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Never heard of this? Well, it is some kind of solution that supposedly helps breaks down the pectin in fruits, which then helps to improve fruit yields. That is you get more juice and sugars from your fruits. And thus meant only for those wines that uses fresh fruits (as opposed to fruit juices). It also helps reduce the “hazing” effect often produced when making fruit wines. I don’t think this would be a problem for those people making grape wines because grapes do not have that much pectin. But if you are making wine from lets say, apples or peaches or some other fruit rich in pectin, you should add some pectic enzyme solution to help the process.

This can come either in powder or liquid form. I am not too sure which is better but since the eBay seller have only the liquid form for sale, I have no choice. Not too expensive, considering that one little bottle (14.8ml) is enough for like 230 litres of wine. It is potent stuff. However I am not sure what flavour will it impact on my wines. Lets hope there will not be much effect on the flavour. Won’t want my wines to taste rubbery or something. Adding chemicals to wines often will result in such tastes in the wine. Seldom such chemicals are tasteless.

Yes, I don’t know why but somehow I rotate the photo wrongly. Couldn’t differentiate between clockwise or anticlockwise. Must be getting old. Shouldn’t be a problem. It is just a little bottle. Anyway, I will be making some pineapple wine soon. Will be using some canned pineapples which should have some pectin in it. Lets see whether there will be some effect on the wine after I use this Pectin Enzyme solution.

The reason I am using some canned pineapples is because my previous batch of pineapple wine did taste a bit off. I guess you can say the taste was a bit dull. Something about the pineapple juice made it a bit dull and unexciting. Hopefully adding some real fruit into the mix will “liven” things up for me. Will update you guys soon.

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I honestly have no idea the difference between yeast energizer and yeast nutrients. A lot of wine or beer making recipes require only yeast nutrients but I came across a few which require both. From my basic understand, yeast energizer consist of more nutrients and that special “yeast hulls” which would make for a better fermentation. The yeast nutrients consist of those nutrients yeast need to make for a healthy fermentation. Does that make sense? No, they mean the same thing? Well, I agree. But I guess it could be because of the difference in ingredient composition that makes the difference. So if a recipe calls for yeast energizer, then use yeast energizers. If not, then adding yeast nutrients should be sufficient for the fermentation. Of course even recipes get it wrong, so sometimes you just have to experiment.

As usual, I bought this online from eBay. There are quite a few eBay stores selling home brewing equipment and accessories. In fact, buying things from eBay has become my favourite way of purchasing stuff which is hard to find in Singapore. They might not always be cheaper but at least you don’t have to travel hours to get small items right?

Here we have this Crosby & Baker Yeast Energizer. Claims to restart “stuck” fermentation. So lets say that your beer or wine suddenly stalls and there is no fermentation but you know that there are still some sugars remaining in the wort or must, you should add some of this yeast energizer to help it along.

Product of Canada. Add 1/2 tsp per gallon of wine must to stimulate fermentation.

Aerate and apply immediately. You need some oxygen to help get your stuck fermentation going. No oxygen, your yeast will not reproduce and you will be back to square one.

The ingredients are Diammonium Phosphate, Yeast hulls, Magnesium Sulphate and Vitamin B Complex. For yeast nutrients, it is usually Diammonium Phosphate only. I know that Yeast Hulls do act as nutrients for the yeast. Yes, they do eat themselves for nutrients. Just like humans.

Smells like well…yeast to me. Perhaps because of all the yeast hulls in there.

I will be using the yeast energizer in some of the wines I have in mind. Hope that they will help produce a much better wine. From what I read, if you can’t get the correct temperature for fermentation, having healthy yeast will indeed help produce better tasting alcohol. So this should be a plus.

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If you have no idea what micro agglomerated corks are, don’t need to worry. Only recently did I discover this. It is actually a pretty recent invention. And they are supposed to be much cheaper as well. The reason is most likely they are made from the “waste” of cork process. These micro agglomerated corks are actually tiny uniform pieces of cork that has been “glued” together to form a smooth cork. That is a pretty innovative way of reusing your cork production waste. I don’t know whether they are really better or not, but from what I read, they should only be used to cork wines for shorter periods of time, like maybe 2-3 years at most. After that, oxygen might seep into the wine. If you want something longer, get natural corks  that has not been processed. Those should last a pretty while. Definitely more than this “micro agglomerated” corks.

As usual, I bought this set from eBay. It has become my favourite place to shop for wine making products. Of course you must be willing to wait for the goods to arrive. If not, Singapore has a few wine brewing stores where you can get supplies from.

30 micro agglomerated corks. Product of Portugal. From what I know, Portugal seems to be THE place for corks. I am guessing the cork oak tree is plentiful there. The advantages of cork as a stopper is that it retains its elasticity very well. So if you pitch or squeeze a cork, it should “bounce” back to its original shape pretty well. That is why those Europeans have been using cork to “stopper” their wines for centuries.

Nice, got a logo of grapes. One thing I discover about these micro agglomerated corks is that they are pretty smooth. This should go very well with the hand corker I have. Those natural corks which I had used before can be rather difficult to use. Anyway, once my mead is done, I will have my first try using these micro agglomerated corks.

Another view of the cork.

If you are into wine making and you are looking for some short term storage, this could be a good solution. And if you are using a hand corker, this would certainly save you some effort and sweat. I wonder whether they suffer from cork taint or not? From what I read, natural corks often suffer from cork taint – giving the wines a slightly cupboard smell and taste.

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Yes, I know I have done this review before. But it is such a amazing yeast that I just have to have a go at it again. For those who are not into brewing or just starting brewing, this is an ale style yeast. Which means it produces ale, as opposed to lager. Although they are both beers, the difference between ales and lagers is the taste. Lagers are a lot more neutral in flavour and is actually much more preferred by the majority of beer drinkers these days. And most commercial beers are lagers. I am betting that almost 70% of the beers sold in the coffee shops and bars are lagers. Ales are a lot more complex (in general) and most likely need some getting used to. However for the home brewer, lagers can be rather difficult to achieve. That is because of the temperature needed for lagering can be below 10 Degree Celsius. And temperature control is rather difficult as well. First you need to get the temperature to room temperature then after a few hours lower it to that of lagering temperature. Not as easy as it sounds, especially if you are just a home brewer. Of course commercial breweries shouldn’t have such problems.

For home brewers like me, we need to find someway to achieve the “neutral” taste of lager through the use of ale yeast. Hence, we have this Nottingham Brewing Yeast – it is fairly neutral and if you can lower your temperature as low as possible, you can get the lager-like taste profile. All without the need for lagering equipment. Thus it is a very popular yeast to use, especially for beginners. Even experts use them as the yeast is very convenient for quick and easy beer. I have used them for countless beers – the Australian Pale Ale, the Mexican Cerveza and even Pilsener! All work pretty well if you can lower the temperature to 16 Degree Celsius.

One pack of the Danstar Nottingham Brewing Yeast. Enough for 23litre of beer. Isn’t that cool? The net weight of the yeast pack is 11g. Just imagine, such a small packet of yeast will be able to ferment 23 litres of wort. I am always amazed with the wonders of these little yeasts and bacteria and what they can do.

Back of the pack.

Some instructions for you to follow – suspend the yeast in 100ml of warm (NOT HOT) water. Do not stir. Let stand for 15 minutes then stir gently to suspend all the yeast. To avoid temperature shock which could kill the yeast cells, adjust the temperature of the suspension to that of the wort by slowly adding a little wort every 5 minutes, until the temperature of the yeast suspension is equal to that of the wort. Add to the wort immediately. For those who don’t know, wort is the “beer” before it was fermented. Always follow the instructions from the yeast manufacturer.

The ingredients are yeast & emulsifier. And keep your yeast refrigerated. Product of Austria and made for this Lallemand which is based in Canada. Actually I am planning to use this yeast to make some mead. Of course the alcohol content will be much lesser than what normally people expect of mead because this yeast will not be able to handle high levels of alcohol but the result would be a drinkable mead in less than 3 months. Mead usually require a year to age before it would be considered drinkable. But by using beer yeast, the process would be faster. Hopefully I would be able to get a good tasting mead in a short amount of time. Sometimes waiting for a year can prove very difficult for me.

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Bought this while it was on offer at NTUC. I believe for about S$10 for this 1kg bucket of honey. If I am not wrong, this can be found in most supermarkets in Singapore. Nothing too special about this honey, even though it is from Australia.  Not from China but from Australia. I feel much better buying things made in Australia than from China. It gives me a sense of peace as foodstuff from China has such a bad reputation. And you should be able to guess what I am going to be making from this honey right? Yes, mead – honey wine – nectar of the gods – whatever. The only problem I foresee with using this honey is that it is pretty dark in colour. I like my mead golden not brownish which does not appeal to the drinker, especially in Singapore where we all like things bright and light (like our lagers).

One bucket of 1kg Wescobee Wild Forest Honey. I am guessing they meant the honey is gathered from the forest and the honey bees are not domesticated (so to speak). I think it is a good think as you will never know what kind of antibotics and chemicals bee keepers use to keep their honey bees alive. Of course you will not have a consistent honey flavour.

Check it out – Wecobee Wild Forest 100% pure Australian honey. 1 kg net. That bee looks very happy. And we love happy bees, don’t we? Happy bees produce great tasting honey for us to enjoy.

Wecobee have carefully selected this special lot of 100% pure Australian honey for you to enjoy. Fantastic for healthy living, active sports people and cooking. Nice. We have developed this pack as a handy and attractive storage container when empty. The pack is microwaveable, freezer friendly and then the lid will come off easily. Hmmm….I don’t know about that, but this is indeed a plus point. You can reuse the plastic bucket. Suggested honey uses: Use on cereals, desserts, smoothies. Add to your tea or coffee. Use on your carrots, in cooking or straight as it is for a quick energy pick me up. Carrots? Who put honey on their carrots.

Some nutrition information for you. Seems that 82% of this honey is sugar. But not just plain table sugar (sucrose) but a mix of different types of sugar (both complex and simple) which is a good thing. Full of nutrients, minerals and vitamins. Definitely better than table sugar my friends. Think of ways to replace your regular sugar with honey.

Yes, pretty dark isn’t it? I don’t know why but all the buckets of this brand at NTUC looks pretty dark. Some people claim that darker colour honeys means that they have much more flavour. Although I don’t disagree with that but sometimes it could be due to the storing condition of the honey. If it is kept in a warm place, the honey will darken.

Anyway, I will be making mead from this real soon. Will keep you guys updated.

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It took about 2 weeks to arrive. From my experience, it is actually faster to ship items from England than from Hong Kong, which is so weird considering that Hong Kong is so much nearer. And I am talking about normal small packets mail, which should be the same as regular air mail. Most of the items I brought from Hong Kong would take about 3-4 weeks, sometimes even longer to arrive. As for those from the United States or England, it will take less than 2 weeks. Well, once it took longer than that but it is due to the fact that it was shipped somewhere else wrongly before being shipped to Singapore.

Anyway, my brewing stuff has arrived. I bought the Young’s Cider Yeast, Young’s Ale Yeast and some wine shrink caps.

Young’s Ale Yeast. 5g only. I am using this yeast to make more mead. From what I read, mead using ale yeast will age faster than those using wine yeast. I am not too sure why and many people consider this “cheating” but hey, if it ages faster and taste just as good, why not? It is not like I succumb to the dark side or anything but even blending different grapes to make a better wine is allowed now, so again, why not?

This strain has been especially selected for its ability to produce rich, full flavoured English-style ales. Can make 23 litres of ale. Ale is the more flavourful of the beers, compared to lagers. Lagers are the ones that taste neutral and does not require much to drink. Just pop one open and you are done.  Most of us drink lagers in Singapore. Ales? I think only for the Brits or for those with a more complex taste in beers. Anyway, this is a product of the UK.

Wine Shrink caps. This is to protect the wine corks – you put in on the wine caps and use some heat source to “shrink” the cap onto the wine bottle top. I honestly doubt that it will protect the wine corks but it looks better, especially if you are using a manual hand wine bottle corker. Using a manual hand wine bottle corker, you will not be able to fully insert the cork into the wine bottle. Thus the top part looks like of ugly – with a small portion of cork still sticking out.

Picture of a grape. Kind of weird if it is used for mead or apple wine.

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Guess what this is for? If you guess for making wines, then you have been reading this blog. If you guess something else, it is understandable. Anyway, I will indeed be using this to make some pineapple wine. The “fresh cut” pineapples would be great for making the wine – perhaps just crush the pineapple pieces with something and then let it ferment. The “syrup” is actually pineapple juice with sugar, so that should also help as well. Might need to add some more acid to the must but that is able it.  I have yet to open the can, so I am not too sure what is the colour of the pineapple juice.

If you remember a while back, I made myself an pineapple wine already. However, this is made from packaged pineapple juice and sugar. Although I have not tasted the wine, I suspect it to be a little tasteless and I doubt it will have much of a character. Using packaged pineapple juice will do that to you, especially if it has been Ultra Heat Treated. I could have add some Tannins to the wine but I doubt it will help much. I will wait for the Pectic Enzymes to arrive before I make the wine. If using actual fruits to make wines, it is important to add some Pectic Enzymes to help break down the pulp and help in fermentation.

One can of Del Monte Fresh Cut Pineapple Chunks in Syrup. Del Monte is a famous brand around here.  Their famous Tomato Ketchup……

Wow, picked & packed fresh. No preservatives. Very important in wine making. Having preservatives will almost guarantee the fermentation process will fail. And the “picked & packed fresh” slogan seems to be interesting. Must try a few pieces before using them to make the wine.

Product of the Philippines. A lot of fruits seem to come from the Philippines these days. I have spotted dried fruits, canned fruits and even jam from the Philippines. They have become like the “fruit basket” of Asia.

The ingredients are pineapple, clarified pineapple juice and sugar. Just nice for making pineapple wine.  Might need to get 4-5 cans before I can make 2 litres of pineapple wine though. This one requires a little more planning and calculation beforehand.

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Bought this set from the Internet. Seems that eBay is a good resource for such things, especially those you cannot find in Singapore. The two home brewing stores in Singapore do not carry a lot of equipment for making wine, mostly for brewing beer so I am actually forced to find them on the Internet. Of course shipping is a factor but since the stuff I buy are usually small and light weight, the overall prices should be acceptable. The eBay store I bought from is The Bruhaus Brewing & Wine Supply. The shipping time is usually two weeks but once I got mine only after a month. Apparently they sent to some other country and was later shipped to Singapore. I don’t know why but a lot of people think Singapore is not in South East Asia.

Anyway, I am using the Acid Blend and the Tannins to improve my wines. The acid blend is actually a combination of malic acid, critic acid and tartaric acid and this helps to improve the acidity of the wines. The Tannin powder is to add some astringency to the wine. Think of it as “black tea” and what you feel in your tongue after you drink them. I am guessing it is to balance the sweetness of the wine to get it a more “rounded” flavour. Yes, complicated stuff I know. I am still figuring it all out myself.

3 ounce of Acid Blend and 1.5 Ounce of Tannin. Why is the bottle of 1.5 ounce of Tannin much larger then the 3 ounce of acid blend? Maybe Tannin takes up more space or something.

If your wine tastes dull, add some acid blend to it. They claim that by adding acid, it will “sharpen” the taste and enhances the wine. I honestly don’t know but if wine makers say do it, we should at least try. It can be very difficult to define dull but just think of it as drinking plain water. I am not very sure whether you guys have tried making plain Konnyaku jelly before? It tastes kind of dull even if it has some sweetness to it. What they do is add some critic acid to the jelly to “liven” it up. I have tried it before and there is indeed a difference. The slight tartness is like adding lemon juice to the jelly.

Tannin. Something extremely difficult to explain but I will try my best. Have you ever drank green tea (loose leaves) from the first flush before? Taste like nothing right? Not much flavour and nothing at the end. But if you drink black tea (which is actually from the same plant only that the leaves have been oxidized), you will find that there is a certain “bite” to it as it goes down your throat. And it gets more pronounced after a few more flushes. That is the Tannin affecting the taste. Hope I explain it right.

So I will be making some wine with these acid blend and tannin added. Will keep you guys updated on the result.

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It is time for making some tasty apple wine. I am not too sure whether the correct term is apple wine or cider though. Normally if using apple juice, it should be called cider. But the alcohol content of cider is pretty low – about 5-7% alcohol at most. This time I am making a high alcoholic beverage using apple concentrates (to get the increased sugar content), so it should be more like a wine. Anyway, I will call this Apple Wine. As I said it is made from apple concentrate I bought from Cold Storage and it actually smelled pretty good. Better than the other apple juice I had bought. I am guessing the problem with the juice we have in Singapore is that they are not of good quality? Since the Tree Top Apple Juice concentrate is actually made for the US market, it would be better? Conspiracy theory I know.

Anyway, I use the Tree Top Apple Juice Concentrate and added one pack of Harvey Fresh Apple Juice.  It made about 1.3litre of apple juice must. So I should be getting about 1 litre of apple wine in a few more weeks.

Used the Welch Grape Juice PET bottle. And look it is all cloudy. When you see it all cloudy like this, you would know that it is still fermenting. The carbon dioxide produced by the fermentation process will push the yeast all over the container, hence it becomes very cloudy.

Bubbles. I love bubbles. Bubbles mean that everything is fine. As you can see there is no krausen or any scum ring at the top. That is because there wasn’t much of any krausen formed. Just a small amount during the beginning stages and it more or less all disappeared by now. Maybe I move the bottle too often and the scum ring got dissolved or something.

This has been bubbling for 2 weeks already and it is still bubbling. Initially after pinching the yeast, the airlock activity is about 30 per minute. Very very active fermentation. Now it has slowed somewhat but still about 5-6 bubbles per minute. I had used the Young’s Cider Yeast which is meant for making ciders. It is supposed to make the beverage more “refreshing”.  Hope that I made the right choice as I have never used this yeast before.

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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.

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