Recent content by JWMG

I've made a gingerbug many times in the past and been successful, the longest of which I kept alive for over a year until another project took over. My issue this time is that after bottling my drinks I find the bottles become as tight as a drum in two days but when it comes to serving the...

I'm trying to make some at present but can't get it to carbonate. I've tried twice with my long established ginger bug which has been working just fine for making ginger beer for months now but for some reason it will not work with this lemonade. I have even tried a third time using some whey...

What are your intentions re back sweetening and carbing?

Rinsing out with hot water and replacing with vodka will work just fine. In future it's worth noting two things. 1 leave a little more head space. 2 do not put the airlock on straight away. Instead cover the mouth of the carboy with kitchen roll held in place with an elastic band then after a...

Sure but it's worth keeping in mind that wild yeast will take a lot longer to carb up and also as they are weaker than those strains that you buy, it's easy to stress them which will result in off flavours.

After boiling ip you would have let it cool before bottling. If it was uncovered at any time while cooling or even combined with air during transfer from boiling pot to bottle it could easily have picked up some wild yeast in he air. This is why wine makers use Campden tablets and potassium...

There is no definite answer. The speed at which the Co2 is produced will be directly affected by temperature that it's stored at. It would also depend on the strength of the bottle that you are using. I have done this myself many times using 2L plastic soda bottles and adding 40g of priming...

Sorry bernardsmith didn't make my self clear I meant that I would use the 5 gal carboy for primary and then rack off to a 1 gal demijohn, but again thank you for your input. In the meantime I have spoken to a friend of a friend and their advice matches with DaMonkey in that scaling up is fine...

Ok thanks. Based on that I think maybe I'll just do a gallon and hold off the acid blend Until later. After all its a project designed to be a Christmas treat so I don't really need five gallons I was just thinking about making the most of the carboy.

I've been making cider for a while now and all has gone well, and have now decided to make a sweet spiced mulled cider for christmas 2015. My question really is about scalling up. I intend to make a five gallon batch but the recipe I have is for one gallon. The recipe is as shown below and I...

Excellent thats exactly the sort of thing I was looking for.Both sound interesting Can you expand a little on your jalapeno lime soda, quantities etc ?

Anyone got any soda recipes a bit apart from the norm. No ginger beer etc something more imaginative

Thanks thats a great help. Just goes to show how inaccurate information is so widely spread on the net.

That's interesting to hear. All of the articles on line (and I have read many) suggest that the bottle should be capped and would be ready to be chilled anywhere between 12 hours and two days. I waited two days with the first attempt and as you will know the result is what lead me here. In the...

Ginger beer and the temperature was 77F