Turbo Cider 005 bottled

I bottled the Turbo Cider yesterday - priming with some honey dissolved in apple juice in the bottles. No gravity taken to start or afterwards. Bottled into Ikea flip top 1L bottles with a bit of headspace.

Beer 004 Kegged

After sitting quietly at 1012 for couple of days I siphoned the beer off into my new keg. I must say I prefer the kegging process over messing around with bottles. It's so much easier and cleaner and I'm able to do it by myself without very much trouble. I think this would be the first brew with virtually no wastage getting it out of the fermenter.

2010-06-10: Gravity: 1012, Kegged. Estimate: 3.8%

Good long while since I brewed

It's been an age since I brewed, just didn't seem to get the time and couldn't really get into the spare room. But having gotten a keg for my birthday I am determined that I am not going to let it slide for quite so long again. I bought an extra fermenting bin, which I think will be reasonably useful just to have handy for carting water about, etc. Unfortunately my house isn't laid out in such a way that I can dedicate any real room to brewing.

I have chucked a brew on, again Coopers bitter with Geordie beer kit enhancer. Not sure what it will come out like because the tin is quite old. I also chucked a turbo cider on using some out of date apple juice that I have. I'm quickly getting that brewed for Peace in the Park, a local free festival. I plan to dissolve some honey in apple juice to sweeten it for bottling.

Beer 003 notes.

Beer 003 is still around 4 and a bit months in. It's not a bad drop if I'm honest, but it's a bit of a pain because it fizzes madly when opened and has a tendency to stir up the sediment. I managed to open some this evening without it going too mad.

I want some Coopers IPA. Daz made some of that and it's just lovely.

Decisions, decisions

I've not got anything fermenting at the minute, due to not having a kit. I do however, have 20 one litre cartons of Princes apple juice. We did an on-line shop and it was a 2-for-1 offer so I thought, as I didn't have to carry them up the road I might as well. I can't decide whether to just chuck it all in the fermenting bin and do a large batch, or whether to continue with the smaller, experimental batches.

Daz and I are supposed to be going up the allotment today. One of the jobs is to pick and dry some nettles to make tea, as I saw a program on TV that said it's good for hayfever, which Daz suffers from. I had the bright idea of picking a bin liner full and making a nettle beer after seeing some recipes on-line, so that might get done this weekend.

My mate Martin, also said he has a pressure barrel and fermenting bin that he might want to give me on permanent loan. He's got a young baby and needs the room for pushchairs and the like. That will give me loads of fermenting capacity, or the possibility to do clearing using finings plus of course meaning that I can forget bottling (hurrah!). I could possibly convert one bin into a boiler at some point too.

Beer 003 -Bottled

I bottled the Coopers bitter last weekend.

2009-04-25: Gravity: 1012, bottled. Estimate 4.4%.

Cider 004 -Bottled

Cider 004 stopped fizzing and got bottled during the week.

2009-04-28: Gravity: 1006, Bottled. Estimate around 5.8%