justin9 wrote on Jun 9^th, 2017 at 11:29pm:


True, I can hardly believe it, but I remember the sense of awe I felt when I first encountered an electronic calculator. I mean, nostalgia's OK but to be honest, the Good Old Days were actually a bit rubbish.

More affluent younger generation, "no time to stop and stare",
or be creative in relation to home brewing, sooner spend £10
on a bottle of supermarket wine, or eat out losing culinary skills also, shame, but like fashion -- it will come back for another spell.

F.T.

sampvt wrote on Jun 21^st, 2017 at 10:47am:


Very sorry to hear your news. Keep on posting man. You'll always have an audience here that appreciate your contributions.

Sam, Sauvignon Blanc can be a bit sour at the best of times, it just needs more time to mature and you'd better stick around so I can say "I told you so".

Text amended Manny mis-read your post

My tuppence-worth - I look at this forum at least three times a day , just to see whats going on . A few months ago I noticed that between a third and a half of all messages were mine , some reporting in , some daft questions , some commenting on others . I havn't done much lately as combined gardening frenzies ( Her Indoors ) and clearing 40 years-worth of stuff from our loft , have diverted me from the winemaking . But not for long .
  PS - I recently tried freeze-distillation of a bottle of apricot I made a while ago , it produced 25 ml of something much stronger ( not sure what to call it ) and my wife likes it which is a result . Did it with a second bottle too .
  Will Brexit have any effect on available ingredients ? If so then I shall be going back to picking my own fruit and berries for "country " wines .

Steve, You don't get much, I reduced 10 litres to 375ml in stages @ -20C freezing and straining etc, nice but possibly lethal.
An Airstill might be more sensible for proper spirit production but I don't trust myself....

Dextero - I also only discovered freeze distillation after reading something on this forum , cant remember where it was or by whom ( you know who you are ..) , however as with the greatest leaps forward in science , by coincidence around the same time I met an an old acquaintance , the subject of winemaking came up and he mentioned that a friend had done this but with no details .
  My method was thus ; I chose a bottle of my apricot wine which was less than best , slightly oxidised I think , more like a sherry but too good to dump . I transferred into an empty plastic tonic bottle with cap slightly loose , stood it in the chest freezer upright , and left it for about 36 hours .
When frozen solid , I removed the cap , stood it upside down in a jug , and let the alchoholic content drip down into the jug . I kept an eye on it , and after the initial dripping , I poured this small amount off . The remaining ice which would have had a much greater water content , remained frozen for much longer , the trick seems to be to decide when that " watery slush " is starting to melt and remove the stronger alco part before the water begins to catch up with it .
Its simply about the fact that alcohol takes much lower temperatures to freeze than water , so the water content freezes more readily .

I also tried this a second time with another bottle of apricot ,same MO but then I also re-froze the watery slush a second time ,  the other test , though I havn't tried it , would be to re-freeze the first more-alcoholic part and see if it produces more ice , in which case you could do it again .  I seem to remember another member mentioning this as well .
Steve

Best bet, is freeze, drip and refreeze as above, eventually you get a liquid with a few ice flakes, strain them out and put the "hooch" away for a good while, only use in moderate amounts as it can cause rather concentrated hangovers.

Personally I got busy doing other things (work pressure) and forgot how important it was to relax (Allotment and brewing suffered). Looking at this years bumper crops of fruit reminded me to stop the waste and get a brew on. Cider production begins this weekend!