So, just over a week ago I forced the children into slave labour.
We headed into the thickets behind my work and went collecting blackberries. This isn't really too much of a hardship for blackberry loving six year olds; they happily ate enough for it to be classed as wages.
I was hoping to get enough not just for apple and blackberry crumble (there was, it was delicious
), but also so I could get back into wine-making again.
Sadly, I couldn't get photos of the initial work as I needed both hands and all my brain concentrating on the kids who were trying to redecorate the house (and themselves) purple.
The plan was simple, mush up a bucket of blackberries. Split into two (bucket and bowl), add sugar and yeast and let nature take its course.
One week later and we have:
The initial makings of Shateu_Furie. This is half a bucket of fermented blackberries. The smell is actually intoxicating and I was light headed after working with the stuff. Yeast wees alcohol and it's superb
To get from fruit to wine, you need to strain the fruit pulp to get all the sugar and taste from it. Here I'm using a nappy to strain the liquid and then squeeze it all out:
Oddly, the pulp looks like something you've strained out (particularly if you have bowel cancer):
About a dozen funnels and squeezes later and...
It's knackering, it's actually really quite tiring.
After half an hour of hard work pouring and squeezing though, we have fermenting juice!
The bowl in front contains sugar syrup. a pound of sugar dissolved into a pint of water and left to cool. This is food for the next 10 days for the yeast - NOM!
Tipping the syrup in while taking a photo is ridiculously hard!
I'd like to say that's it, but I then had to repeat for the other load of fermenting berries I had. This lot I started off with a mix of white and brown sugar though, to give it a sharper, rum taste. It's becomnig mead though, so there'll be delicious honey flavouring to it as well (plus honey ferments higher than wine). So another half an hour, another pint of water with a pound of honey dissolved into it and...
Two gallons of Shateu_Furie ready to ferment properly. The mead smells absolutely divine, but I'm not sure about the wine - I think that there may be a rogue yeast in there, we'll see.
All that's left is to clean up the mini-bloodbath that appears to have happened in the kitchen :lol:
Note to self - Blackberry juice stains white-goods.
Second note to self - Buy white enamel paint and paint white goods before madame_furie returns home.
The wine needs ten days of warmth and leaving alone now (actually, seven days now) to ferment and bubble away, then it gets another snack and I'll post more pictures of me pouring more stuff into other stuff - bet you can't wait
We headed into the thickets behind my work and went collecting blackberries. This isn't really too much of a hardship for blackberry loving six year olds; they happily ate enough for it to be classed as wages.
I was hoping to get enough not just for apple and blackberry crumble (there was, it was delicious
), but also so I could get back into wine-making again.Sadly, I couldn't get photos of the initial work as I needed both hands and all my brain concentrating on the kids who were trying to redecorate the house (and themselves) purple.
The plan was simple, mush up a bucket of blackberries. Split into two (bucket and bowl), add sugar and yeast and let nature take its course.
One week later and we have:
The initial makings of Shateu_Furie. This is half a bucket of fermented blackberries. The smell is actually intoxicating and I was light headed after working with the stuff. Yeast wees alcohol and it's superb
To get from fruit to wine, you need to strain the fruit pulp to get all the sugar and taste from it. Here I'm using a nappy to strain the liquid and then squeeze it all out:
Oddly, the pulp looks like something you've strained out (particularly if you have bowel cancer):
About a dozen funnels and squeezes later and...
It's knackering, it's actually really quite tiring.
After half an hour of hard work pouring and squeezing though, we have fermenting juice!
The bowl in front contains sugar syrup. a pound of sugar dissolved into a pint of water and left to cool. This is food for the next 10 days for the yeast - NOM!
Tipping the syrup in while taking a photo is ridiculously hard!
I'd like to say that's it, but I then had to repeat for the other load of fermenting berries I had. This lot I started off with a mix of white and brown sugar though, to give it a sharper, rum taste. It's becomnig mead though, so there'll be delicious honey flavouring to it as well (plus honey ferments higher than wine). So another half an hour, another pint of water with a pound of honey dissolved into it and...
Two gallons of Shateu_Furie ready to ferment properly. The mead smells absolutely divine, but I'm not sure about the wine - I think that there may be a rogue yeast in there, we'll see.
All that's left is to clean up the mini-bloodbath that appears to have happened in the kitchen :lol:
Note to self - Blackberry juice stains white-goods.
Second note to self - Buy white enamel paint and paint white goods before madame_furie returns home.
The wine needs ten days of warmth and leaving alone now (actually, seven days now) to ferment and bubble away, then it gets another snack and I'll post more pictures of me pouring more stuff into other stuff - bet you can't wait
