Halle & Imre

Halle was racked and measured:
SG 1032
Alc 12%

As expected, Imre dropped massive amounts of sediment in the first few days (it's that cloudy apple juice) and I also wanted the sultana's out of there to stop them from overpowering the apple.
SG 1045
Alc 9%
Racking lost a fair amount of volume (as expected) so I topped up with the good apple juice (about 750ml) and added about 150gr sugar. No idea about the new SG because I didn't dissolve the sugar, just poured it in - if previous experience are anything to go by, it will simply be eaten from its layer on the bottom.

Brynn is ready to bottle, I think. Will do that sometime this week.

Imre

Oh dear, I just couldn't resist the sight of the two empty demijohns in the windowsill, so I filled one of them..
I'd been reading about making cider and apple wine and thought it sounded pretty interesting. I'm not a huge fan of cider, but apple wine.. hmm.

IMRE is:

• 3 litres of very nice cloudy orchard apple juice. This stuff tastes amazing, not at all like the processed juice from concentrate. It's been pasteurised, but nothing else. Tastes like real apple, liquid form.
• 1.5 litres cheaper 'normal' apple juice (I had decided the total cost should be under 5 euro)
• 500 gr demerera sugar
• 150 gr sultanas
• some lemon peel
• doux yeast

It looks kinda unpleasant right now - the sugar gave it a brownish colour and the cloudiness of the juice makes it look, well, brown and murky right now. With the sultanas in there it doesn't look inviting. It's slowly started bubbling though, and we will see how it all turns out. It should be relatively fast (compared to the meads) to drinkability - I'm hoping to have this drinkable by christmas. One can hope.
Starting gravity was 1070. Depending on how it progresses I will probably add more sugar later.

Bottled!

I bottled Caelan. Basically decided that it was pissing me off, I had champagne bottles so it's not likely to become another bottle bomb, and I will pull one open in a year to see what's it turned out like.

Oh! and I have at last turned on comment notification, so I won't miss comments to older posts. (sorry Vicky!)

Halle

I got 1.5 litres of quince juice and decided it'd probably be best to use it ASAP. This involved using my last free 5L demi (I like to keep one free to rack into) so I need to either bottle something in the next few weeks, or buy an extra. I used the blender to mix the juice with the honey, as this honey is very 'heavy' and is almost impossible to stir in by hand.

Halle
1.5 litre freshly made quince juice
1.5 kilo Bulgarian flower honey (same stuff as Fennah and Ehle)
Half a teaspoon yeast starter/activator
half a teaspoon Doux yeast

SG: 1.100
That's very high, so it remains to be seen if it'll actually start. I asked the Internets for help about if I should dilute (which would necessitate some fuss with demi's) and someone said that there are people who start all their mead from such a high SG, so I should just see what happens.

The quince juice smells amazing, there's a bit of a honey scent there already, and has a pretty pink blush - the combination will hopefully work well. I have high hopes for this one.

The Mass Measuring Returns

Alexis: something weird going on here. SG went down compared to last measuring (as expected, it's been bubbling slowly) but the Alc level did not go up. Huh?
Grav: 1.002
Alc: 15.5%

Brynn: I keep hoping that this is finally ready for bottling! Specific gravity still dropped a little bit though, and when the bottle is handled there are some bubbles out the airlock. Hmm.
Grav: 1014
alc: 14%

Caelan: Racked. This batch hates me. It won't stabilise and the colour has changed more toward the orange spectrum - it's lost the pretty pink/purple hue. I really have no frame of reference for the taste, but it's not good - I'm just not sure if it's the sort of not good that won't age out. I'm starting to think about dumping it! It's still very carbonated. If I had champagne bottles (or a cheap& easy way to get them) I might just put it in there and stash it away somewhere, but.. *sigh*
Grav: from 1.025 to about 1.055
Alc: 14%

Gwyllion: I actually have some hope for this one. The scent is wine(ish), the taste is not good but in the sort of way that suggests it might become good. (again, no frame of reference!) It's fermented a little more, though I'm not sure if it's topped out now - port yeast might take it a little higher still.
Grav: 1.042
Alc: 17%