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noh... It's only a gallon - Even at one bottle a day that is just a week and a day and not "the next FEW weeks"... so hopefully, the mead -yes, but not the drinker... but yer never know...

Just started a hoppy mead last night. The recipe: 1 oz Centennial hops 1 oz Citra hops 1.5 lbs (about half a kilo) of clover honey Water to make about 1 US gallon (SG of about 1.058). 1 oz of ginger zest and juice of lemon 1/4 t of nutrient 1/4 t of tannin Yeast: EC 1118 Boiled the water and added h...

Lemon wine can be very delicious. There is a great recipe for a version called "Skeeter Pee" (skeeter being US slang for the mosquito and pee being pee). This uses a great deal of lemon juice but the original recipe uses lemon concentrate and this is really an adult version of lemonade - VERY drinka...

Great point except the reality is that whey wine does not taste of cheese or milk. The whey is essentially lactic acid with a tiny amount of lactose and lactose is often added to beers when making "milk stout" (does not taste like milk but it is a sugar that most bread/beer/wine making yeast cannot ...

We had a few days of dreich (cloudy and miserable with a bit of rain) but yesterday the sun came out and it's been glorious. We hadn't realised just how dry everything still was, given the previous weather, but we had to do some serious watering yesterday evening. Everything looks much happier this...

Courgette wine - (AKA marrow wine - but not the version people tend to think about when they think about "marrow rum" ). Take at least 2 kilo of marrow, chop 'em up and boil them in 1 gallon of water for 20 minutes to which you add about 1 heavy kilo of table sugar (2.5 lbs) and about 1 inch of ging...

During active fermentation - which CAN take place in buckets loosely covered with towels to keep out dirt and pets... and kids.. the amount of CO2 expelled is more than enough to create a blanket of gas above the fruit and liquid. When fermentation slows and the gravity is around 1.005 (so still ple...

That is pretty random, I agree. You might make it even more random by adding some vegetables. Depending on what you are growing, carrots, peppers, courgettes, potatoes, squash, melons all can make good wines. Not sure that raisins would give it "a bit more", though folk often toss in a handful of ra...

So here's the secret, unless you are brewing beer the primary fermenter used for wine making does not need to be sealed. There is enough CO2 produced by the yeast to prevent any bacteria or other spoilage microbes from the air getting their way into the wine. All you need to do is cover the mouth wi...

Truth be told I am more interested in using the lacto bacilli in my mead making to "sour" the meads a little and so provide additional complexity to my session meads (low alcohol meads - that use about 1 - 1.5 lbs of honey (about .5 kg) in every 4 liters (1 US gallon) than baking anything other than...

Three lovely blogs although my interest was really only in the first one.

Thanks Maggie. Will check out your blog. Curiously, while I make my own cheese, my own bread and my own wines I have never been able to capture free floating bacteria or yeast in any numbers that have effectively created a starter. I guess, then, I am not looking for a quick start with this merely a...

Has anyone on this forum made a sourdough starter with rejuvelac? Rejuvelac is the name associated with the liquid that comes from the water used to cover sprouting grains (say, wheat berries or quinoa) for two or three days. The water is said to be full of lactic bacteria. Does this in fact work? I...

It's what I've always wanted too, Bernard. It sounds well worthwhile so, despite my earlier misgivings, I think I may give this one a go. Go for it, MKG. If you select Belle Saison Yeast think about fermenting at a slightly higher temperature than you might usually do. BS is the yeast extracted fro...

My wife and I cracked open a bottle of the turnip wine on Friday evening and it was quite delicious. Had pleasant peppery notes (perhaps from the yeast - Belle Saison); good mouthfeel (viscosity: it coated the tongue and palate and did not wash down like water); the alcohol was not "hot" but pleasan...