Mead in the demijohn

 This photo brings two thoughts to mind;

A weed is just a plant in the wrong place

And, beauty is in the eye of the beholder

Taman brought these dandelion heads inside the other day, he wanted to put them in a vase and he wants to grow them too. Interestingly one of his friends has also planted dandelion seeds but I don't think Taman knows that. He's growing an interest in the natural world and the natural processes. Come spring, dandelions will be a very welcome weed in my garden as I plan to make dandelion wine.

Here is my yarrow mead in the fermenting jar. I strained it on Saturday and put it in the bottle only to discover that the bung (this pink, rubber cork which holds the airlock) was missing from Taman's pocket. My fault for leaving it in his pocket, he was just so keen to be part of the bung buying process, he's fascinated by wine making. Either that or he's trying to sabotage it, he did snap my hydrometer in half and then hide it under a couch cushion. He hasn't come to understand that when you're dishonest you need to be consistent. So while he hid the evidence, as soon as I asked where my hydrometer was he lead me to it and told me he broke it and then hid it. How can you be annoyed by that kind of innocence?

Anyway, I covered the top of the fermenting bottle with a couple of layers of gladwrap and put the airlock into that. My friend who works at the brew shop advised me to do that. The gladwrap didn't give a tight seal but the first few days of fermentation are so fast that there's usually a constant layer of carbon dioxide keeping oxygen and potential contaminants such as wild yeasts away from the brew. On Monday  I swiftly went down to the brew shop and got a new bung and now it's bubbling away quite happily and the washhouse smells of fermentation again.

There was actually just enough juice once I'd strained it. When I had added the water originally I was worried that I had put far too much in but once I taken a sample for my hydrometer reading it was perfect. My hydrometer read that it has the alcohol level of a table wine. I'm not really sure what that means or the purpose of the activity but I'm sure with time and expertise it'll become apparent.

So now to leave the brew for another 2-3 weeks until after the holidays and then rack it off into another demijohn to avoid the sediment tainting the flavour. I'll need to buy another demijohn but this means I should be able to get into a good swing of having 3 brews on the go. I can make the 3rd brew a few weeks before the 1st brew is ready to be bottled and then I'll have the 1st demijohn to rack the 3rd brew into when it's time. If that makes sense. And I do think I will need to have 15 litres of wine on the go at a time, there are so many people interested in my wine it's going to disappear quickly and there are so many different recipes I want to try and it's such a long process of at least six months. Do I need to justify this more?

I wonder when I'll get the guts and the materials together to make a 20L wine... Maybe a dumpster brew.

So that's my learnt occupation put to rest for another few weeks... time to work on my bloody occupational science assessments.