Recent content by Fin420

If it's a red and reads drinks within a year, it's probably been conditioning for at least 2/3 before it was bottled. In the winery where I work we condition whites for one year before bottling, reds/roses for 2/3 years, and kinda the same we don't recommend they are kept for decades because...

I make a few different elderflower wines/cordials at work, I'd suggest swapping the black tea for a handful of non-oiled sultanas (we mince them first) if you do go for this I'd throw in some pectolase to get the best out of them! Congratulations!

By this point I've tried about every brand you can buy off the shelf, as well as a few local ones. Surprisingly Tescos own brand honeys (not the value ones) ferment well and taste pretty good in the end. I prefer the locally made raw honey I can get here (not processed at all), it costs more...

Worth a shot, it might be enough to kick it to life, you could always add the yeast afterwords if it doesn't cause any reaction to start.

Don't worry about removing the bottom layer, better to get it out but it won't do any harm if left in. Diamonium phosphate (DAP), sold as yeast nutrient in most places

Hi all, ive been making way more mead than wine this year, so far my favourite is my honey/maple syrup mixture, 2/1 ratio seems to work well. I've started a blueberry melomel today, 3L blueberryjuice with two jars of set honey plus sugar, citric, pectolase, tannin, youngs yeast and nutrient...

Temperature spikes can easily kill off the yeast. Adding Raisins will add some tannins, but you'll struggle to ferment honey without adding yeast nutrient. If I was you I'd start again, siphon off the layer of sediment (if there is one) add nutrient and more yeast and keep an eye on the...

@ajhutch Did you notice any effect from staggering the nutrient addition? I've read about this in mead recipes but never tried it myself.

I've had similar results by using cheap honey, ferments about 1 percent then dies. Yet to have this problem with any other batch of mead, I'm guessing the processing of the honey destroys it in some way. Or it could just be a stuck fermentation, from a number of reasons. Adding more yeast or...

Force carbing in the bottle, by chilling everything beforehand to decrease the time the co2 takes to dissolve so it can be done relatively quickly.

Here's the rig I have at the moment, minus the co2 tank itself, I've used it for carbonating some ciders and it works pretty well! Still missing the attachment to get it to work on a champagne bottle though :(

Thanks for the info @ianm it's looking good after a couple of days, just need to rack off the black layer and add a bit more chitosan before adding flavouring

@Ianm you're right it's a 'prohibition' kit with turbo yeast etc. I can't really see the benefit of using the charcoal...I'm pretty sure finings would do just as good a job, but after a solid month of fermenting I thought I'd better follow the instructions! It advised I add it with the...

Has anyone ever used activated charcoal/carbon? I'm about to add some to a sloe gin kit as per the instructions but I'm not exactly sure what it does!

Yes gremlish it's basically one of Those but instead of fitting a screw cap bottle it fits a beer bottle. It might be less practical than letting it carbonate naturally, but it does mean a completely clear bottle with zero sediment at the end, which is pretty much exactly what I need for...