The time has come (the walrus said) to widely
distribute our guidelines for making wine and beer without adding
chemicals or risking infection. Some of you may be thinking you
already have this information, but there have been some refinements
and modifications over the months/years. Please take a moment to
look them over and save.
Wine |
Beer |
1 |
Clean everything that comes in contact
with the must/wine. Use sodium or potassium metabisulphite.
Avoid inhaling. Save in a separate marked bottle. Rinse with
hot water. |
1 |
Clean everything that comes in contact
with the wort/beer. Use diversol and rinse well with cold
water, then hot. |
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2 |
Rinse concentrate bag with hot water to
get all juice out and pour in primary. Top up with cold water
to about 2" below 23 litre mark. Stir well with non-metallic,
clean object. |
2 |
Pour malt extract, sugar, adjuncts, etc.
and water in brew kettle and stir thoroughly. Kettle should
be about half-full, or at least 9 litres. |
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3 |
Pour dry yeast into a cup of warm, not
hot water and leave for 15 minutes. Stir slurry gently and
add to must if outside of primary is not hot to touch. Cover
primary and let sit at room temperature for 3-6 days (until
heavy frothing begins to subside). |
3 |
Bring to a rolling boil for
15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Watch out for foaming
over. Simmer for 15 minutes. Rapidly cool kettle in cold water in sink. |
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4 |
Rack into secondary (glass) fermenter.
Do not splash and do not top up. Air lock must always be
on. |
4 |
Pour wort (beer) through a
ventilated funnel into sanitized glass carboy. Add cold water
to 19 litre mark and stir well with end of sanitized, long,
non-metallic utensil. |
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5 |
Leave in secondary fermenter for 3 weeks,
then rack off lees. Top up in next carboy with filtered or
pre-boiled water, juice or wine. |
5 |
Extract 2 litres of wort into
sanitized glass bottle. Seal and place in fridge. |
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6 |
In 4 weeks, rack and top up
again. Repeat in another 4 weeks. Bottle in no less than
2 weeks. Soak corks in warm water and 1/8 tsp of sulphite
for up to one hour. Stand bottles up for 3-4 days. |
6 |
Pour dry yeast into a cup
of warm, not hot water and leave for 15 minutes. Stir slurry
gently and add to wort. Attach air lock. Leave for 3 weeks
in dark, warm place. |
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7 |
Rack into sanitized 19-20
litre plastic or glass carboy. Add 2 litres of wort taken
from fridge (solids as well as liquid). Leave 3-5 hours.
Bottle or keg. |
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