The Range 'Make Your Own' Red

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HI

I've read that using a stabiliser too early can have an adverse effect on the wine?. I have been making wine for around a year now and usually buy the Solomon Grundy range which cost £32 quid. Really nice and I now brew short at around 21 litres. The reds are pretty good.
 
Just bottled this yesterday. 29 1/2 bottles and drinkable now but will leave it a bit as noted.
Controlled the temp in the new fridge and left it for about 2 weeks longer than stated, then another week after clearing and degassing. Result - very clear, and a heavy sediment that stayed put.
Only other thing of note was it used wood chips which were more of a fine oak sawdust. I thought it would mess up the bottling but it all dropped out of suspension ok.
....now I have an empty FV again wink...
 
One thing I have noticed with the red compared to the white and rose kits is the red takes a lot longer to ferment, I put one on 12 days ago and it's still slowly bubbling away.
 
Started my red MYO kit a few weeks back on a Monday afternoon and by Thursday it was finished at 992 , I added 200 grams of elderberries to add colour and body used open bucket with muslin cloth cover , it hissed like crazy at 28 degrees in a 16 degree room , it’s now ageing in plastic carboy with oak chips, was originally planning cheap Christmas plonk but the wine tasted better than that so I’m leaving it a while,
 
Mine is just about finished it's taken 12 days on a heat pad so I will be putting a MYO rose on after this to build stock for Christmas.
 
Do you think leaving the fv open with a cloth cover speed mine up so much, I saw this method on a few videos which describes a certain phase of fermentation needing lots of oxygen but mine fermented out that quickly I didn’t have the opportunity to airlock during fermentation. I had it on a heat pad day one but it was raising temp too much so I turned it off, so fingers crossed.
 
I have found the white and rose finish around 7 days and the first red I made a couple of days more (on a heat pad) this red has been really slow and is now at 13 days, I have no idea why.
 
Just started making the white that I won, finally. Feckin landlord let me go home yesterday - the place is gutted with soot. More cleaning to come ><
 
I've just ordered this from B2B who have this in clearance offer (less than 50p per bottle).

Are you using granulated sugar or Brewers sugar? I'm not sure using 3.5kg of brewers sugar would make much difference..
 
Are you using granulated sugar or Brewers sugar? I'm not sure using 3.5kg of brewers sugar would make much difference.
I have always made these kits with normal sugar its 3.5kg of table sugar or 4kg of Dextrose.
 
Err, this is what I found bud. Feckin ignore the damned outside of the thing, open it up and find it's like any other beer brewing ie boil wort. The outside does not make it clear. I trusted that yesterday and aham, I was stirring quite alot before I was satisfied to take an SG. Outside instructions are very misleading and ignore at all costs. Just make some wort from sugar, pour in as it says on the inside and brew like a normal beer.

Pouring 3.5 kg of cane sugar takes a long time to aham get a decent starting point rofl. Yus my bad, I did it. I trusted teh outside instructions now please troll me for being stupid.

Aham, However I have an SG of 12% abv so..... we'll see ;)
 
I have seen review for The Range 'Make Your Own' white, rose and cider so I thought I could add my review of the red. So far I have made two lots of 5 gallons of the red, with a third just started, one important thing, they warn you to put the FV onto a tray or the like as it can be quite an active ferment, they ain't kidding, luckily I use an oversize bucket about 7 gallons in old money, I also put it in the bottom of our airing cupboard which is heated by a simple electric bar heater with a thermostat set at 24 degrees centigrade.

The kit contains red concentrate in a plastic pouch with five sachets of, yeast, oak chips, stabiliser and two finings and instructions in a side pouch of the container.

Just a point to the unwary, make sure you stand the pouch upright before you cut it open, both pouches are opened at the same time.

Add the concentrate with 5 litres of boiling water wash out the pouch, dissolve 3.5 kg of sugar and top up to 23ish litres with cold water, when the temperature drops below 30 degrees C add oak chips and yeast. As it was the warmest part of summer the cooling down took hours, so now I add 3 litres of boiling water and top up to 23 ish litres and the temperature is about 27 degrees C.

Into the airing cupboard, the aroma of fermentation spread throughout the room, much to my daughter's disgust, it's in her bedroom!

It actually took 10 days rather than the seven stated in the instructions, but it did ferment out to 0.994, start s.g. was 1082, calculates at 11.7 ABV.

Out of the airing cupboard and add the stabiliser, and finings 'A' stir to degassfor several minutes, they say two but I found that four or five aided the clearing, wait for an hour add finings 'B' stir again for 10 seconds and put to rest in a cool place.

After 3 days, checked to see if it was clear and had a problem, this wine is such a deep red you need to rack some off and use a torch to see if it's clear! Thankfully it was. I use lemonade bottles to bottle it into and get 11 by two litre bottles plus if you're as tight as I am you can carefully get about another litre off the lees to settle in the bottle.

It is a little rough and very dry if drunk straight away but I add a small amount of lemonade to a glass. They do say that after two or three months it rivals commercial wines, one day I might even find out!

Over all, considering the cost of the kit is £24.99 and four kilos of sugar is £2.76, 69p per kilo in Lidl, that's £27.75 for 30 bottles, about 93p a bottle, IMHO this is very good wine for an incredibly good price.
Hi
Made this red a few times now, really good and easy to make, yes 4-5 mins is better to degass , Iget 30 new bottles from my local brew shop for £19.99 so with looking around, would to get more than 27 full bottles out of23 Lts but not complaining!
 
I've just picked up another two packs for £13.46 a pack from Brew2bottle online because it is in their clearance section with an additional 10% off if you buy two or more packs and with free delivery over a set limit.
Still on sale at £24.99 in The Range so I call that a bargain. Maybe they have high stock and are trying to shift it. Also nabbed a bitter kit.
 
I've just picked up another two packs for £13.46 a pack from Brew2bottle online because it is in their clearance section with an additional 10% off if you buy two or more packs and with free delivery over a set limit.
Still on sale at £24.99 in The Range so I call that a bargain. Maybe they have high stock and are trying to shift it. Also nabbed a bitter kit.
I’ve done exactly the same 23 ltrs red 23 ltrs of white and fermentation bin !
 
I've just picked up another two packs for £13.46 a pack from Brew2bottle online because it is in their clearance section with an additional 10% off if you buy two or more packs and with free delivery over a set limit.
Still on sale at £24.99 in The Range so I call that a bargain. Maybe they have high stock and are trying to shift it. Also nabbed a bitter kit.


The bitter is quite nice!
 

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