cleaning demijohns and wine making for a beginner

[barefootlinzi]

I am a home carer and last night while visiting one of my ladies she told me she needed to get rid of 5 glass demijohns and airlocks that she used to make ginger beer in, I told her I wanted to make wine and beer so she gave them to me! They are very dirty, what is the best way to clean them? Do I need a special brush to get inside them? And the air locks are even worse, any tips for cleaning them?

Can anyone suggest a good and easy homebrew recipe for a first timer to try? How would I steralise the demijohns?

Sorry so many questions, never made homebrew before!

[red]

cleaning demijohns that have got dried on dirt is very tedious!

worth buying a long bottle brush.
things you can try:
soaking them for a long while
pouring in vinegar and dry rice and shake like mad
using biological soap powder.

I have some really grubby airlocks i was given.. tried my best but they still look grim. i put them in boiling water and figure they are sterile even if they dont look it...

[MKG]

Bugger!!!! Just wrote a really long post, pressed the wrong button and lost it.

Cleaning, as Red says, is a matter of elbow grease and soaking. But you can use anything you want to (sulphuric acid if necessary, but I wouldn't recommend it) because the last thing in the process is a long soak in plain water and a good rinse. Whatever you do, the final decision is "If I put a glass of water into that demijohn, would I be happy to drink it then and there?" If the answer's yes, the demijohn is clean enough to ferment in. The same goes for the airlocks but, as they're inexpensive, it might be better to replace them.

Beginner's recipe ...hmmmm. It's easy to put yourself off wine making if you jump in at the deep end and start crushing fruit and fermenting on the pulp - it's all messy and bothersome and best left until you have some knowledge of the fermentation process. So, I'd advise starting with a wine made from supermarket juice. Get yourself a litre of real orange juice (one which does not contain anything ending with "sorbate" or mentions the word "stabilizer"). And buy some general-purpose wine making yeast (yes, bakers' yeast will work, but not as well).

Pour the juice into a clean demijohn. Dissolve a kilo of ordinary sugar in a couple of pints of hot water and pour that lot into the demijohn. Leave everything to cool to room temperature. Top up with water to the 3/4 full mark (just in case the fermentation froths) and sprinkle a level teaspoonful of the yeast onto the surface of what is now termed the must (see - technical terms already). Stop the demijohn with an airlock (with water in it!!!!), put it into a warm spot (not in direct sunlight) and wait. And wait. Fermentation will begin within 48 hours and, depending upon a combination of a million factors, will finish in 10 days or a month or anywhere in between. After a couple of days of fermentation, top up the demijohn (leave about an inch between the liquid and the bung) with water.

What you'll end up with is a light, very dry white wine with a strength of about 11% and a very thin deposit at the bottom of the demijohn.

We can talk about how to get the wine off that deposit if you reach that stage. For now, if you taste the winr, you'll find that it tastes GROTESQUE. It needs to be sweetened - something else we can go into later.

There are loads of other things you could do and additions you could make - but this wine is simple and you'll be able to see fermentation in action. Then you can go on to more ambitious stuff.

Let us know how things go.

[hideo]

Dissolve a kilo of ordinary sugar in a couple of pints of hot water and pour that lot into the demijohn

I would leave the hot water to cool before pouring it into the demijohn, glass cracks very easily with large sudden temperature changes - I know from experience!

There is a very good beginners tutorial over here, with a recipe similar to MKG's one. They focus on the details a bit more but you could skim over those to start with.

Wilkinsons is a good place to buy wine yeast if you don't have a homebrew shop nearby.

[MikeM]

I "inherited" a load of dirty old demi johns, all I did was fill each one with a strong steriliser solution and leave to soak for a while. This worked a treat, and have since made many a litre of good wine.

[JR]

I did the supermarket juice thing a few years back but with clear apple (thought it would be better as already clear ish). It was fantastic for making you fall over but I dont think it would have won many awards for taste. Reckon it would have made a good paint stripper!



My dads neighbour loved it but it turned out he had a drink problem so it might not have been the best review. I hope it was not my wine that caused the drink problem.

[MKG]

Yep - that's why I've suggested orange - it's acceptable if sweetened. I've always though that apple by itself makes good cider but crap wine.

[clare]

Hi ,I use pressed grapejuice( no preservatives )and it is very drinkable after 3 months but then I am a dry white drinker!!