Winter Honey Mead Fermentation

145 days ago

Made another batch of mead the other day. This time I used the Song Shan Winter Honey bought from Sheng Siong supermarket. As I said, the honey was pretty neutral and...

Made another batch of mead the other day. This time I used the Song Shan Winter Honey bought from Sheng Siong supermarket. As I said, the honey was pretty neutral and I was right. The honey water must did taste extremely neutral. In fact, after fermenting for days, the airlock still smells very neutral. In my opinion, this could be a very good honey to use if a neutral tasting mead is desired. I also used the Premier Cuvee Yeast which is a champagne yeast and this will result in a very dry mead.  About 1 kg of honey mixed with 2 litre of water but I suspect the Song Shan Winter Honey could be diluted somewhat. I was expecting a lot of sweetness from the honey (since this is one part honey and two parts water) but again, it was not something overwhelming. Well, maybe next time I will use a hydrometer to test the sample and get the original gravity to find the alcohol content. Since the Cuvee yeast will ferment most of the sugars away, we will know exactly how much sugars are there. Of course this is not a real test since the honey could be diluted with table sugar or other adjunct as well. Anyway, this first batch is just a test first.

Using the Berri Juice PET bottle.  Check out the bung and airlock.

Bubbles bubbles everywhere.

Don’t worry, those are raisins! Not mold or whatever. They are there to add some body and a little flavour to the mead. Remember this is a very neutral tasting mead. Adding a little flavour should help the overall taste of the mead, I hope.

The raisins float means that it is still fermenting. The carbon dioxide will push the raisins up to the surface. Once the fermentation is over, they should fall back to the bottom. This photo is taken one week after the initially fermentation. I don’t know why but it seems that the Premier Cuvee yeast ferments rather slowly. There is no krausen whatsoever to speak of, even on the first few days. It looks exactly like this all the while. The airlock’s most vigorous activity was like 5 bubbles per minute or so and has slowed to about 3 bubbles per minute now. This is yet another reason why I suspect the Song Shan Winter Honey might be a diluted product. I did add additional yeast nutrients and the raisins will provide some more nutrients to the yeast. The temperature I am fermenting the mead is about 20-23 Degrees Celsius. There is no reason why the fermentation is so slow, unless that it how this Cuvee yeast behaves. I have no idea but the next batch, I will be paying more attention.

Song Shan Winter Honey

146 days ago

I really don’t know. On one hand this is rather cheap – about S$7.50 per kg but on the other hand, this honey is from China. When you read news about...

I really don’t know. On one hand this is rather cheap – about S$7.50 per kg but on the other hand, this honey is from China. When you read news about foodstuff from China being diluted or whatever dangerous chemicals added to the product, it kind of worries you a lot. Especially when you are planning to ferment it. Yes, I will use this to make my next batch of mead. At the time of writing, I have already made my next batch of mead using this Song Shan Winter Honey. The taste and smell of the honey is pretty neutral. It taste like most commercial honeys out there – sweet with a slight hint of that honey flavour. The texture is also the same like most commercial honeys – liquidy. And what is the difference between normal honey and “winter” honey? Does colder climates make the honey taste better or something? I have no idea. I really hope that the mead made from this honey will turn out okay.

Song Shan Winter Honey. And yes, it is empty. In my haste I used the honey to make my mead before I took the photo, so now it is empty. And on the label it states – Pure! Of course they will label it as “pure”. Can’t be labelling it as “fake” or diluted honey right? The problem is there is no practical way for us to test whether the honey is pure or not. It could be made from sugar for all we know and we can’t even tell the difference. And this is indeed from China. The food standard there isn’t exactly that stringent. Even my colleagues from China worry about buying foodstuff from their own country, especially honey. Yes, I am worried. So should you.

Song Shan Winter Honey is a pure honey from North Eastern China. Add Song Shan Honey for better taste in grill, bread and pastry. As you can see, I have already used the honey to make my mead. The colour of the honey is pretty light. In fact, it is the lightest honey available on the Sheng Siong Shelf. That is one of the reasons why I chose this brand. I wanted to make a mead that is lighter in colour.

Some nutritional information for you. And approved by the Islamic Association in China.

1kg of honey. And for S$7.50 only. In Singapore, we would consider that cheap. But my friend from Australia told me that he could get double the amount for the same price (in Australian dollars) and have high quality raw honey that is thick and full of flavour. Sometimes my friends like to exaggerate a little. But then he lived somewhere far from the city, so yes, I think that is possible.

Red Star Premier Cuvee

147 days ago

Bought this yeast from the Internet. Will be using this to make mead yet again. From what I read this yeast is supposed to create a very neutral tasting mead so...

Bought this yeast from the Internet. Will be using this to make mead yet again. From what I read this yeast is supposed to create a very neutral tasting mead so that the “honey” flavour will be more pronounced in the mead. Well I guess that makes sense, especially if you are using a good quality honey to make your mead in the first place. But then isn’t the honey the most important part of your mead? Poor quality honey will result in a poor quality mead. That is a fact. Of course you can add adjuncts to cover the poor quality honey but it defeats the purpose of mead anyway. So yes, this is the perfect yeast for making good mead. However, the problem here is the Premier Cuvee is a very strong yeast and will add most of the available sugar in your honey water mixture. This will result in a dry mead, something which you will need to consider when making mead. And you will also get a very strong alcohol mead.

Anyway, this is my first time making use of Premier Cuvee for my wines. My first mead was made using bread yeast. Again there are a lot of people who claim that bread yeast will produce off flavours in the mead – something which I could not detect in my first tastings of my mead. Perhaps it is the pseudo effect? Whatever. Hope that it will turn out great. Or at least decent.

5 grams of dry yeast. It is termed “Active Dry Wine Yeast”. It is normally used to make champagne – yes, those stuff which you “pop” the bottle when you are celebrating something. And they are pretty strong stuff too. This is definitely something which you should consider when making your mead because your mead might be dry without too much sweetness.

The reason you need to rehydrate the dry yeast first before you pitch the yeast is to ensure that the “cell walls” of the yeast is strong enough. Remember, the yeast has been the dry state for a long time, it lacks water. Adding water to the yeast so that it can build up its cell walls make sense. If you simply pitch the yeast to the high gravity (aka tons of sugar) must, the yeast might not get enough water to rebuild its cell walls and thus produce off flavours. Always read the instructions on the package. I mean the manufacturers should have the best information and they know their product best. Plus it is always good to give the yeast a little “heads-up” when you make wines or mead. The yeast will reward you for it.

Made in Belgium.

Wafer Roll Sticks With Strawberry Yogurt Cream

152 days ago

I have no idea what is the brand.  Sorry I took the photo, ate everything and threw the box away. This can be found at Candy Empire. It is the place...

I have no idea what is the brand.  Sorry I took the photo, ate everything and threw the box away. This can be found at Candy Empire. It is the place my nephew likes so you should see a lot of reviews of sweets and snacks from Candy Empire. I am not that a great fan of sweet stuff myself though. So if you have a sweet tooth and you think my comments are dead wrong, please forgive my palate. I think it might have been destroyed after decades of eating too much sweets and candies.

Anyway, this is just like the stick wafers which can be found in most supermarkets. You get rolls of wafers where a small amount of flavoured cream is stuffed in the middle. Of course this one might be of a higher class than the ones we find at our supermarkets. Most of the supermarket varieties are just too hard when you bite into them. This is quite okay. As I said, for a higher class of people. But for poor folks like me, I am not complaining – just stating a fact. And the filling has yogurt in it, which gives a slight tang. Much better than the regular ones.

The wafer roll sticks. Lookie here, strawberry and yogurt. Nice.

Hmmm….fine wafer rolls filled with strawberry yogurt cream.

Some nutrition facts for me. But who in the right mind would worry about “nutrition” when they buy such snacks? We know that it is all empty calories. Yogurt you say? Honestly, do you expect much nutrition coming from the yogurt?

150g of wafer rolls. Made in Germany. As I mentioned earlier, higher class of snacks for the higher class of people.

Exclusive importers for Singapore and Malaysia. Don’t get too excited.

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I am guessing that the 47% means the strawberry yogurt cream consists of 47% of the total weight of each of the wafer. The ingredients are wheat flour, sugar, hardened vegetable fat, yogurt powder, fructose, butter fat, wheat starch, lactose, skimmed milk powder, whole milk powder, vanillin sugar, strawberry powder, emulsifier, flavour, salt and citric acid. May contain traces of nuts because the machine that makes this wafer / pack the wafers might also be used to make / pack other products. You think they only use the machine to make / pack one product meh?

14 sticks. So few. So sad.

Long right? Overall not too shabby. Definitely taste better than the rest I have eaten. The yogurt really does enhance the overall flavour. If I have the money, this would probably be my favourite snack but then I do not have the dough. I will have to stick with the supermarket ones. And Chinese New Year is coming! Would be stocking up on some snacks just in case.

My New Batch Of Wines

154 days ago

Currently I have a few small batches of wine going on – pineapple and rumbullion (a fake dark brown sugar wine that is supposed to mimic rum). Both have been raked...

Currently I have a few small batches of wine going on – pineapple and rumbullion (a fake dark brown sugar wine that is supposed to mimic rum). Both have been raked and transferred to clear bottles so that they will clear a little more before I bottle them. I will be posting some pictures of them soon. The pineapple wine seems to be going very well, I can smell the pineapples in the wine – pretty nice. The colour is a bit off though. Perhaps it is due to oxidation or something. The rumbullion on the other hand smells a bit sour and has this harshness about it. But no worries I will not be throwing them away. It is a crime to throw away alcohol. I will bottle them with the rest and perhaps in a few months time, they might taste great. You will never know – aging the rumbullion might actually produce a decent wine.  And oh, the dates wine turn out pretty nice – not that much in the flavour department but I think it will be a pretty refreshing drink. Not too sure whether I should dilute it so that I can get a wine that can be easily drunk without being too strong in alcohol. The colour of the dates wine is black.

Anyway, for my next batch of wine I will be making yet another mead. One of my friends would like to have a go at mead.  His first time I think. The first one I did using a raw organic honey, which I think will turn out great since the smell and the taste of the actual honey is rather strong. But for my next batch I will be using honey from a China manufacturer. I would like to see what real difference is there when making mead with different types of honey. And of course, the mead I made using the raw honey has a layer of “scum” on the surface which doesn’t seem to go away. The Chinese honey from the supermarket is as clear as a whistle, no sediment to speak off. So yes, it should produce a very clear mead in the end. I think that would certainly help when trying to get newbies to drink mead because we are so used to having very clear drinks. If there are sediments or scum on the surface, we tend to think that the beverage is “spolit”.

I would also be making an apple ice wine. I got the Treetop Frozen Apple Concentrate so I am pretty sure I will be able to make a wine that has probably the same amount of alcohol as normal wines – about 12-14% alcohol. And since it is frozen, I would be able to extract even more sugar from the concentrate. Since the “water” in the concentrate would tend to freeze much earlier than the actual concentrate, I can make use of this science to separate the concentrate from the water – hereby increasing the sugar content even more. And with that I can get Apple Wine. The problem now is getting the correct concentration to make the wine with the desired alcohol content. I guess this makes this type of wine making so fun, all the experiments and testing that goes along with it. Fun. Fermentation is fun.

Chinese New Year (Reunion) Dinner

161 days ago

I know it is not even Christmas yet but this time, the Chinese New Year is coming early.  So early in fact that is is coming in January!  I know it...

I know it is not even Christmas yet but this time, the Chinese New Year is coming early.  So early in fact that is is coming in January!  I know it is the holidays and most people are on leave and they don’t want to worry about anything and just enjoy their holidays. But honestly, with the Chinese New Year coming so close, are you not worried about the reunion dinner? If you book too late, you might find that most restaurants are fully booked or you are left with those with ungodly hours. I would not want to eat my reunion dinner at 5pm, do you? Or perhaps you cannot even enjoy your reunion dinner at your favourite restaurant. If you “worry” too late, this could be the scenario. And the Chinese New Year reunion dinner is very important for us Chinese. Well, maybe not so for the younger generation but for the old folks, they might want it to be something special. So why disappoint your parents when you could have easily book the place early and get everything done without all the fuss and headaches.

Anyway, the upcoming Chinese New Year Holidays will be on the 23rd and 24th of January. Which would mean a long weekend for us all. Hooray! After the December break, we get another break in January! For those who are eating at home, this is probably the best. Since most of us are working, it would be problematic for us to prepare the food and everything on Chinese New Year eve. However, since the 23rd is a Monday, we could prepare the food on Saturday and Sunday and get it ready by Sunday evening. For those who don’t cook, that shouldn’t be a problem since we would be eating at restaurants either way. Singaporeans being so busy usually will not have the time nor the inclination to cook or prepare stuff for the reunion dinner. And yes, most of us can’t cook, so it is better if we go to restaurants. Better for our relatives and parents.

Please check out our listing on Singapore Food Caterers or if you are planning to book a restaurant, you might be interested in our listing of Singapore Chinese Restaurants.

Red Sun Citric Acid

162 days ago

This is to be used for making my wines. Yes, surprising isn’t it? When I first started making wine, I didn’t know that wine makers add “acids” to their wine –...

This is to be used for making my wines. Yes, surprising isn’t it? When I first started making wine, I didn’t know that wine makers add “acids” to their wine – both to prevent oxidation and to get a little tartness to the wine. Something about the fermentation process removes some of the acid from the fruits and you are left with a slightly dull tasting wine. This acid will help “perk” things up. But usually they add a mixture of acids like tartaric acid, malic acid and citric acid to give it more of a tang. Of course we don’t have such a blend easily available in Singapore, I only found this citric acid in our local supermarket. If I am not wrong, it is used to add more flavour to the Konnyaku Jelly. Amazing, the same concept applies when it comes to making wine. I believe that the citric acid is the cheapest of them all, so it is widely available.

Anyway, I will be adding a little of this to my upcoming wines. Not only does it helps to perks things up, it will help prevent oxidation. And oxidation not only spoils the taste of the wine, for bright coloured wines, it tends to dull the colour. I know that it is the taste that is important, but honestly, we taste with our eyes as well. Wines should look good so that it will appeal to the drinker.

Red Sun Citric Acid. The Malay word for Acid is “Asid”. I wonder whether they are really made from lemons or fruits or this citric acid was created in the lab. Yes, those created in labs are actually much cheaper than those made from fruits. Well, we will never know.

Ingredients – just Citric Acid. Phoon Huat, the bakery supply store. I believe Red Sun is one of their subsidiary or something.

Citric Acid is made from Natural Fruits such as lemon and is commonly found in soft drinks, fruit juices, candy and foods. When added into Red Sun Konnyaku Jelly, it gives a refreshing taste. That is definitely great news. Hope that it will do the same to my wines.  Ciao.

Wine Making Stuff Arrived!

163 days ago

Apparently the parcel was shipped wrongly, it went to Thailand instead. Not too sure how that happened – the label states Singapore rather clearly and still it was shipped to Thailand....

Apparently the parcel was shipped wrongly, it went to Thailand instead. Not too sure how that happened – the label states Singapore rather clearly and still it was shipped to Thailand. Perhaps the Americans think that Singapore is part of Thailand? I mean if they send to China I would understand but Thailand? This is a first for me. Anyway, I bought a couple of things – cider yeast, wine stoppers, airlock and bung. The cider yeast is to make cider from apple juice, the wine stopper is for me to cork the wine bottles and the airlock and bung are for fermentation. The bung is corked to the container and there is a small opening for the airlock. This way, the fermentation can be done without any air getting into the wine. Airlock only allows air (in this case carbon dioxide) to escape without letting anything in. Pretty smart little item.

Here you here the Young’s Cider Yeast. 5 g of yeast. You don’t really need that much yeast. Once you “pitch” the yeast, they will grow and grow. Soon you will find your entire container full of yeast and they will then help turn your apple juice into hard cider. Cool right?  Hard Cider is made from apples and it is supposed to be refreshing and crisp. I had made hard cider (apple wine) before and it didn’t turn out right. Tastes a bit dull without the refreshing taste and is rather tart. Probably because the wrong type of yeast and the poor quality of apple juice I used. It seems that the packaged apple juice in Singapore is of rather poor quality.

Hmm….this is special Bayanus strain, especially selected for its ability to produce exceptional crisp and refreshing ciders. Very nice. From what little I have read about this yeast, it should be the same as Champagne yeast, that is why it ferments so well to create that “crisp” and refreshing taste. This small pack of yeast is enough for 23 litres of cider. Just amazing isn’t it. Such a small package of yeast you can ferment 23 litres of hard cider. I love the wonders of fermentation. Anyway, what you do is sprinkle the sachet contents onto the surface of the juice, wait 15 minutes and then stir. And then you wait for a few days and you will get Hard Cider. Delicious. Product of the UK.

Here you have a pack of wine stoppers. The problem with them is they are not meant to keep for years, unlike the traditional corks that have often been used in traditional wine bottling. The reason I bought them is because most of the wines I am making do not require a long period of aging, so they will do. For those which requires long aging periods, I will use my trusty old corker.

Yes, it looks like they have been made from rather cheap plastic. But it should work. Hopefully it does not allow oxygen to enter and ruin my wines. And it is more convenient as well. Just plug the stopper into the wine bottle and you are done. The corker requires you to plug in the corks deep into the wine bottle – that would require a lot of strength and some experience in corking.  And you will need some corks which have been soaked in water for some time. Troublesome. As you know I am lazy and I do not want to do more work than is necessary.

Here you have the airlock and bung. This is the Buno Vino Bung which is stopped to be a “step-up” to the conventional bung. It has a wider length to allow for a wider range of openings with an additional of lip to prevent the bung from falling into the fermenter. The airlock comes with a cap and is the standard one-piece (or two -piece) airlock. What you do is add water into the airlock. As air (carbon dioxide) is forced into the airlock from the bottom, the water is pushed up and once the air escape, the water falls back, stopping any air from entering. Ingenious device. That cap is just to prevent too much evaporation so that the airlock would not go dry (which is a bad thing!).

Another view. These are pretty cheap stuff – just plastics. However these are niche items so it will definitely cost more. I bought 4 sets each for my wine making experiments. Since I make small batches, I am not wasting too much if they don’t turn out right. Overall not too expensive if you buy online. I think if you want to start getting into wine making, you could try online especially eBay. It is a great resource for find brewing equipment. Singapore has a few wine/beer brewing shops you might want to check out – ibrew and homebrew. If you live nearby, they are also a convenient resource.

Dates Wine

166 days ago

No surprise here, got another wine brew going on.  Maybe too much free time on my hands which is kind of rare for me. But hey, I am not complaining here....

No surprise here, got another wine brew going on.  Maybe too much free time on my hands which is kind of rare for me. But hey, I am not complaining here. It is actually quite good to have some free time and not to have much worries at all. In Singapore where nearly everything you can be stressful, this respite is good. Anyway, I had started this about 3 weeks ago. It is made from dates syrup (concentrated dates) and left to ferment as per normal. What is surprising is that the fermentation went on for the entire 3 weeks. Perhaps I added a little too much dates syrup or something as even now there are still some bubbling going on. At Singapore’s temperature this is very rare. Not to mention, I had add an entire pack of Montrachet Yeast that was meant for 23 litres of must. I am guessing it could be that dates are much harder to ferment due to having more complex sugars or something. There seem to be a lack of information of fermentation of dates on the Internet, so I am not too sure the reason.

Remember, this is made from dates syrup which is most likely dates boiled down into a syrup form. So yes, it is blackish. You can find dates syrup in those Indian stores selling more traditional Indian foodstuff. The dates syrup isn’t exactly sweet and it has this bitter aftertaste probably from the skin and pith. I am not too sure how the wine will turn out though. Going to try it once I bottle the wine. Well even if initially it does not taste nice, we could always age the wine and perhaps get some world class wine after one year of aging. Hahaha, we can always hope right?

If you look carefully, you will see small bubbles forming on the surface. It took amazingly long time to ferment. I am also kind of worried that the fermentation might not be complete and I get exploding bottles. Perhaps I will rack it to yet another container and let it rest for another 2 more weeks or so, just to be safe. I don’t imagine enjoying cleaning up if my bottle breaks or explodes.

Merci Finest Selection Dark Chocolates

168 days ago

Ah…yet another chocolate review. Well it is coming to Christmas so the stores are full of chocolates, so I bought a few. And since they are available at our local supermarkets,...

Ah…yet another chocolate review. Well it is coming to Christmas so the stores are full of chocolates, so I bought a few. And since they are available at our local supermarkets, I won’t consider them as like premium chocolates but they should be slightly better than the regular chocolates we find there. And no, I am not a snob. Just someone who likes chocolates. And someone who doesn’t really have the finances to enjoy great chocolates. So I will have to stick with the supermarket varieties while those teenagers who never work one day in their life, bite into those 10 bucks per piece premium handmade chocolates from some exotic Europe country. Sad isn’t it? But I guess it is always good to face realty, if not rich, don’t pretend to be rich and spend beyond your means.

Anyway, I bought this from our local Shop N Save – the poor offspring of Cold Storage. Cold Storage is considered slightly higher class if you realize. Everyone needs to get into the mood of Christmas, so the store is stock full of chocolates and candies. And the staff all forced to wear the ridiculous red hat. If I remembered correctly, this was on sale for S$8 or so.

Wow, Merci’s Finest Section of assorted dark chocolates.

Wow, they added a piece of display in front to show that this is for Christmas. But in actual fact, it is the same old chocolates they retail regularly. Smart marketing move. Tricked me too. Honestly, sometimes you have to resort to such marketing gimmicks to attract buyers. Remember, this brand of chocolates isn’t exactly well-known like several other brands.

See, the finest selection of dark chocolates they have.

The back of the pack.

4 varieties of Merci Dark. Coffee & Cream, Cream Truffle, Dark Cream and Marzipan. Not too bad. Definitely much better than the regular ones we find at the supermarket. I really like the Marzipan which I think comes with the coconut cream or something like that. Not really too sure, but I think that is the one with the coconut cream.

The ingredients are sugar, cocoa mass, cocoa butter, high fat milk powder, almonds, whole milk powder, butter fat, whey powder, lactose, coffee, invert sugar syrup, glucose syrup, emulsifier, dextrose, fructose, flavourings and salt. Good eh? I don’t understand why people like to eat chocolates with “low-fat” this and “low-fat” that. Good chocolates should not have low anything. It should be tasty, fattening and full of flavour. Just don’t eat too much of it!

Some nutritional information for you and me to be impressed about.

Made in Germany. I thought Merci is a French word? 250g only.

Hmmm…finest ingredients and a delicious selection of chocolates created by master confectioners have made Merci Finest Selection such a world-wide favourite. Enjoy Merci Finest Selection in all its rich variety. Of course I will. In fact, I don’t think it will last more than a week.

20 pieces of chocolate in all.

The different flavours. Yaaah!  You won’t get bored eating the entire box like that. As you guys should know, I like dark chocolates. Give me milk chocolates and I will probably push it away. Okay, I admit I will probably eat it as well but seriously, dark chocolates are loads better than milk chocolates. The most important is the complexity of dark chocolates. Milk chocolates is full of milk and sugar and you can’t possibly taste the cocoa in it. What is the point – might as well drink milk and sugar.

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