Phil Long’s blog - Teletranone

Today is day 8 of the great wine making experiment - so it was time to move on from stage one fermentation (the bucket stage) to stage two.

This is what the wine in potentia looked at the end of stage one, prior to transfer from the bucket:

Peaceful and still.

I then had to syphon the wine in to the demijohn - which took a few attempts before I got it right, but soon enough it was flowing freely in to the demijohn:

I now leave it in the demijohn until day 14 (so, Sunday) when it’s on to degassing stabilising and clarification (I’m making wine, that’s clear enough, right?). Basically the fermentation will be complete - if it’s not bubbling - and it’ll be time to add the few remaining ingredients to make the wine clear. 14 days again and the wine should be about ready - all being well.

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Another week has passed - which means tomorrow is the day I move my wine to stage two fermentation. Meanwhile I’ve had a busy weekend.

Friday was Paul’s birthday celebration at The Hellfire Club and the majority of us dressed for the occasion, as you can see (click the photo to go to Flickr and see the rest):

The theme was kind of ‘masquerade’, which some opted for - while the place also welcomes Halloween-type outfits too. A great night, good food and the odd drink or 12. It was most amusing watching ‘Death’ dancing.

Saturday I woke late not feeling at my best, for drink-related reasons, however that was not to get in the way of an evening at Chill Factore - where I tried Snowboarding for the first time, along with several people from work. The last time I did anything remotely similar was probably primary school - skiing down the dry slope at Rossendale (which hurts!). I was a little nervous of ‘boarding as I wasn’t convinced my balance was good for it - but ultimately I found I really like it; even if I did fall on my backside (feeling that today - ouch!).

I’m hoping to go on a ski/boarding holiday early next year - so I may look at a skiing taster session to see if I might prefer that to boarding - and all being well I’ll then get some lessons at Chill Factore so I’m reasonably prepared.

Today I’ve been lounging around recovering from the after-boarding drinking, and of course sorting my photos from Friday. Early night tonight I think.

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After day one’s anti-climax I was eager to set my wine off on day two, and that I have done. Sanitised all the equipment, rinsed it thoroughly and then it was on to mixing the ingredients.

With that done it’s just a matter of leaving it until next Monday when I’ll syphon it in to the demijohn and add some more gubbins for the second stage fermentation. 28 days until all complete - allegedly.

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Friday night was the night of work’s Interdepartmental Football Tournament. I played for the worst performing team in terms of points (Zenit St Techiesberg)- with no victories, and only loses. Competition was definitely far greater than it’s ever been!

The winners were Locomotive Prod Dev who finished top of our group. They’re pictured with their trophie here:

The runners-up were Group 1 winners, CS Legends; pictured here graciously congratulating the winners.

As ever, a fun time was had by all (even if there’s a fair share of bruises to go around) and we’re grateful to Jamie and Web Sol for organising what’s become a regular event in the calendar at work. I certainly enjoyed it; after all, it’s not the winning that matters, it’s the taking part (I would say that though - I didn’t win).

More pictures can be seen on my Flickr account: Phil Long on Flickr.

For those who want to know, click through to see the full results for the group stages.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Well, I broke out the wine making kit today, as promised (illustrated below).

I started reading the instructions and discovered day one would be a bit of an anti-climax.

It recommends using bottled or distilled water or leaving tap water over night before using it; naturally I was hoping to get started straight away but this means I’m delayed a day while I leave some water to stand tonight.

Still, I’ve boiled some water which I’ll put in the demijohn once it’s cooled and leave over night, with the aim of setting everything off tomorrow. I’ve also mixed the sanitisation powder with some water and bottled that ready to use when I clean everything tomorrow.

Thanks to Neil at work I’ve got all the bottles I need, but when I opened the kit I discovered there’s a bag, and the box it came in can be used as a wine cow. Since I’ve got the bottles and corks, and corker, I’m going to put it in bottles anyway - but I’ll keep it handy for the future in case I do want to go the wine-cow route with another kit.

Finally for this post - mmmm… toast:

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