Moonshine, Part 1.5

Well the homebrew was supposed to have stopped fermenting a week ago, but it's still happily bubbling away. Not quite as rapidly as it was a fortnight ago, granted, but it's still bubbling none the less.

I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not. It could mean it's going to be some super-strong tramp-juice, or it could mean it's just not brewing very well at all.

I can't start the next step until the yeast stops working its magic, but don't hold your breath for that - it's refusing to give up the ghost right now, a bit like a really old grandma that just seems to go on, and on, and on...

It still looks like the last picture in the first column, so here it is again in case you can't remember:

Taste of London 2008

The Channel 4 "Taste of London" festival is selling tickets for the 2008 event.

It's basically a big food and drink festival in Regents Park with stands from top chefs and restaurants, specialist food and wine makers, freebie samples of stuff on most stands, and laughably-bad live music. (They also do very, very nice mojitos at the Appletons stand as I found out last year).

A £35 ticket gets you entry to the event and £20's worth of tokens you can spend on stuff at the stands. I've already booked tickets for the Saturday evening session - tickets go quick so buy soon if you're planning on going.

Channel 4's "Taste of London" Website

And if this sounds like an advert, it's not. I just had a cracking time there last year is all :-)

Moonshine, Part 1

I haven't actually gone as far as to build my own illegal distillery in the back yard, but I'm brewing some peach schnapps which will be ready in about 6 weeks from now.

I started the fermentation process today, as follows:

Equipment, from left to right: 1.6kg of sugar, sterilising powder, an airlock, cuddly toy, Prohibition homebrew kit, demijohn.

Sterilise the equipment, dissolve the sugar into 1 litre of hot water, add 2 litres more cold then pour into the demijohn. Don't forget to spill some of the sugar syrup onto the sideboard with so everything you touch is all sticky from this point on.

The yeast. It comes freeze-dried in a sachet so add it to warm water to wake it up. It looks like a cup of milky coffee, but there's no possible confusion if you catch a whiff of it.

10 minutes later it's turned into a stinky latte.

Add the yeast to the sugar liquid and add a sachet of sucrose and citric acid, then wait 2-3 weeks. It needs to be kept a constant temperature now to get the best out of the yeast - when I made a batch at university it was freezing cold in my room so I had to lend it my blanket at night. The things I do for booze...