Exploding Home Brew

Mastering the explosions is a key part of the brewing process. Fermentation converts sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide gas. In a sealed vessel the pressure will increase. Without a release for the pressure eventually a point will be reached at which the bottle explodes.




This is not a problem if you are brewing wine without bubbles. You simply leave the wine to ferment in a demi-john with an airlock until fermentation has completely stopped; no more bubbles emerging from the airlock and the wine tastes dry .Or use a hygrometer. Hygrometers show how much sugar is still present in the wine as dissolved sugar and alcohol have different densities. If there is still a lot of sugar in the liquid than the carbon dioxide released by continuing fermentation could be too great for a bottle to contain. The hygrometer will float higher in the liquid when the sugar level is higher - because the liquid has greater density than if there is proportionately more alcohol. My hygrometer has a mark on it accompanied by the warning “do not bottle when above this level”.



Managing the balance of pressure created by fermentation is a little trickier when it comes to making sparkling beers or wines. You need a certain level of gas to build up within the bottle so that when opened it fizzes. While plastic bottles are not aesthetically so appealing and not good for long term storage they are more forgiving of bottling errors than glass bottles as they can stretch as little. If the pressure builds up too high in a plastic bottle it will tear open, a glass bottle will explode propelling shards of glass through the room. Going into a room full of potential exploding glass bottles to get one out for drinking, and hoping it will not go off when you are holding it is not fun, and certainly an avoidable peril. So here are a few tips:



• Follow recipe instructions carefully re timing of bottling

• Never use screw top lids on glass bottles

• Use plastic bottles with screw tops or champagne/beer bottles with corks

• Stand bottles in waterproof container with a lid – if you have got the balance wrong it will save a lot of time clearing up

Blackberry Brandy and vintage flower wine

Visiting some friends yesterday I was treated to two rather lovely and yet very different drinks.




The first was a flower wine. You may notice I am not specifying the flower. 30 years ago when this bottle of wine was made it grew in enough profusion that picking flowers in the quantity required was sustainable. I can’t currently recommend it as this plant is not so common now due to habitat loss. There will be other flower wine recipes forthcoming when plants begin to flower again in the spring. What was interesting was how well the smell and taste of an early summer day was caught in the old dusty bottle decades after having been made.



The second drink was Blackberry Brandy. The blackberries are not so luscious now that it is October. But if you see some on a dry sunny day it will be worth picking them. My friends had experience of making blackberry brandy in two ways. The first method was putting sugar, blackberries and brandy together and simply leaving them to soak for a few weeks. The second and recommended method was to very gently warm the blackberries in a pan with sugar until the sugar had just dissolved. Then adding this to the brandy to soak a few weeks before straining out the blackberries. You will know the mixture is ready for straining when the blackberries have lost their colour and the liquid is a rich dark purpley red. There is no weighted recipe; they used volume five parts brandy, three parts blackberries and one part sugar.

Cucumber Wine - Part 2

The smell of the cucumber wine is driving me crazy; fragrant wafts of melon. Since melons and cucumbers are both in the cucurbit family the melon aroma is not so surprising.


I shot a film of the collecting carbon dioxide bubbles that you can see  Fermentation bubbles It is certainly a very active brew at the moment.

The wine is the lovely yellow / green colour that you can see in the photo above. I think I need to adjust the colour balance for filming purposes because in the video it has come out as a dull brown/red.


Here you can see the wine fermenting away and the constant bubbling out of the airlock Home brew fermenting A friend who was staying woke up in the night and heard the gurgling though didn’t find it to disturbing. When the water in the airlock was a little high it was more like a splashing fish tank.


I can’t wait to try it out; a few more weeks in the demijohn and then when I am bottling a taste and executive decision on whether to crack straight into it or wait a little longer.

Cucmber Wine

What can you do with a glut of cucumbers? Cucumber soup, cucumber pickles, I know someone who eats them sliced and fried with garlic. After giving all the neighbours at my house and caravan cucumbers, and eating as much as possible there were still a few kilos of cucumbers and more imminent on the plants.



I wouldn’t buy cucumbers to make wine for two reasons. Firstly home grown cucumbers have a lot more flavour than the ones you get in the shop. Secondly it would take buying a lot of cumbers to make the wine, and as I have yet to taste cucumber wine I can’t currently vouch for the flavour of the end product.


Initially I couldn’t find a recipe for cucumber wine so I started with a conversion from a recipe for marrow wine. Both these vegetables (technically fruits in the botanical sense) are in the cucurbit family and have similar light flavours. I later discovered a few recipes for cucumber wine – all American in origin. Perhaps here in Britain there has been more of a tradition for putting them in sandwiches.


Cucumbers do contain pectin and it is advisable to use a pectin enzyme from the start so that you don’t get a pectin haze. Since I am up at the caravan with a load of cucumbers and no pectin enzyme I have had to skip that step. I am hoping the haze will be limited because I didn’t use hot water. If it is too bad I will have to try and clear it later on or enjoy a cloudy beverage.


Most recipes use a Campden tablet to kill natural yeasts when the infusion starts with cold water. In this instance I felt that leaving the batch to brew in a bucket it would pick up natural yeast anyway. Since I used bakers yeast, and not a more specific wine yeast I decided to let whatever yeasts are there remain. Cucumbers have a high water content so it is worth adding nutrient to support the yeast. Nutrient can be bought from homebrew shops, or add one B vitamin tablet.


Grating the cucumbers to start the infusion I was enveloped in a cloud of cucumber aroma; very heady. I have been tasting the liquid at the various stages of brewing and I am up to the demi-john fermentation at the moment. The flavour is very pleasant and recognisably cucumberish. I can hear the demi-johns with the constant light fizzing noise of the tiny bubbles rising up and the odd gurgle as a bout of carbon dioxide makes it out of the airlock.


Cucumber Wine Recipe

Ingredients

• 2.25kg grated cucumber (skins, seeds and all)
• 1.5kg sugar
• 4.5litres water
• 3.5 tsp citric acid
• 1tsp yeast  + nutrient
• If desired include pectin enzyme and Campden tablet at start, use boiling water instead of cold and leave 24 hours before adding yeast


Method

• Grate the cumber, including the skin and seeds, into a large fermentation bucket
• Add the sugar, citric acid and water
• Stir thoroughly and add the yeast
• Cover with a layer of muslin and loosely fitted lid (or any other means to allow air circulation and no access by flies)
• Stir occasionally and leave to stand for 5 days
• Strain out the cucumber (using muslin or a jelly bag)
• Put the liquid into sterilised demi-johns fitted with air locks
• Leave to ferment until fermentation stops; probably about a month
• Taste the liquid. If it is still too sweet add a little yeast and yeast nutrient to get the fermentation going again
• Unless you are sure the wine is dry enough use a hygrometer to check that the sugar content is not to high for bottling
• Put the wine into sterilised bottles and consume as wished

Elderflower v Lavender v Nettle

Friends visiting was the perfect opportunity for a blind tasting of the three current brews. In the photo above from left to right are: Elderflower champagne, Lavender champagne and Nettle beer.

First thoughts on the identity concealed Elderflower champagne was that it looked like barley water. It smelt of flowers, sweet and nice a little like perfume. Opinions on the flavour were mixed. One person found it very sweet another thought it was not to sweet. Gorgeous and thoughts of soaking raspberries in it. L thought it was dangerous “give me a bottle of that and I’d soon be going out”

The Nettle beer was suspected of being a vegetable brew on smell – most likely suspect was potato. They thought the taste was crisp and herb like. One person thought it reminded them of something. Beautiful.

Onto the Lavender champagne which was instantly identified on aroma as “100% lavender”. The distinctive scent was fresh and floral. They thought it was pleasant. Comments varied from wanting “to bathe in it rather than drink” to how refreshing it would be on a hot day.
On marks out of 10 averages scores were as follows: Lavender champagne 6, Elderflower champagne 7 and Nettle beer coming out top with 8.5. The general feedback was that they would very happily purchase anyone of them from a shop. One person had drunk some nettle beer before – bought in a bar. But they felt the one they had previously had tasted a bit chemically.

All three drinks were fermented enough for drinking purposes, but I think that the flavour of the Lavender in particular will develop more over the next couple of months. I know from experience that the nettle beer, if you can bear to wait, becomes even lighter and crisper a year on.

Several more bottles were drunk and some is now making its way up to London on the train.

Nettle Beer

If you have located your patch of young nettle tops you are ready to make nettle beer. They must be young leaves as older leaves can be a kidney irritant. Young leaves are fresh green and luscious looking. If the plants are flowering the leaves are definitely too old. Older leaves are discernibly greyer.
I would recommend using leaves as soon after picking as possible. There is not much point in harvesting fresh leaves and then using them at the end of the day or the next day when they are somewhat wilted.


Nettle Beer recipe
Ingredients:

• 12 litres water
• 1 carrier bag loosely filled with young nettle tops - rinse to remove dust
• juice of 1 lemon
• juice of 1 orange
• 1.5kg sugar
• 55g cream of tartar
• 15g yeast


Method:

• Boil the water in a large pan, drop in the nettles and stir to ensure all the leaves are below the level of the water
• Leave to stand for at least an hour to infuse the flavours from the leaves (I usually leave it overnight as this allows the liquid to cool till room temperature)
• Strain the mixture into a large pan or food grade bucket
• Add the cream of tartar, lemon and orange juice
• Put about 3 litres back in a pan add the sugar and heat gently until the sugar is dissolved and add back into the rest of the liquid
• Leave to cool until tepid and stir in the yeast (never add yeast to anything over 40°C because this will kill the yeast rendering it ineffective as an ingredient)
• Cover and leave for 2-3 days (the mixture should be lightly fizzing)
• Remove any scum from the top and gently pour liquid of the top to bottle the beer leaving sediment behind


As always when bottling use sterilised bottles (same as sterilising baby bottles) and never use screw top lids on glass bottles. Use plastic bottles with screw top lids or glass bottles with corks. This ensures that if fermentation builds up pressure to explosive levels the cork will slide out, or with plastic bottles have a bit of stretch in them and if they are shattered they are not hazardous the way exploding glass bottles are

In theory the beer is ready to drink about 5 days after bottling. At this stage I find it is pleasant but still fairly sweet. It is worth waiting until about 10 days after bottling. The year old bottle that I found was very good and worth waiting for if you can hold a few back that long.

When brewing I find it helpful to taste the beer at different stages – from the first stage in the recipe that is effectively nettle tea, to adding the cream of tartar, citrus juice and sugar, having a taste at the bottling stage and then sampling at various stages after bottling. Doing this helps you understand how the acidity, sugar and alcohol levels change through the process of fermentation, as well as getting a sneak preview of the flavour.

Lavender Champagne

Lavender champagne is a new one for me. I have had lavender in tea, with meat and seen recipes including it in shortbread and ice-cream. The champagne recipe doesn’t add any yeast so I am assuming that fermenting microbes will come from the flowers, sultanas or the air. My friend who gave me the recipe has never tried it so I will be leaving this bubbling away in my caravan for a week and hopefully return to a fragrant beverage.

I had to adjust the recipe to use limes instead of the suggested lemon - because I had no lemon and I fancied the aromatics of lime more. I converted amounts from ounces and pints to grams and litres. Being brought up with the metric system and with the simplicity of multiples of ten I find it easier to tailor recipes to the abundance of ingredients using metric.

As well as adding sweetness, flavour and possibly yeast the sultanas are included as a source of tartaric acid and this has a role in supporting the growth of yeast which is the element that turns the sugar into alcohol and adds the bubbles.

When collecting your lavender watch out for bees as lavender in bloom is a bee magnet. Don’t put in the flower stalk, just the tip of the stalk that the flowers are attached to. Lavender produces different secondary metabolites in the flowers and stalks to suit the different purposes of those structures. The flowers are attractive to insects and the leaves and stems contain chemicals that are repellent to insects. Hence the noticeably different smell of those two different parts of the plant. I am definitely going for the light floral flavours of the flowers rather than the sharper flavour of the stem.

Lavender champagne recipe

Ingredients:

• 40 lavender flower heads
• 100g finely chopped sultanas
• 300g sugar
• Juice of 2 limes
• 2 tablespoons white vinegar
• 2 litres boiled water that has cooled to room temperature

Method:

• Mix the lavender flower heads, sultanas and sugar in a large ceramic or glass bowl
• Add lime juice, white vinegar and boiled water
• Cover with muslin and leave to stand for 7 days (the muslin stops flies getting in and allows the yeast to grow in aerobic conditions)
• Bottle in sterilised bottles; either plastic screw top bottles or glass bottles using new corks. 

The original recipe states tht it should be ready to drink straight away. However I suspect it will be worth leaving in the bottle for at least a few days to have a fizzier and less sugary drink.

Nettle Beer: part 1

Tidying some cupboards I found a bottle of Nettle Beer from last years brewing. That was an unexpected nice surprise for being domesticated. I chilled it down and cracked it open yesterday. It was still fizzy and pleasantly dry. Nettle beer can be ready to drink within 7 days of brewing at which point I find it fairly sweet like a tasty Alcopop. The longer it is left the dryer it becomes. Because it went down a bit too easily none of the batches lasted more than about 6 weeks, so I didn’t know what to expect from a year old bottle.

The flavour of nettle beer is a little resinous and very refreshing. It doesn’t taste bitter the way lager or true beer does, so I suspect sparkling wine would be more apt as a name. I was having ‘pasta in bianco’ with sautéed garlic and Swiss chard for dinner and the nettle beer was very complimentary to that.

Most places in Britain the nettles are flowering and that means they are too old for consumption at the moment. Older leaves contain inorganic crystals that can irritate the kidneys so only younger leaves should be used for eating or brewing.

I missed brewing nettle beer earlier this year but a couple of weeks ago I weeded the hedge and there is a fresh crop of leaves developing. Oh yes. So get out in your garden or make your friend happy by pulling up their nettles and you have a couple of weeks to get organised for nettle beer.

Elderflower Champagne

It is not too late to make Elderflower Champagne. Yes the Elderflower has been blooming furiously for a while and the flowers have mostly become fruits. However there are a few blooms still lurking which is enough to make champagne as 8 heads of flowers will suffice.




My Elderflowers were hard won as I scrambled through brambles to get to them. Most of these last few flowers are at the tops of the trees which while not growing high are tall enough to be out of reach and the whippy branches are no good for climbing.



I used the recipe from “Wild Food” by Roger PhillipsWild Food: A Unique Photographic Guide to Finding, Cooking and Eating Wild Plants, Mushrooms and Seaweed with a little customisation. Last year I made two batches. The first batch did not start fermenting within a couple of days so I added a pinch of yeast. The second batch fermented by itself, although it was clearly a slower fermentation. I have to say that the first batch; to which I had added the yeast, was the best. The second batch was more sour and suited to margaritas. So I think adding yeast at the start is advisable.



I have adjusted Phillips’ recipe to the one below because I am at my caravan and the weighing scales are in my house. So I converted the proportions to suit using 1kg of sugar rather than guesstimating 650g.



When selecting your flowers at this time of year you can’t be too picky. So collect what you can, remove any brown flowers and estimate what would be the equivalent of 8 heads in full bloom. An easy guide is to pick one head of fruits and use it to assemble the approximate equivalent of flowers. Closed flowerbuds will not contribute to the flavour so make sure that you are working out proportions with open flowers.



Don’t wash the flowers and try to pick on a sunny day (not just after it has rained) as you want to keep the pollen on the flowers for brewing purposes.


Elderflower Champagne Recipe

Ingredients:

• 8-20  Elderflower heads (minimum of 8, if you can find enough 20 is ideal)
• 7 litres water
• 1 ½ lemons
• 1kg sugar
• 3 tablespoons white vinegar
• 2 pinches yeast (3 if you have little hands)

Method:

• Heat 2 litres of water with the sugar until the sugar is dissolved, allow it to cool
• Put the flowerheads, vinegar, juice of the lemons and quartered lemons in a food grade bucket
• Pour on 5 litres of cold water and then add the sugar solution
• Add the yeast, stir and cover
• Leave to steep for 4 days the mixture should be gently fizzing
• Sieve and bottle in sterilised bottles and it should be ready to drink in 6 -10 days.

Please note never ever use glass screwtop bottles as the building pressure from fermentation can cause them to explode. Best to use plastic screwtop bottles or sterilised corks in glass bottles. This means that if fermentation continues after bottling the plastic has a bit of give in it and if broken will not form shards of glass, and using corks in bottles means that building pressure can push the cork out rather than shattering the glass. Champagne bottles are made with thicker glass, making them stronger and better suited to containing effervescent liquids. I always stand bottles inside a covered plastic tray as this means that any corks coming out or breaking bottles don’t cover your pantry in a sticky mess.