Just finished decanting my gins

[PrettyCandles]

Not bad for a first attempt, I think.

The sloe gin is a bit harsh. Possibly it's just that I don't care for gin and that's what I'm tasting. But hopefully it will continue developing and be nice and smooth by autumn.

The elderberry gin, now, that's a different matter! Mmm-mmm it is deeelicious. Fruity and syrupy, with just a little bite and enough tannin to stop it becoming sickly sweet. Oh I like this one

I have re-macerated the ginned fruit in sherry. I've read that it onlyly needs to age for a month before it can be drunk.

Anyone else bottling?

get a carrier bag of nettles. Boil 12 litres of water. Steep nettles in it for an hour. Strain out nettles and return water to the pan. Stir in 1.5k sugar and heat to disolve. Add 2 ounces cream of tarter and the juice of an orange and a lemon. Allow to cool to blood temp and pour in to a big lidded container and add two sachets of bread yeast (or you can use the proper brewers stuff). Lid on and leave in a quiet corner with stable room temp for five days then bottle. Drink two days later!

We don't have a pan big enough so we heat half the water to steep the nettles, then eyeball the same amount in the same pan and add all the other stuff to that, then combine them all in the container afterwards.

We use a bin ment for storage for this. Was about three quid from wilkos. Apparently owt with the symbol pp in a triangle is fine. not metal.

When you come to bottle you can just use a jug and funnel, avoiding the sediment at the bottom. But it's easier if you have a plastic tube. To do it like this move the brew on to a table or other surface off the floor on day six,ie the day before you want to bottle, so sediment has time to resettle. Get your (milton) sterilised bottles ready below level of your brew, taking care not to let it in right down to the sediment. Put end of tube in brew then take a big suck from other end then quickly shove end in a bottle. The brew should flow in. Just pop your thumb over the end as you move from one bottle to the next.

We recycled beer bottles. You can buy caps and a device to put them on from wilkos (gizmo was about eight quid. Tops can't remember). But we ran out of these so used screw top wine bottles which worked fine but don't know how long for as they only lasted a couple of weeks with us

For ginger i replaced nettles with about a cup and i half of grated ginger but we wanted a real ginger kick so would use more next time. Also that time around we only had a bit of cream of tarter so i added juice of another two lemons for the acidity which seems to have worked just fine.

The recipie's froma hugh fearnly-whatshischops book called "cook on the wild side" and there are other wild brew recipies in it. Mostly wines though which i've never tried as think they are more difficult to make.

That sounds too easy, MFM!

Does the brew have fizz? I'm puzzled because it doesn't sound like the lid of the brewing pot needs to be tightly sealed, but if it has fizz and isn't sealed won't it go flat?

Yes it is fizzy. In fact it's so fizzy dh jokeingly calls it nettle champagne!

I believe it carrys on fermenting when in the bottle, untill the yeast uses all the sugar up, and so th bubbles are trapped in at that stage. As opposed to beer you buy which is pasturised and then has CO2 added at bottling. It definatly tastes drier and is fizzier if you leave for the full two days in the bottle and continues to get more so if left longer. Though don't know what happens after a couple of weeks as it's never lasted that long to be honest! I guess it must get a wee bit stronger too though it won't blow your head off in any case. But fine for a hot afternoon like today! S

Let me know how you get on if you try it!

It sounds nicer and nicer! I know just the right patch of nettles...

Ewwww - the caterpillars! Well, I've strained them out with the nettles and I'll just try not to think about them. But it doesn't look or smell appealing ATM.

I have some large kilner jars ready. I shall bottle it on Thursday and pack a jar when we go to Centre Parcs on Friday.

Ugh! Sorry to here about the catepillars. Grim. Were'nt any on mine... Perhaps i got to the nettles before they did. One to save for early spring then!

How did it work out anyway?

We've done another ginger beer with more ginger and it's much better. Touch bitter maybe (perhaps cause we didn't peel ginger?) but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Elderflower next when they come out!