Started 4th July 2012
We popped in Wilko's in Sutton at the weekend to pick up some more airlocks. They had Carafe 21 kits reduced from £19 to £12. As the previous Carafe 21 Red is going down quite nicely, we just had to get the only two on the shelves. Sadly, we forgot the airlocks.
The missus got hold of another 2 Carafe Red and 2 Carafe White kits from another Wilko's near her work. And she forgot the airlocks again.
We decided that this time we'd experiment a little bit. The kit comes with 1 litre of red grape / elderberry juice concentrate. We're going to add a small tin (245ml) of red grape juice concentrate. Hopefully this will give the wine a little bit more body.
Showing posts with label kit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kit. Show all posts
Friday, 6 July 2012
Monday, 7 May 2012
Carafe 21 White Kit
Started 7th May 2012
Carafe 21 comes in both red and white. I'm not keen on white wine, but the missus likes white wine in the summer, red in winter.
30 bottles of white in 21 days sounds pretty good to me, so we've given this one a go too. If the missus doesn't like it for drinking, she'll use it for cooking.
The kit containes all the ingredients except the water and sugar. You also need a big 5 gallon bucket.
It helps to have a hydrometer - you have to test the gravity at 12-16 days to check the ferment has finished. If the gravity is below 1000 after 16 days, it's ready for the next stage. If not, you have to wait longer for the ferment to finish, which means the wine will take longer than 21 days.
From what I understand (which isn't a great deal at the moment!) there's no real harm in moving on to the next stage sooner - it just means the wine will be sweeter and less alcoholic as some of the sugar won't have fermented.
It's also handy to have a thermometer. The instructions say to dissolve sugar in water and pour into the bucket - the easiest way is to do this in a pan on the cooker, but that means you end up with warm water. If the water / liquid is too warm, there's no point adding the other ingredients, especially the yeast - heat will kill the yeast and the best you get is mould growing on the fruity liquid. A long thermometer only costs a few quid.
The buckets are on the go now, we need to add more water and sugar tomorrow then leave for another 9 days .... fingers crossed!
Verdict:
Bottled this 11th June 2012. Like the Carafe Red, it took a bit longer than expected.
We got 26 bottles out of it, so I definitely miscounted when adding the water.
On the plus side, it tastes really good. I'm not a lover of white wine, but this is a very good white, definitely as good or better than some of the well known labels in supermarkets. It could be that it tastes better because I was short on the water, but can only tell if I do another kit.
Would we buy it again? Absolutely!
Other home made white wines like gooseberry wine can take several months to mature, sometimes over a year, but this is ready in just a few weeks and it's really good.
Carafe 21 comes in both red and white. I'm not keen on white wine, but the missus likes white wine in the summer, red in winter.
 |
| Carafe 21 White Kit |
The kit containes all the ingredients except the water and sugar. You also need a big 5 gallon bucket.
It helps to have a hydrometer - you have to test the gravity at 12-16 days to check the ferment has finished. If the gravity is below 1000 after 16 days, it's ready for the next stage. If not, you have to wait longer for the ferment to finish, which means the wine will take longer than 21 days.
From what I understand (which isn't a great deal at the moment!) there's no real harm in moving on to the next stage sooner - it just means the wine will be sweeter and less alcoholic as some of the sugar won't have fermented.
It's also handy to have a thermometer. The instructions say to dissolve sugar in water and pour into the bucket - the easiest way is to do this in a pan on the cooker, but that means you end up with warm water. If the water / liquid is too warm, there's no point adding the other ingredients, especially the yeast - heat will kill the yeast and the best you get is mould growing on the fruity liquid. A long thermometer only costs a few quid.
The buckets are on the go now, we need to add more water and sugar tomorrow then leave for another 9 days .... fingers crossed!
Verdict:
Bottled this 11th June 2012. Like the Carafe Red, it took a bit longer than expected.
We got 26 bottles out of it, so I definitely miscounted when adding the water.
On the plus side, it tastes really good. I'm not a lover of white wine, but this is a very good white, definitely as good or better than some of the well known labels in supermarkets. It could be that it tastes better because I was short on the water, but can only tell if I do another kit.
Would we buy it again? Absolutely!
Other home made white wines like gooseberry wine can take several months to mature, sometimes over a year, but this is ready in just a few weeks and it's really good.
Carafe 21 Red Kit
Started 7th May 2012
We took a trip to Kingston for a pub lunch and took the opportunity to pop in Wilkinsons. There aren't many shops selling homebrew kit, but we know Wilkinson's does, so we had to see what they had. They had a small range of basic chemicals and "bits" like airlocks, a few "quick" kits.
One
kit we found there was the Carafe 21 kit - makes 30 bottles of red in
21 days. As our fruit wines will take several weeks at least, this
seemed like a good idea. Even better, we already had a 5 gallon bucket
for it.
It seems to be a fairly simple kit - nothing difficult - just follow the instructions. It's all done in the one bucket, no straining, no racking, no nonsense. The kit includes everything needed except the bucket, the water and the sugar.
Getting started was easy - it's sitting there in the bucket, hopefully only 3 weeks left. It's been fairly chilly weather though, and we haven't had the heating up high, so it's not been too warm indoors - therefore it might take a bit longer to ferment. We need to test the gravity (with our hydrometer) in about 12 days time.
After we'd started the kit, the missus checked up on the Internet for reviews of this kit - she said all the reviews were good, no complaints, everyone seems happy. All sounds good to me!
Cost £19.00 + about 10lbs sugar (£3.99 for 5k /11lb bag)
= approx £23.00 for 30 bottles
= approx £0.77 per bottle
Verdict:
The wine is ready in 21 days, IF the temperature is a constant 25C. It's been a bit chilly here and we haven't had the heating on, so it's taken longer to finish fermenting. We finally bottled this on 10th June 2012.
We didn't quite get 30 bottles out of it, maybe 29, but we may not have been as careful as we should have been with the measurements. And of course we had to fill a few glasses while bottling.
It's a fairly basic red table wine, nothing special, but very passable. It doesn't touch a nice Shiraz, but we're happy with it, especially as it's far less than £1 a bottle.
Would we buy it again? Yes, but probably only if we're likely to run out of our fruit wines.
We might try other kits later too ....
We took a trip to Kingston for a pub lunch and took the opportunity to pop in Wilkinsons. There aren't many shops selling homebrew kit, but we know Wilkinson's does, so we had to see what they had. They had a small range of basic chemicals and "bits" like airlocks, a few "quick" kits.
It seems to be a fairly simple kit - nothing difficult - just follow the instructions. It's all done in the one bucket, no straining, no racking, no nonsense. The kit includes everything needed except the bucket, the water and the sugar.
Getting started was easy - it's sitting there in the bucket, hopefully only 3 weeks left. It's been fairly chilly weather though, and we haven't had the heating up high, so it's not been too warm indoors - therefore it might take a bit longer to ferment. We need to test the gravity (with our hydrometer) in about 12 days time.
After we'd started the kit, the missus checked up on the Internet for reviews of this kit - she said all the reviews were good, no complaints, everyone seems happy. All sounds good to me!
Cost £19.00 + about 10lbs sugar (£3.99 for 5k /11lb bag)
= approx £23.00 for 30 bottles
= approx £0.77 per bottle
Verdict:
The wine is ready in 21 days, IF the temperature is a constant 25C. It's been a bit chilly here and we haven't had the heating on, so it's taken longer to finish fermenting. We finally bottled this on 10th June 2012.
We didn't quite get 30 bottles out of it, maybe 29, but we may not have been as careful as we should have been with the measurements. And of course we had to fill a few glasses while bottling.
It's a fairly basic red table wine, nothing special, but very passable. It doesn't touch a nice Shiraz, but we're happy with it, especially as it's far less than £1 a bottle.
Would we buy it again? Yes, but probably only if we're likely to run out of our fruit wines.
We might try other kits later too ....
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)