yay! first alcoholic beverage!

[Shirley]

OK Can't quote for some strange reason also fixing your img link is not working either I've looked at the picture and ...

Oh my lord that's looking rather rancid, erm... not sure what to suggest really, if it were mine I'd bin the lot and scrub out the bucket with bleach but I assume your following some kind of recipe, can you post the recipe for us as it may be something to think about in the future.

testing

[Millymollymandy]

OK Can't quote for some strange reason also fixing your img link is not working either I've looked at the picture and ...

Oh my lord that's looking rather rancid, erm... not sure what to suggest really, if it were mine I'd bin the lot and scrub out the bucket with bleach but I assume your following some kind of recipe, can you post the recipe for us as it may be something to think about in the future.

testing

another test

[gigglybug]

Ok the recipe I used was

Tea wine

4 Pints cold tea
2 lemons sliced
2lb sugar, dissolved in tea
1/2 lb raisons cut in half

Leave for one month and then strain.

A friend gave me this recipe, its supposed to taste like sherry

[MKG]

Can't stay quiet any longer. For goodness sake, gigglybug, chuck it down the drain - it looks like the worst brew ever from Toxic City. And I'm not surprised. Whoever gave you that recipe should be made to drink it all.

It works out at roughly 4.25 pounds of sugar to a gallon which, if it all fermented out (which it wouldn't) would give you over 20% alcohol by volume. But it can't even begin to do that that because there's no yeast in the recipe - and that's another part of your problem. Instead, you've managed to make a breeding ground for wild yeasts (not all of which are beneficial) and bacteria.

Start again - here's a better recipe ...

6 Pints cold tea (use 15 to 20 tea bags, but don't let it get too strong. Even better, get some fruit tea bags from the supermarket)
Juice and zest of one lemon
2.5 lbs sugar, dissolved in tea
1/2 lb raisins
One level teaspoon wine yeast.
One level teaspoon yeast nutrient (optional but preferable)

Make the tea, remove the tea bags, stir in the sugar and make sure it's dissolved. In the meantime, chop the raisins and bring to the boil in about a half-pint of water. Allow this to cool and strain of the muck. Add the resulting liquid to the tea.

When everything is cool, stick it all in a clean bucket, add the yeast, lemon juice and zest (and nutrient), cover to prevent insects getting in and leave in a warmish place for three days. That gets rid of any possibility of the fermentation frothing up out of a demijohn. After three days, pour it carefully into a demijohn and close with an airlock. Now you have a nice, clean fermentation going which will be complete in two to three weeks and the bacteria stand very little chance of getting in.

When the fermentation stops, taste the wine. It will probably fur your tongue up right away. This is because of the tannin from the tea, and it's at this point that you'll wish you'd used fruit tea bags instead. But no matter - you won't like the taste, but this will change over time. What you're testing for at the moment is sweetness. There shouldn't really be any. What you should have is a 12.5% by volume dry tea wine which needs to be matured for at least six months and preferably one year. Syphon the wine off the yeast sediment, top up with plain cold tapwater if necessary, and leave it under the airlock somewhere as cool as possible - don't even think about bottling at this stage. After a few months, when there's no chance of any renewed fermentation, taste it again and sweeten it to taste using sugar or artificial sweeteners. Even now, it's safer to leave it a little longer in the demojohn - just in case that sugar kicks off the one remaining yeast cell in the wine.

After a while, if all is well, bottle it, drink some, drink some more etc.

Best of luck. And PLEASE stop trying recipes which rely on natural yeasts - it's pure pot luck, and general purpose winemakers yeast is not at all expensive.

Mike

[gigglybug]

Lol The Mouldy Wine is long gone!

Thanks for the advice and the recipe

[Millymollymandy]

Can't stay quiet any longer.

Please don't stay quiet, we have missed you!

[paulbrrtt]

This would be a good wine to start ready for Xmas then?

[Annpan]

MKG (or anyone else who knows) - how do you work out the alcohol level from the sugar content?

I made rhubarb wine to the recipe in the John Seymore book, but my book has a typo in it and said 2lb/6.5k sugar.... when I assume it meant 12lb/6.5k sugar*...... so.... I have 2 gallon sized demijohns each with 6lb of sugar in and now I am worried it is going to be 50% alcohol, or something else undrikable






*or there abouts - I don't have the book on me at the mo, but there was a '1' missing.

[MKG]

Hi Annpan ...

By far the most accurate way of determining potential alcohol content is by using a hydrometer. On the other hand, it's a pain in the bum and most people don't really care if they're a half per cent out in the calculation. So, the really simple way is ...

1 lb of sugar in 1 gallon (note - that's 1 lb of sugar dissolved and made up to 1 gallon, not 1 lb of sugar added to 1 gallon) should give you as near as damn it 5% of alcohol. So two pounds gives you 10% alcohol, and a kilo bag will give you about 11%. A dry white table wine is usually between 10% and 12%. A dry red table wine is usually 12% to 13.5%.

Old country wine recipes often call for ridiculous amounts of sugar - 3.5 to 4 lbs. That was OK when yeasts weren't very good, and it resulted in a reasonably alcoholic sweet wine (because the yeast gave up the ghost at about 11%). Modern yeasts are much more alcohol-tolerant and will happily ferment out 3 lbs of sugar - giving you a 15% wine - or even more in good conditions. That will very efficiently get you drunk, but it will taste (how shall we put this?) like fire water unless the ingredients are also upped to provide the heavy body a wine of that strength would demand.

The other thing to bear in mind is that if you're using fruit as an ingredient, it will also add sugar of its own (you can find average sugar content of fruits on the net). This is particularly important when you're using raisins or sultanas, as at least half of their weight is sugar.

So, to your rhubarb wine. I take it that you mean that you have two 1-gallon demijohns, each of which has 6 lbs of sugar in the must. Theoretically, that will give you a 30% wine, which is approaching cheap vodka strength. But don't worry - I doubt that a fermentation would even begin because yeast, being an awkward little organism, doesn't like too much sugar. What you need to do (and I hope you have more demijohns or a large fermenting vessel) is water it down to a level where the yeast stands a chance - so at least by as much again (ie add two more gallons of water). That, though, is going to dilute the fruit content too, so you'll probably need to use more extracted rhubarb juice (or apple juice from the supermarket as long at it doesn't have any potassium sorbate in it) and include it as part of the extra liquid.

If you've already added yeast, you may have to add more - the osmotic pressure of a heavy sugar solution can rupture the yeast cell walls.

There's a very simple generic recipe for wine, by the way ...

2 to 4 lbs of fruit (depending upon the strength of taste)
2 to 3 lbs of sugar (depending upon the fruit sugar content and the desired finished strength)
Citric acid in some form (from a tub or lemons/oranges) but obviously none if you're making orange or lemon wine
Make up to 1 gallon with water.

Add yeast, yeast nutrient (and pectic enzyme if you can bring yourself to do it - but as long as you don't mind the occasional haze, you can leave it out).

Et voila - a month later, wine.

Mike

[wolfsong]

Yes warning to all trying to use the brewing section of Seymour's Guide to Self-sufficiency or whatever its called, something like that. There are quite a few typos, it seems the editor has brushed over it without actually looking, maybe not the brewing type? couple of biggies in the measurements and conversions to imperial from metric...
don't ask me where, i don't have it here , they don't allow alcohol in the lodgings, so brewing is out of the question, and i haven't worked out how to cultivate corn in the mould around the windows

[Annpan]

Hi Annpan ...

By far the most accurate way of determining potential alcohol content is by using a hydrometer. On the other hand, it's a pain in the bum and most people don't really care if they're a half per cent out in the calculation. So, the really simple way is ...

1 lb of sugar in 1 gallon (note - that's 1 lb of sugar dissolved and made up to 1 gallon, not 1 lb of sugar added to 1 gallon) should give you as near as damn it 5% of alcohol. So two pounds gives you 10% alcohol, and a kilo bag will give you about 11%. A dry white table wine is usually between 10% and 12%. A dry red table wine is usually 12% to 13.5%.

Old country wine recipes often call for ridiculous amounts of sugar - 3.5 to 4 lbs. That was OK when yeasts weren't very good, and it resulted in a reasonably alcoholic sweet wine (because the yeast gave up the ghost at about 11%). Modern yeasts are much more alcohol-tolerant and will happily ferment out 3 lbs of sugar - giving you a 15% wine - or even more in good conditions. That will very efficiently get you drunk, but it will taste (how shall we put this?) like fire water unless the ingredients are also upped to provide the heavy body a wine of that strength would demand.

The other thing to bear in mind is that if you're using fruit as an ingredient, it will also add sugar of its own (you can find average sugar content of fruits on the net). This is particularly important when you're using raisins or sultanas, as at least half of their weight is sugar.

So, to your rhubarb wine. I take it that you mean that you have two 1-gallon demijohns, each of which has 6 lbs of sugar in the must. Theoretically, that will give you a 30% wine, which is approaching cheap vodka strength. But don't worry - I doubt that a fermentation would even begin because yeast, being an awkward little organism, doesn't like too much sugar. What you need to do (and I hope you have more demijohns or a large fermenting vessel) is water it down to a level where the yeast stands a chance - so at least by as much again (ie add two more gallons of water). That, though, is going to dilute the fruit content too, so you'll probably need to use more extracted rhubarb juice (or apple juice from the supermarket as long at it doesn't have any potassium sorbate in it) and include it as part of the extra liquid.

If you've already added yeast, you may have to add more - the osmotic pressure of a heavy sugar solution can rupture the yeast cell walls.

There's a very simple generic recipe for wine, by the way ...

2 to 4 lbs of fruit (depending upon the strength of taste)
2 to 3 lbs of sugar (depending upon the fruit sugar content and the desired finished strength)
Citric acid in some form (from a tub or lemons/oranges) but obviously none if you're making orange or lemon wine
Make up to 1 gallon with water.

Add yeast, yeast nutrient (and pectic enzyme if you can bring yourself to do it - but as long as you don't mind the occasional haze, you can leave it out).

Et voila - a month later, wine.

Mike

YIKES!!!

It HAS started fermenting and is going great guns too - at the moment it is VERY bubbly

The recipe called for 15 lbs rhubarb and since rhubarb itself isnt that sweet I thought this would give a sweetish wine.... but what do I know (I have just started this brewing malarky and the more I read the more flumoxed I am by the whole thing - seems like a real boys club thing about it, everyone says it is so easy, but those of us starting with what seem to be very simple recipes can't seem to get it right at all )


If I add a camden tablet when it reaches 12% (I have 4 hydrometers, so that isn't a problem) or so, is that supposed to stop fermentation? would that work? will it be fizzy?

I do have other demiohns but I don't want to water down the flavour of the rhubarb.

[MKG]

So let me get this right, Annpan. In each gallon you have 7.5 lbs of rhubarb and 6 lbs of sugar - and it's fermenting? I want some of your yeast

Seriously, though, it's a way over the top recipe. Without any interference, it's going to stop fermenting at - let's be optimistic - 17 or 18% alcohol. That's about 3.5 lbs of sugar used up, leaving 2.5 lbs in solution. It's going to be cloyingly, sickly sweet. Mind you, you'd need a lot of sweetness to counteract the acidity from all that rhubarb. The only recipes I've seen which use anywhere near that amount of rhubarb also include precipitated chalk to get rid of a lot of that acidity (and what's the point in that?). If you do successfully stop it at an early stage with Campden Tablets (which only stun the yeast cells temporarily rather than kill them), it will be even sweeter. Not advisable, then. The recipe is obviously an attempt to produce a serious dessert wine - and it may even work as such - but if that's not what you were looking for, then you need to change something.

If it's just a reasonably decent quaffing wine you're looking for, then there's plenty of rhubarb already in there - so all you need to worry about is the final alcohol level, and the only realistic way to adjust that at this point is dilution. So, let's look at what happens ...

If, to the two gallons you already have, you add another two gallons of water, you'll end up with (per gallon) 3.75 lbs of rhubarb and 3 lbs of sugar. That will produce a medium-bodied wine at 15% alcohol - probably a bit on the high side. If you add three gallons of water, that's 3.3 and a bit lbs of rhubarb and 2.4 lbs of sugar per gallon of wine - light to medium body at 12% alcohol. That's about ideal for a dryish white or rose wine.

What I'm saying is that if I'd started with those ingredients, I'd be making five gallons of wine, not two. But it's up to you - you need to decide what final style you want.

I assume that you know that you can't determine alcohol content using a hydrometer unless you used the hydrometer in the first place to determine the original gravity? If you didn't do that, then all the hydrometer will tell you is how near to dryness the wine is.

I also assume that you know that stopping a fermentation with Campden tablets is iffy - as I said, that stuff only stuns the yeast. Then you have to be a pretty good hand at racking to get the wine off the yeast which drops to the bottom before it "regains consciousness". The really sure way is Campden tablets AND potassium sorbate. The yeast still isn't killed, but the sorbate prevents the cells from dividing. They die a natural death but leave no offspring - hence a yeastless wine.

Mike

[Annpan]

Well, all of the rhubarb isn't really in the wine...
15lbs of rhubarb were soaked for 2 days in 1 gallon of water.
Then we strained the liquid and divided it between the 2 demijohns, added (I think it was) 6lb 4ozs of sugar to each demijohn and a teaspoon of yeast. popped on a air trap wotsit and 2 days later it started bubbling.

At no point in the recipe did it call for you to add more water, but I am now thinking that was also an editing oversight and in actual fact you should make it up to 4 or 5 gallons, as you say.


I shall follow your advice and dilute it thankyou.




ETA....
Assume I know nothing. I didn't know about testing with the hydrometer to start with and I didn't know how effective camden tablets were, I just read it in an old recipe of my Dad's.

[MKG]

Annpan, I just checked Seymour's recipe - it's 15 lbs of rhubarb and 2.5 lbs of sugar per single gallon, according to the copy of his book I've seen. That amount of rhubarb is plain ridiculous. As long as you used hot-water extraction for the rhubarb (cover with boiling water , leave for a day, squash up the rhubarb, strain), I'd go for the four-gallon solution if I were you.

Mike

[CyberPaddy66]

I also assume that you know that stopping a fermentation with Campden tablets is iffy - as I said, that stuff only stuns the yeast. Then you have to be a pretty good hand at racking to get the wine off the yeast which drops to the bottom before it "regains consciousness". The really sure way is Campden tablets AND potassium sorbate. The yeast still isn't killed, but the sorbate prevents the cells from dividing. They die a natural death but leave no offspring - hence a yeastless wine.

Another good way to 'stun' the yeast if to chill your brew to as near to 4C as you can, any colder and you risk freezing the water out and any hotter and the yeast (at least lager yeast does) can continue fermenting slowly. Also chilling helps the sediment form quicker in the bottom of the fermentation vessel making racking an easier chore ;)

For the record I never stop yeast doing it's thing, I let it fully ferment out then once racked and cleared I sweeten to taste before bottling :D