My first batch of finnish Kilju

[Brew2Be]

Hi HBT.

I just wanted to share a view of my kilju (sugar wine) to those who might be interested.

ImageShack® - Online Photo and Video Hosting

(for some reason i can't upload tinypic images).

I really like the way it settled out crystal clear.

I just used normal baker's yeast, white sugar and water. It tastes sweet and not too alcoholic, although I have a feeling it might just be (I brewed this before I got a hydrometer).

Enjoy.

 

[Pith]

It turns out that I have a milk carton full of sugar/water/yeast atm that I haven't looked at in a few days. I used some 20-something year old glucose syrup I found in the pantry. :rockin:

It's nearing the end of its rapid fermentation and is still quite yellow though, probably due to a combination of the baker's yeast colour and the glucose syrup colour.

 

[Brew2Be]

It turns out that I have a milk carton full of sugar/water/yeast atm that I haven't looked at in a few days. I used some 20-something year old glucose syrup I found in the pantry. :rockin:

It's nearing the end of its rapid fermentation and is still quite yellow though, probably due to a combination of the baker's yeast colour and the glucose syrup colour.

Hehe sounds good. Let me know how it turns out!

 

[Pith]

I have no idea of the abv of this thing, btw, since I checked nothing because I really didn't care.

I froze and defrosted it a couple of times to get the sediment to go to the bottom, because I didn't care enough about it to give it time to think. The product was a liquid that was crystal clear at the top, then gradually becoming yellow at the bottom. I just siphoned off a portion from the top, and it tasted fairly watery and boring with a slight hint that it wasn't water. Tasted the bottom and it was sweet and different, so I just shook it right up again.

It's not that great, really. It reminds me of a cheap, diluted sake. Boring, but not offensive. But it'd be easy to add some cordial concentrate since the flavours are so vague and easily masked. It'd also be good to use some actual wine or distiller's yeast to get an abv of 12-20 percent, which would make it better at the only thing it's useful for. I just took several very big gulps, so we'll see just how alcoholic it is.

EDIT: Okay, I had to have almost the entire 2.5 kilos/litres of it to get sufficiently tanked, while still being able to type this sentence. I guess it must've been around beer strength.

Nevertheless, I'm doing a new 13L batch using simple white sugar, this time actually checking OG, which worked out at 1.064.

Ten Sixty-Four Kilju
2kg white sugar
13L tap water
1 sachet baker's yeast
OG: 1.064
potential 8.75% alcohol
- Turn cold tap on, run it into fermenter turning the tap off at the 13L mark.
- Dump a 2 kilo bag of white sugar into fermenter.
- Stir until you don't feel grittiness on the bottom.
- Scatter packet of yeast in.
- Stir on second day.

Fermentation took a day or two to start because I neglected to make a starter or heat the must in any way, but a slower fermentation means... uh... it'll be different in some way... possibly for the better, possibly not. We'll see.

What do you reckon, should I make a starter and pitch some another lot of yeast, in warmish starter form? How quick was your fermentation? How does it taste? What temperature did you ferment at? If yours was "quick and tasty" or "slow and yucky", I'll pitch more yeast. If yours was "quick and yucky" or "slow and tasty", I'll keep it the way it is. It's fermenting, definitely, just not vigourously by any extent of the imagination.

I think next time I'll also make a spiced one if I think it would work. That'd be interesting. I wonder what skim milk powder would do for it...

 

[Brew2Be]

Hehehehe I enjoyed your post alot :rockin: My fermentation was quite slow actually.. Around three weeks. Maybe make a starter to really kick things off, especially if you are doing 13 liters of the stuff. Mine tasted OK but it wasn't something to write home about - again mine was made with baker's yeast I am yet to try it with real brewer's yeast. My temp was just room temperature, maybe slightly cooler.

Let me know how it progresses!

 

[Pith]

Making a warm starter using 100g raw sugar and 200g warmish water. Added a heaped teaspoon of wine nutrient too; will tip it into the must in about an hour.

EDIT: It's been more than a week and it's still quite sweet. It'll take a month to finish, I reckon.

 

[Pith]

It's still coloured, and tastes quite yeasty, but the fermentation stopped/slowed when it was still sweet, which might actually make it a bit more tolerable, if less alcoholic. Will leave for a while to settle out in order to hopefully get rid of the yeasty taste.

 

[Brew2Be]

It's still coloured, and tastes quite yeasty, but the fermentation stopped/slowed when it was still sweet, which might actually make it a bit more tolerable, if less alcoholic. Will leave for a while to settle out in order to hopefully get rid of the yeasty taste.

The yeasty taste settled out of mine after a few months I guess that will happen to yours too . What volume did you brew? In liters.

 

[Pith]

13, remember? Also, I just added more yeast and 2.5 litres of lemon squash, before realising that there were preservatives in the squash. Oh well, we'll hope for luck.

 

[Pith]

I think it's oxidized or something. Probably because I don't care at all. Going to dump it.

 

[Brew2Be]

I think it's oxidized or something. Probably because I don't care at all. Going to dump it.

I'm sorry to hear that :-(. Are you making another or are you moving on?

 

[Pith]

Nah. It's not much cheaper to make kilju than any other country wine, where the ingredients would mask the fermented-sucrose buttsweat flavour and smell.