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Rule of thump. if said PET bottle rings like a bell when held by top and flicked with finger - carefully release pressure. Don't keep long time in PET though (say more than 2 moonths ish)- they break down eventually - combo of light and alcohol not kind to them i think - my anecdotal evidence only though.

Loosened off the plastic bottles this morning without incident FYI they were completely rigid.... quivering almost

I'm thinking about quarantining the glass cider bottle though, all this talk of explosions is a bit worrisome...

I'll buy myself a hydrometer and a few more bits of kit in a wee while - once I've had a little more practice. Thanks for all the pointers and answers to daft questions - it's been a big help!

Malcolm

I tried out the champagne this weekend - it was incredibly fizzy! the plastic bottles worked a treat, the one glass bottle I'd capped didn't work so well and a lot of that ended up going down the drain in a controlled explosion!

The drink tasted very very dry, so I assume the sugar was all used up. Definitely had a bit of an alcoholic punch but I couldn't say how strong it was. I found it was much improved with a slug of elderflower cordial at the bottom of each glass

My second batch is now bottled and I've got a batch of ginger beer brewing now.

I think I might have caught the home brew bug

Thanks again for all the help
Malcolm

Hi all,

Just incase anyone is reading this and pondering whether or not to go for it, we polished off our first batch at the weekend and it was lovely.

I basically threw sugar, lemons, oranges, water and elderflower into a bucket and covered it with a tea towel. Three days later it hadn't started fermenting, so in went a sachet of bread yeast (we didn't have any wine yest). I promptly forgot about it for a long hot weekend and about five days later went to throw it away. There was a bit of mould on the top and it smelt yeasty. But there were bubbles! OH offered to try it before it went down the sink and I am so glad he did - it was LOVELY!

Not sure it is particularly alcoholic as the bread yeast is fairly weak but it went down a treat at our BBQ.

So I would definitely recommend having a bash, it can't be that much of a fine art if I managed it!

Elderflower champagne isn't usually made to be high in alcohol - usually about 8 or 10%ish. I would have thought that bread yeast will get there perfectly capably. It's only when you're looking for the 12.5% to 15% bracket in a still wine that wine yeast becomes desirable. Oh - and you can safely ignore the fairy stories around the net that using bread yeast makes your wine taste of bread

Mike

My first attempt last year went well for bubbles but I put it in glass bottles with grolsh type lids and one blew up in the kitchen!!!I panicked and went to throw the rest down the sink there was no glug glug it just exited the bottles in a millisecond!!!SO WHATVEVER YOU DO USE SCREWTOP PLASTIC LEMONADE BOTTLES!!This year i did so and we just enjoyed a lovely glass no explosions!!