The Manse is really beginning to feel more like home now. The furniture is in, the kids are in, we have a couple of pictures up (after much cursing, several bent nails, two broken pins and a slightly bruised thumb), the patio has been cleaned (and by cleaned I mean, brushed away the cr*p and poured some of that "no scrubbing needed" patio cleaner on it) and we've even had a BBQ (even though the medium sized charcoal BBQ never quite got hot enough as the coals are situated 2 feet from the grill).
Like I said, home. We noticed that in the garden there was a tree. And that this tree bore a small yellow plum. And as the Lord had not said that we shouldn't eat of this tree, we decided to make use of the vast numbers of little yellow plums which were falling daily.
Mrs Vicarage decided to do a typically Mrs Vicarage thing and turned some into Jam.
However I had great plans in mind for some of these little yellow beauties. I was going to turn them into..........WINE. However as I am not blessed with the powers of our Lord, I had to resort to t'internet to tell me what to do. Luckily I already had all the equipment as I had planned to do this once before with Queens College plums, but they got turned into jam while I was buried under theology assignments.
According to t'internet, the first thing I needed to do was wash the plums. Easy.
Next. Put them in a nylon bag (made by Mrs Vicarage from some old net curtains) and squish the juice out of 4lbs of the little blighters minus their stones (sounds easy but these are small plums and 4lbs = 2million plums).
The next few steps were fairly simple, add sugar, yeast nutrient, citric acid and 1 crushed campden tablet.
However the instructions were a little sketchy at this point. For instance, they do not tell you that when you have just opened your tub of campden tablets DO NOT STICK YOUR NOSE IN AND SNIFF, so I did just that. I almost passed out. My nose stung, my eyes were watering and I almost coughed up a lung.
The instructions also did not say UPON OPENING YOUR CITRIC ACID TUB YOU SHOULD NOT STICK YOUR FINGER IN AND LICK IT, it should have said this, but because it didn't. I did. My eyes began watering once again and my lips were so pursed I looked like Anne Robinson.
Anyway, after all of this drama I got all the ingredients (minus the yeast, because that's for tomorrow) into my big brewing bucket (which may be a bit big as I have a gallon or so of liquid and it holds almost 6).
Et Voila! The beginnings of "Deacons Brew No.1"
No need to alert A&E yet though folks. Apparently it won't be ready to drink till 2012 just in time for ordination (sweet!)
Like I said, home. We noticed that in the garden there was a tree. And that this tree bore a small yellow plum. And as the Lord had not said that we shouldn't eat of this tree, we decided to make use of the vast numbers of little yellow plums which were falling daily.
Mrs Vicarage decided to do a typically Mrs Vicarage thing and turned some into Jam.
According to t'internet, the first thing I needed to do was wash the plums. Easy.
The next few steps were fairly simple, add sugar, yeast nutrient, citric acid and 1 crushed campden tablet.
However the instructions were a little sketchy at this point. For instance, they do not tell you that when you have just opened your tub of campden tablets DO NOT STICK YOUR NOSE IN AND SNIFF, so I did just that. I almost passed out. My nose stung, my eyes were watering and I almost coughed up a lung.
The instructions also did not say UPON OPENING YOUR CITRIC ACID TUB YOU SHOULD NOT STICK YOUR FINGER IN AND LICK IT, it should have said this, but because it didn't. I did. My eyes began watering once again and my lips were so pursed I looked like Anne Robinson.
Anyway, after all of this drama I got all the ingredients (minus the yeast, because that's for tomorrow) into my big brewing bucket (which may be a bit big as I have a gallon or so of liquid and it holds almost 6).
Et Voila! The beginnings of "Deacons Brew No.1"
Heehee, that's such a dad thing to do! My dad always used to take me and my brother elderflower picking so he could make elderflower wine and I know Glyn Jenkins used to make Gooseberry wine from his Gooseberries.
ReplyDeleteMock not! For today I added the yeast and in 2 years I will be drinking my very own plum wine and then probably be being ill into my very own toilet
ReplyDelete