| Ref | 2020-09 Bambi's Revenge | Brewer | Farmer Jim's |
|---|---|---|---|
| Style | Experimental | Type | Perry |
| Started | Thu 24th Sep 20 | Status | Archived, |
| Packaged | Wed 25th Nov 20 | Fermenter | Plastic Bucket |
| Handle | 2020-09 Bambi's Revenge |
|---|---|
| Brewer | Farmer Jim's |
| Style | Experimental |
| Type | Perry |
| Fermenter | Plastic Bucket |
| Status | Archived, ABV |
| Started | Thu 24th Sep 20 |
| Packaged | Wed 25th Nov 20 |
Decided I was tired of looking at these eight precious bottles and not being able to open one, so I moved it from the brewery to the garage 2 days earlier than planned. Let’s see how quickly she clears up, because I can’t wait to try one.
This hasn’t been moving in quite a while and I don’t want to ruin it with further experiments or tertiary fermentation. Tested out at 1.005 and a good deal sweeter than the cider we pressed around the same time, but I’m still going to add varying amounts of non-fermenting sugar at bottling because I see perry as a dessert drink, not a session quaffer. Pleasant hints of bubbles on the palate, and I’m going to improve that further with some carbonation. There were just eight individually numbered bottles in this batch:
2 Fox’s carbonation drops (target = 500ml) were also added to each bottle.
Bubbling has slowed over the past few days and the collar of small, bright bubbles reduced to nothing. SG measured at 1.005 today, taste is OK but might need a little Xylitol / Erythritol to boost the sweetness before bottling. Will measure it again this weekend and if it hasn’t shifted then it’s going in a bottle. I’m not sure how much alcohol we’ll end up with since two stages of fermentation were involved, but at the very worst case scenario I think we can use 1.046 > 1.005 = 5.38%.
Airlock still bubbling once every 4 seconds, small collar of fine uniform bubbles at the neck. So far, so good.
Things started happening again pretty much within a few hours of adding that yeast. Now that it’s been a day we’re seeing small bubbles fizzing to the surface and the airlock is popping almost every second. It’s clear that the addition of sugar and yeast can stir the most inert of potions back into life, with this one I’m going to monitor until the bubbling starts to slow down and then taste the result, ideally stopping it with a Campden tablet if it’s within 1.006 gravity and bottling it.
24 hours after adding more sugar and nothing’s happening – no bubbling in the airlock, no bubbles or foam to be seen. Adding 1 level teaspoon of wine yeast straight to liquid in demijohn in an effort to get things going again.
Measured gravity at 1.009 and decanted into a fresh demijohn, leaving behind about a quarter pint of mostly sludge. Tasted a bit rough and seeing as there’s clearly a bit of yeast left we added 250g of white sugar dissolved in warm water, replacing the liquid that was lost along with the sludge and hopefully giving the remaining yeast another chance to produce more alcohol. If not then at least it’ll be sweeter, though we can’t bottle it until specific gravity reaches 1.006 and it was 3 points over before we added the sugar. Will leave it a couple of days to see what happens.
Bubbling started again but very slowly. No change in temperature – what’s going on?
Bubbling stopped, considering our next move.
Bubbling slowed to one every 5 seconds, foam bubbles seem smaller. Perhaps this is due to the spare bedroom and bathroom having been closed off now that the heating is back on in the rest of the house, dropping the temperature in the spare rooms slightly to 16.5 degrees. Since there’s clearly still some activity I’m moving the demijohn into my office, where it’s now 20 degrees with underfloor heating. It’s being stored on the floor inside the base from a plastic filing box, just in case.
Bubbling nicely now at approximately 1 Hz.
Added 1 level teaspoon of wine yeast, approximately half a gram of wine nutrient, and 25g dark sugar dissolved in a small amount of warm water at 19:00.
One demijohn taken home, 2 Campden tablets added 14:30 (crushed, diluted in small amount of hot water) then stored at 20 degrees. Colour began to change back to original shade as pressed a few hours after adding the tablets.
Pressed 1.75 gallons of pear juice around 14:00, gravity approximately 1.046. Stored in demijohns in garage between 8 and 12 degrees. Colour began to change rapidly, darkening from a pinkish russet almost to ochre in a couple of hours.
