Beaverdale Shiraz

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percival

percival

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I finally got around to buying some Beaverdale Shiraz kits ... so thanks to all you folks who have encouraged me to try a kit and pointed me in the Beaverdale direction. As much as i would have liked to spend £40 on a 30 bottle kit i just couldn't afford it and so went for false economy of buying 2 x 6 bottle kits. I'll be getting it on the go very soon and then will keep you informed of progress, but as a brewday there is little excitement so apart from updates and your comments it will most likely be a quiet thread.
 
£40 :shock:

i paid £34.99 for my beaverdale merlot, and cabernet sauvignon... mind you that was before xmas.

hope you like it... my merlot is lovely.

i keep meaning to get the cabernet going but keep getting distracted by .... errrr.... beer :D
 
BrewStew said:
i keep meaning to get the cabernet going but keep getting distracted by .... errrr.... beer :D
Click to expand...

distraction ..... thats why its taken me so long to get around to being close to doing a kit and the TC :grin:

what a priviledged bunch we are .... distracted from brewing by ..... erm .... more brewing
 
Hooray, its on the go and the sleepy yeast is already beginning to wake up! Took a lot of care to get the liquor temp almost bang on the ideal 20'c that is recommended in the instructions, as there was so little else to do. Dark glass demijohns so as to keep as much colour in the wine as possible. Will top up the demijohns when the fermentation quietens down a bit.
 
This has almost finished fermenting now. well its going very slow, but it could continue like this for some time. Anyway .... reading the instructions with the kit i see it says to add stabiliser and shake the wine for 3-4 mins, 3 times a day, for 3-4 days, then add finings (kieselsol and shake, leave for 24 hours. Then chitosan, shake and allow to clear). ONLY THEN does it mention racking off the sediment for the first time.

So the question is ... do i follow the instructions, or do i do as i usually do .... once fermentation is done then rack, and then do any other stuff ... stabiliser, finings etc if needed?

I added the wood chips (pfft dust!), perhaps this is why the instructions dont rack for some time? give the woody flavours more time to get into the wine? Or is there some other process still going on after fermentation that requires something else in the sediment?

what say you ... the wino's who have done these kits? what did you do?
 
i followed the instructions to the letter as i didn't fancy screwing up £35 of a 5gal wine kit :shock:

but mine told me to rack first, then add all the stuff at various intervals and shake to buggery several times per day :wha:
 
if i hadnt already scoured the instructions about 15 times, looking for when to rack for the first time, then i would assume i had simply missed it. But no mention is made of racking til after all the stabiliser/fining additions and shaking. I reckon i'm gonna be baaaaad and disobey the instructions. Re-suspending all that sediment just seems all wrong to me. just checked the other instructions with another kit, exactly the same.

thanks for you thoughts BS, very helpful :thumb:
 
I did a kit similar to this and I racked it off the lees at the end of fermentation and added their stabilisers and finings to the new vessel as they suggested. I'm not a big fan of using finings as I'll leave any wine to mature for a lengthy period anyway but they seem to work very well. I got 4 and 3/4 full clear bottles from what was left after all the gunk that was settled out.
 
i wonder if i got some rare misprinted instructions and they'll be worth £1,000,000 one day :D

same as for you arturo i very rarely using finings etc, time usually does the job. I will rack one day soon and then take whatever steps after that. Grief, how mad would you be if you had never done a wine before, thought a kit was the easiest way, and then get bad instructions!
 
The instructions were a bit generic and a little basic for experienced wine makers. I followed them fairly roughly as like you i'm a man who believes in time for dropping out sediment/crud. I wouldn't expressly buy finings but if someone (like this one) gave me a wine kit as a gift i'd probably make it up as advised as it's less hassle for me. I drank the 3/4 bottle of this and it tasted very raw in so much as it was fruity as hell and not much else. The mouthfeel was excellent and it had a nice robe in the glass so all leads me to believe it will make a decent wine given time in the bottle.

The Chardonnay Beaverdale someone gave me is dropping bright now without finings. This is the one i've added sugar and white grape juice to in order to boost the alcohol level to about 16% for mixing with brandy to make port.
 
thanks for your thoughts and reassurance Arturo :thumb:

i reckon i'll be leaving this one to condition for some time, may try a bottle around summer to see how its going as thats probably around the time i'll be thinking of bottling. i'm thinking of taking a leaf out of your book and using the sediment to start a brew. Perhaps with a few cartons of supermarket red grape juice to make a rose. The thinking being that the oak chips may still have something to give and the yeast should be good. This will be when i rack anytime soon, not when i bottle :grin:

Good luck with the chardonnay-port
 
Thanks mate,

I pitched two jars of honey and red grape juice (diluted with treated water as to keep the honey notes high and alcohol level tolerable) on to the slurry from the Beaverdale Californian Red I made. This mead (Pyment) has pretty much finished it's fermentation and has been racked once off the lees and oak chips from the Beaverdale kit. It's starting to drop bright in the demijohn already and clearing from the top down so looking good there.
 
nice one! i'll have to do my best to make sure and get some grape juice very soon then!

dam .... there goes the plans for turbo cider being next up ... again, lol
 
Bit slow getting around to racking and stabilising but did it tonight. All seems good, nice taste already, so now begins the hard part .... patience for some months while it conditions.

i saved the sediment and got a new wine on the go using 77p/litre purple grape juice from tesco ...

clicky for more details
viewtopic.php?f=39&t=2125
 

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