Recent content by Scots_Pagan

Decided to have a stab at making beer, since I had all the bits and bobs anyway through wine & mead making... Picked up one of these kits for £7 in tescos, couldn't resist! Couldn't just be a normal one tho, have to experiment. Decided to add 100g of molasses & 50g fat-reduced cocoa...

Ah, thanks :) I've pitched today; I couldn't get the DME - SWMBO has put a moratorium on so-called unessential purchases after she saw our overdraft, what with Yuletide approaching.. I tried explaining how beer is a necessary purchase, but alas not... So rather than risk domestic inharmony, I...

Thanks for the advice guys; Especially from BruinsTuins... I do have a local tescos but they don't stock home-brew, and I didn't know they'd do it on Click'N'Collect, so I shall be able to get a lot more stuff now, cheers! For this attempt I think the consensus seems to be for using...

OK guys, decided I'd take a quick break from making mead to make a festive beer...it's my first essay into beer... I've left it a little late as I've had trouble getting the necessary stuff here in the dark wilds of western Scotland... I managed to score a Cooper's Stout kit on the cheapo...

I think you may have made the same error i did on my first; took it out too quickly.. Mead likes a long time in the secondary...at least 2 months. that said, my first batch was rough as a prozzies **** at bottling but matured quite well in only 3-4 months it was lovely.

99p a litre? Hadn't tried Lidl...and I need to put another batch on...cheers for that. Think maybe a couple of pun nets of peaches and then the rest being peach juice with a litre of WGJ and it should have a lot of body...

Wow, that's a long time in the DJ...is it still in secondary??

I decided that I should be a little patient, so it's still sitting in the DJ, in secondary....not much activity now so I think it's reaching the time to think about stabilising and fining.... Took a tiny glass to sample, it's not raw at all - very smooth, although it's very very dry, some...

I'd top up later if I were you. If your real peaches are anything like the pulp in the juice I brewed with, you're gonna have an inch thick scum of peach stuff at the top - if that gets into your airlock, you'll be buying a new one! Also means you have some time to source the peach juice to top...

I recently did a peach wow wine (ie. made from supermarket juice) which turned out excellent - I think instead of doing a re-run, I will tweak the recipe to include some actual peaches if I can get some cheap enough.... I'd advice you to do the obverse - which is to say instead of topping up...

Yep....my first mead was a JAOM (albeit I swapped out the bread yeast for SuperWine).. I deliberately wanted less of a fruit flavour and more of a honey one; it had little flavour once it was done fermenting, of anything. Likely because a) I only used the juice from half an orange, instead of...

I'm a Graphics Designer and so's my partner (she's better than me tho!)... We both had a go at designing a label; hers was far superior to me, and she took about half the time on it. Sigh. Yeah, done in Adobe Illustrator, printed on my laser printer and cut to/sticked on. Surprisingly good...

Oh I hear you there... That peach wine I also just bottled...had a glass last night with Xmas dinner, and WOW the difference...only ben a couple of months but it's so much smoother and nicer. I regret taking a few glasses before now; I will have no bottled left once all those gifts are gone...

It actually took a week, if you can believe that! I started it on a saturday, sampled it the next Sat, and it had dropped to 0.991!!!! I left it in secondary for a couple of weeks, then racked it, stabilised and fined it and left it to bulk age. been taking the odd sneaky glass which I regret...

Might work, but you're forgetting, you WANT that gunk...it's fruit pulp, so it's got a lot of sugars and other needed stuff in it, for colours etc. A day *might* be enough to extract all that stuff, but it might not...