Beer Cellar

The beer collection has been expanding lately. This is the time of year the LCBO releases a lot of interesting beers, many of them only available once a year. I counted 79 bottles at present and 44 different styles. Some of the bigger beers will be aged for a while, others will be savored until they come available again and the lighter beers will be consumed fresh.

The collection is not finished for the year though. I am still waiting on La Trappe Quadrupel Ale, St. Bernardus Abt 12 and Meantime Coffee Porter. It also can't hurt to get a few more Orval!

Photos and a spreadsheet that list everything to follow:

Step 5: Filtering & Bottling the Wine Kit

Here is the final step of the six week process to make the KenRidge New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc wine kit. Above is a photo of the wine after clarifying for 16 days and after it was transferred off the sediment. It was pretty much crystal clear at this point.

I decided to filter the wine even though it looked really clear. It was cheap to rent so I figured why not. After it was done I think it did make a big difference in the finished product. It was pretty easy to run the machine. Just add filter pads, rinse it out, put the sucking hose in the carboy, the draining hose in the bottling bucket and turn it on.

With the wine crystal clear I siphoned it into sterilized bottles. I then sterilized the corks and corked the bottles with a rented floor corker.

After all this time, here is the finished product. Twenty Eight bottles of Sauvignon Blanc. The labels came with the kit but the shrink caps did not. It is tasting very good at the moment but I think it will be even better after sitting in the bottles for a couple months.

Step 3 & 4; Degas, Stabilize and Clarify the Wine Kit

The gravity sample above shows the wine has completed fermentation. This means it is time to degas the KenRidge New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc wine kit. The degassing is done to remove excess carbon dioxide so the wine can clarify properly.

I degassed with this tool that goes on a drill. It does a good job and is very quick. The degassing can also be done with a spoon or by shaking the carboy.

First thing for step 3 was to transfer the wine off the sediment to a new carboy. Then add Potassium Metabisulphite to the wine and degas. The photo above shows the wine after degassing, it produces alot of foam. Now the wine has to sit for two days before clarifying.

Step 4 consists of adding a packet of Potassium Sorbate and a packet of ISOKLEER to clarify the wine. After that you simply stir it well and let is sit for 16 days to clarify.

Here is a sample taken just before adding the clarifying agent. The wine is quite clear already but it does show some hazing in the carboy.

Step 2, Racking the Wine Kit

Last Friday I racked the KenRidge New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc wine kit into a glass carboy. Primary fermentation went well during the first 10 days and it almost fermented to dryness in that time. The photo above shows the wine before I transferred it. Smells really good so far!

This is a photo of the lees left in the bottom of the fermenter after racking. It was pretty thick stuff.

Here it is in the secondary fermenter. It is still very cloud but it will settle out over the next two weeks. Then in the third step I will degas the wine and add a fining agent to further clarify the wine.

I took a gravity sample to test the sugar levels. It came in at 0.995 which means the yeast are just about done consuming all the sugar. It should lower a little bit more by the next sampling. I then let the sample settle out in the fridge for a taste test. It was excellent, a little yeast at the moment but there definitely is a nice tasting wine in there.

KenRidge Showcase, New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc Kit

Tonight I started my first batch of home brewed wine. I am using a premium wine kit from KenRidge and it is suppose to simulate a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. This kit produces 23L or 30 bottles of wine and takes 6 weeks to brew. The kit cost $90 which works out to $3 bucks a bottle.

Above is the contents of the kit. It includes everything you need asides from brewing equipment, water and bottles/corks. Items included are:

• Good instructions with note sections
  
• 16L of grape juice concentrate
• Bentonite, 15g (clay that is used to nourish the yeast and clarify the wine)
• LALVIN K1-V1116 yeast, 5g
• Potassium Sulphite, 4.5g (used to stop oxidization and stabilize the wine for storage)
  
• Potassium Sorbate, 6g (used to stop yeast growth, my wine will be dry so I will not use it)
  
• ISOKLEER (used as a fining agent to clear the wine)
• Printed wine labels
  

Starting with sterilized equipment I proceed to do the first steps of brewing the wine. The 16L of grape must was added to the bucket. Then the bag was rinsed out into the bucket and it was topped up to 23L with filtered water. With that done I stirred in the Bentonite and then gave everything a through mixing. The yeast was then sprinkled on top, the lid was put on and I inserted an airlock into the lid. Now it goes in a warm spot until the next step in 10 days. The first step took about 15 minutes.

Before sealing up the bucket I took a gravity sample, This tests the sugar level. This is done for a couple reasons, it is used to calculate the alcohol content when the wine is finished and it also tells you when fermentation is complete. The reading came out at 1.098 which is right on target. This wine will ferment out to approx. 13%.

Here is the wine all buttoned up, It will ferment in this food grade bucket for the first 10 days. Buckets are the best fermentors to use in primary fermentation because they are easy to mix in and they are simple to clean out afterwords. The next step will be to transfer the wine into a glass carboy for the secondary fermentation. Look for a post on the next step around Nov 6th.

Home Grown Hops

Early this year I decided to order some hop rhizomes from Left Fields Hops. This has to be done in Feb/March because they sell out fast. Once the snow left my order arrived and I planted Cascade, Nugget & Goldings. They are growing up the side of the house which I will show below:

Here we have two hop bines growing, Goldings on the left and Cascade on the right. They are growing up string. The string is tied to a stake in the ground and then fastened to a hook under the eaves of the house.

This hop bine is Nugget which is a good general purpose bittering hop. It is growing up 3 long bamboo canes that I bolted together. This method didn't work the greatest so I will use just string next year.

The photo above shows how the hops start flowering, This is called a burr. Basically the sticks eventually turn brown and the hop forms.

Here are a couple shots of fully formed Cascade hops. The cascade is putting out an excellent crop for the first year. These hops are just about ready to pick. I've read they are ready when they turn light green, feel dry to the touch and the end is slightly browning. They will also change from having a grassy smell to a nice hop smell.

The other hops are doing well also but producing a little slower. The nugget has many burrs currently so it will produce a nice harvest of bittering hops later this season. The Goldings is not producing much in its first year. Maybe just enough for a 3 gallons batch of English Ale I hope.

Blanche De Chambly Bottled

Above is a shot of the Blanche De Chambly clone taken during primary fermentation. Being a wheat beer I was expecting much more krausen but it did bubble more then usually.

OG was 1.052 and FG came in at 1.010. So this brew finished up with an ABV of about 5.5%.

Here it is all bottled up. There was enough to fill 32 500ml (17 oz) bottles. I was short about 8 bottles, I guess the beer fairies took their share. This was bottled about 10 days ago. It should be pretty much carbonated now. I'll following up with a photo of it in a glass once I crack the first one open.

Look for an update on the hops I am growing next....