Black Shucks

Well then, I've conducted my first proper wine based experiment. We had picked some hawberries a while ago with the intention of making a straight haw wine.

However I never got round to collecting enough berries, and we needed space in the freezer so I have had a go. I have added about 800g haws to 200g ish blackberries.

These had boiling water poured over them, were mashed and cooled. 200g sugar was also added. When cool, I added pectolase, nutrient and yeast. This was left for 4 days to get going.

I've now strained into a demijohn and added a further 500g sugar. This has brought the gravity up to 1064, acceptable enough I think.

It's a real shame that I'll have to wait months before finding out how well this works.

Part of the nature of the homebrewer though I suppose!

beer beer cider wine!

So I've brewed the milestone IPA. The abv turned out a bit lower than expected but it tastes really good. So I'm really happy with it and would do it again.

I currently have a coopers lager in the barrel which has become a victim to the really cold weather. The standard yeast hasn't been able to cope with the cold, so I've just pitched a saflager S 23. This will hopefully revive it!

The ginger beer didn't carbonate properly but still works well.

Unfortunately I don't think our boiler breaking down helped matters!

The current batch of orange wine seems to be bubbling along nicely.

The vimto wine also is surprisingly drinkable!