Wilco Chardonnay

My next brew is overdue: the last bottle of Young's Chardonnay May '14 was drunk last weekend. Sad times. It's really noticeable how the wine has improved with age over the months we've been drinking it.

Now for an own brand wine. Still Chardonnay; this time Wilkinson's. On offer today, reduced from £23 to £15. Bargain!

While mixing in the yeast, I came up with another theory of how/why the previous wine bubbled over: perhaps the yeast was not fully mixed into the liquid, and so all the fermentation happened on the surface. Time may tell...

This time, the yeast has been thoroughly mixed, and as a bonus I remembered to take the original gravity reading: 1070. Now I should be able to calculate the alcoholic strength.

Labelling the Bottles

The latest brew - a Youngs BrewBuddy Chardonnay kit - seems to have turned out well. It's still a bit young, and the flavours should mature over the coming months, but it seems to be rather good in an early tasting. (Well, there was a half-bottle left at the end of syphoning off ... it would be silly not to drink it!)

I'd been idly thinking about labelling the bottles. It's really only going to be immediate family and friends drinking it, but as I'm already thinking about another brew there'll be a need to tell which is which.

Having done a little research on the internet, there is a great range of labels available commercially. These range from simple, rectangular labels with either a simple border or just blank - to customisable, bespoke designs which look fairly professional. At the cheaper end, these still end up costing 40p or so each - which significantly adds to the cost of each bottle.

I decided to continue the home brew thinking and see what could be achieved myself. Another search online shows up many document templates which can be downloaded and printed out at home. These vary in quality, but can of course be adapted to your give the desired effect. I didn't want anything fancy - and many of the examples I found looked rather amateurish - so I had a go at creating my own.

Having done an image search for wine labels, I arrived at a basic design on a scrap of paper. I created a logo, using the family crest and a spidery font. The name of the wine is in a scripty font, and a plain font for the details of what went into the brew. Add a couple of horizontal lines and that's good enough for what I want. Recreating this in a wordprocessor took a bit of trial-and-error, but I'm quite happy with the result. Printed 8-up on A4 marbled paper they look pretty much exactly how I wanted.

Fermentation Too Lively?

This morning (day 2), there was froth all over the place. The bubble trap was full of it; there were puddles all over the lid and it had run down the sides of the bucket onto the surface.

Has something gone wrong?

Well, perhaps. Let's check:

• The temperature is OK (thermometer on the fermenter bucket says 22-24°C ... towards the top end but within the 20-25°C range specified).
• All the ingredients were added according to the instructions.
• Everything was cleaned before I started.

... So why is the brew so lively?

I'm currently running on the theory that I over-filled the fermenter. The head which forms on top of the liquid fills the space between the liquid and the lid... and is being forced up the tube into the bubble trap.

Time will tell whether the wine is OK. Meanwhile I'm having to clean up the mess twice a day. I may syphon off some of the liquid to see if that helps...

- - - - - -

UPDATE: Sunday 11 May 2014

I'm pleased to report that - despite the bubble trap being encrusted in goo this morning - it seems to have calmed down a little. Having cleaned everything up, it is now bubbling away happily without constantly spurting froth.

Chardonnay

I'm kicking off the most ambitious brew yet ... well, the biggest brew anyway. I've bought a 30 bottle kit of Chardonnay (white wine). Having looked at the costs, it seems that wine offers bigger savings over the prices in the shops. The cost breakdown is at the end.

This is the same volume as the 40 bottles of lager before Christmas, but it feels bigger because I've had to get some proper grown-up kit. I am the proud owner of a hydrometer and a bubble trap. I've got a second bucket, too (one with a hole in the lid for the bubble trap).

The instructions said to rinse out the bucket then add 5 litres of boiling water. This was 4 kettles full. There must be a neat way to boil 5 litres in one go...

Next, the 4Kg of sugar is dissolved into the water. I found it helped to use a torch to see that the sugar was all gone.

Then the bucket is topped up with the concentrate, the yeast, additional flavouring and water to fill the bucket. Again, lots of kettles full.

Now we just have to wait and see...

Additional kit bought:
Youngs Chardonnay kit ... £25
Brew bucket ... £11?
4Kg brewing sugar ... ~£8
2 bubble traps ... £2.25

This works out at around £1.55 per bottle. That's at least £3.45 less than I would normally spend, whereas the beers only saved about 60p each.

Next week we'll see how it turns out.

First Homebrew Wine - Lessons Learned

All the wine has been drunk now... and very good it was too. The quality exceeded our expectations and was easily comparable with mid-range priced wines (£5-£9 at current prices).

The wine kit came in at just over £40 - making it work out at £10 a bottle. If the 5th bottle hadn't been spoilt, it would have been more like £9 a bottle, which isn't much more than the equivalent shop price. This is not bad, considering the up-front equipment bought. I'm expecting the cost to drop for the next batch.

During this exercise, I've learned:

• A "6 bottle" kit won't necessarily make 6 bottles.
• This brew made 4.5 - but one got contaminated with sediment and was undrinkable.
• Next time, I'll add more water...
• The lid probably doesn't need to be opened to relieve the pressure.
• Temperature fluctuations don't seem to matter too much - within reason.
• Sediment looks solid - but mixes into the wine with the slightest movement.
• Syphoning takes practice - and possibly a widget on the end of the tube to avoid sucking up the sediment.
• Corks need to be steamed (or otherwise softened) before insertion into the bottles.

Inserting the corks

OK. I've got the corks in - but they're all squashed. I should'a read this article on how to prepare the corks first...

Still, the wine is bottled and ready to drink. Or keep. Or both. I'm a bit disappointed I only got four and a half bottles filled, though. The kit said six.

Time to bottle the wine

It's time to bottle the wine. It's brewed and has been standing to clear having added the finings (as per kit instructions). So I'm soaking the labels off some bottles I've between saving up. (It was a hard job having to drink all that wine to get some empties.)

Next, I'm going to play at siphoning...

First brew finished fermenting

It's been four weeks now. The fermenting probably stopped after three, but I needed to get another fermenting bucket to decant into. So far, so good. The wine tastes remarkably good - even though it still needs to clear.

I've used plastic bucket fermenters, rather than the more traditional glass demijohns. I wasn't sure about this, but it seems to have worked OK. During the early stages, I relieved the pressure periodically. (The lid was showing that there was a build up of pressure inside.) I'm not sure whether this was necessary. I think next time, I'll not do this to see what happens.

I have been concerned that the temperature has not been stable enough. I've kept the wine on a bench in the kitchen - near enough to a radiator to benefit from the warmth, but not so close that the mixture gets overheated. At night, though, the room gets kind'a cold as we're well into autumn now. The past few nights it's been down to freezing point outside; I'm, guessing it goes below 10°C indoors. On first tasting (while syphoning), it seems to be OK, though.

That's all for now - there'll be another update soon. I've been collecting wine bottles and have bought some corks so I should be ready for the bottling in a couple of weeks' time.

Starter kit

My first wine kit consists of:

• wine kit, box (cost unknown - estimate £10-£15 ... it was a gift)
• 5 litre brewing bucket: £4.60
• Steriliser & Cleaner: £1.99
• Brewing Sugar (not needed - included in the kit ... I'll use it another time): £2.24

This should make 6 (75cl) bottles. I'll need to get a syphon tube, wine corks and so forth later. I'll leave that until the wine has brewed...

Start at the beginning

I've got a wine kit - and I'm not afraid use it...

I've had success in the past with brew-in-the-bag beer kits. This time I'm going for a wine kit. The ups, downs and bits in between will be catalogued here... along with anything useful I learn along the way.