit in there, LOL. Thank you for your long and thought out instructional post. I wish I could read it without being bizarrely confused. :D

ANYWAY... I rebottled it half and half with water into 8 beer bottles... I had to.. EFF it's SUPER alcoholic. I had ONE GLASS as a tester the other day and.... zip pow, straight to the moon. I halfed it with water and suddenly it actually tasted like wine. I think I make straight-up fricken LIQUOR.