Recent content by tonyhibbett

Just got one of these which fits the pin type s30 valve. Works really well and should prove much more economical in the long run as the gas is 30% cheaper than using bulbs and you only use what you need

It did eventually clear to translucent, with a slight fine orange sediment, which suggests the haze was caused by tannin being added at the end instead of earlier. The wine is now 1 year old and the flavour bears no relation to the ingredients. I also found a gallon of a blackcurrant variant...

The elderflower and rosehip version is the best so far, with both an elderflower aroma and flavour. The peach and elderflower finished at sg 1002 and cleared on the second dose of finings with a slight pink colour. There was a slight haze which I tried to clear by filtering but the pad clogged...

The elderflower and ginger version was hard to clear. The meths test for pectin proved negative. I tried to filter it but due to the sugar content (2.5%) even the coarse pad clogged up less than half way through. The haze is not too bad, but I will leave it to clear on it's own. The next one is...

I bought a 750g galia melon, which yielded 350 ml of clear juice with just 4% sugar and almost no acid. The flavour is very light. The best buy for pears is Sainsbury/Tesco tinned at 80p per 410g tin. Although the net drained weight is only 225g, the syrup is in fact pure pear juice, so only 4...

I have 6 plants, planted last year. They have grown really well. The old adage that May is the best time to harvest may well be true, as the current batch has inferior flavour. However, the last 4 weeks have been very dry, which obviously affects the water content.

Thee ginger and elderflower version took a long time to ferment out and, after 2 attempts at fining, it was rather hazy. Given the problem with the elderflower extract, I assumed pectin was the problem, even though I had initially used pectolase. This doesn't work so well with alcohol so I used...

Very strange. When I tried to strain an elderflower infusion I found the liquid had turned to jelly! This suggests a lot of pectin but has never happened before. I added some pectolase which has thinned the jelly but not completely liquefied it, so I topped it up with some boiled water and will...

Just 300 ml of pear juice took over the flavour of the litre of rhubarb juice!

Boiling drives of most of the aroma. I put mine (250 ml flowers only) into a sweet jar, cover with boiling water then seal the jar. After 24 hours, I strain the infusion, add sugar (800g), 250 ml grape juice concentrate, 10 g tartaric acid, 5 g tannin, 3 teaspoons of glycerin and 5g of...

In the end, both strawberry versions turned out very similar, with no strawberry or rhubarb flavour prominent. When carbonating, I found that 7 seconds at 0c is the optimum amount. Any more just wastes co2 and time. The ginger and elderflower version is quite promising. This time I used a...

An online search found 5l of white grape juice concentrate for £35 plus £5 delivery.

Next version is with 50g of grated ginger and 250 ml of elderflowers, infused with boiling water, like tea but left overnight, plus 250 ml of grape juice concentrate. There's plenty of rhubarb, so I used 4 pounds.

The first strawberry version now tastes neither of rhubarb nor strawberry but quite a nice wine. The second version has a light strawberry flavour.

I tried another version with strawberries. The recipe is actually for strawberry wine, using rhubarb to offset the strong strawberry flavour. I used 900 g of strawberries and 1.2 kg of rhubarb, with 500 ml of grape juice concentrate. I mashed then pressed the strawberries, yielding 500 ml of...