Hoop’-la Department.
This is the small print where I deny everything and refuse to take any responsibility for anything. Any opinions given should not be taken as facts & any facts given should not be taken as opinions. As an extra precaution all the really small print is in white text, this is copyrighted .
E. & O. E.
Copyright www.petespintpot.co.uk 2008. First published 17 October 2008, last updated 1 September 2010.
Pete’s Pint Pot is dedicated to the home production & sensible drinking of beer, wine, cider & meads plus a little bit of china painting & a few bits of photograph tampering.
If you are affected by any of the articles on this site or any of the issues raised in them, I truly feel sorry for you.
Finally the sanity clause: As Chico Marx
famously said to brother Groucho,
“Everybody knows there ain't no Sanity Clause!”
WARNING:- Some pages may contain music!
Do not enter this site if you are allergic to nuts!
* General
* “Diabetic” Beer & Wine Recipes
* Glasses
* Pete’s Pint Pot Problem Page
* Saints
* Hops
* Alligator wine & Other Recipes
Poll
If I can unleash my thoughts/opinions & prejudices on my site it is only fair that the poor un-suspecting visitor (you) should be offered some chance of feedback. I would ask you to please vote in the Polls as the answers given could result in the site being adapted to better suit your interests.
The icon shows the Ukrainian pole vaulting Champion Sergey Bubka who won all sorts of World Championships & Olympic medals, setting quite a few World Records along the way. His International career ran (?) from 1981 to 2001.
Previous Poll
At my last update, the results to this previous poll were as follows:-
NOTE : This poll is still open & I do take notice of all your votes.
NOTE:- This poll has been re-set after amending the site to reflect your voting. Please vote again so that I may further “improve” my site.
The previous results were:-
A with the poll below, these results allow me to (hopefully) make the site more relevant to you, my all important visitors.
Thanks for voting.
After a bit of encouragement from Stephan at YoBrew, I finally decided to have a go at producing my own web-site. I tried several programs available on magazine cover-discs or downloaded free from the Internet, eventually adopting the Serif WebPlus X2 (& later on the X4) package as I found it the easiest to use, although I did have my fair share of problems! Designing the site was the easiest part, although I didn’t appreciate that at the time. It was the publishing of the site that really confused me but many thanks to Stephan for his tireless patience (his wife tells me that he repaired the wall as soon as his head got better) & enormous effort in setting things up for me.
I have learnt not to believe statements from software manufacturers who claim their product is ideal for beginners etc. I sometimes get very annoyed when magazine articles/reviews say the same, they know what they are doing, they are professionals who rely on advertizers for some of their income! Do they ever get a few novices to try the stuff out? I suppose they could do & it is me that is particularly obtuse when it comes to computer stuff (just like everything else!).
As this is my first ever venture into web site construction I hope you do not expect a (very) high degree of competence but I hope the site improves as I get a deeper understanding of what I’m doing and what you the visitor wants, so please be patient with me. The site is not intended to be cutting-edge, garish or flash, but substance rather than style. It is my intention to up-date the site regularly but, as Dr. Samuel Johnson is often quoted as saying,
“The road to hell is paved with good intentions”.
It was my intention to have this site completely free of any advertising but I have included a few links to other sites, mainly on my “Adverts” page, you may also notice some “names” appearing from time-to-time, but only when I consider them pertinent.
You may just get the impression that I sometimes use this site to have little rants about people and/or things that annoy me, please do not take these too seriously.
The site is not “vegetarian” but my sympathies/lifestyle do lean in that direction. I will refrain from cracking the old joke about why, if we’re not supposed to eat animals, did God make them from meat?
Wherever possible, my criteria for beer, wine & cider making is to use the minimum of chemicals & additives and, as far as I know, no animals will be harmed.
This may sound like a long abandoned mission statement from some wretchedly “cutting-edge” (or is it now “edgy”?) old British broadcasting company, but it would be satisfying to know that this site could inform, educate & entertain its’ visitors.
The Potty Page has been included to show a few examples of the wife’s china painting & the Image Manipulation page as an extra bit of Narcissism.
You will see several references on this site to the YoBrew Recipe Calculators, Graham Wheeler, the well-known & respected brewer & author has released his free beer calculator at www.practicalbrewing.co.uk/calculators/beerengine, the free “Qbrew” calculator is also very good & freely available via the internet.
Whilst this site is “British” & aimed at “drinkers” I hope some of the bits will appeal to those of different nationalities & that visiting “non-drinkers” will find something of interest.
Cheers!
Welcome to my web site.
You are allegedly visitor number & are 1 of currently on line.
GLOSSARY of some of the terms used on PetesPintPot.
ALE: A general term for a top-fermented beer. It is one of the two main branches of the beer family, the other being lager. Of the two, ale is the older, dating back thousands of years, lager less than 200. Ales are most commonly brewed in England.
ARGOLS: The beautiful, harmless, tiny glass-like crystals that sometimes appear in bottles of wine. One advantage of using Tartaric acid for wine making is that any excess will be deposited in the form of these crystals, especially when the wine is cooled.
ATMOSPHERE: One Atmosphere (Atm.) is our “standard” atmospheric pressure & is often quoted as 1 Barr or 1000 mB & is approximately 101,350 Pascals (Pa) or 14.7 psi at sea-level, so 4 Atm. is 4 Barr or approximately 4 x 14.7 psi, say 60 psi. etc. In the USA it is often referred to as “volumes CO2” so if a litre of beer is carbonated to 4 “volumes”, it will contain 4 litres of CO2.
BEER: See ale & lager. A fermented drink made from grain, most often malted barley, and usually flavoured with hops. “Beer” is sometimes used to describe ales only but it really is a general term that also includes lagers, wheat beers, all styles mentioned here & many more.
BITTERNESS is measured in EBUs (European Bittering Units), these are the same as IBUs (International Bittering Units). See the Hops page for more details.
They say “The purpose of the Beer Judge Certification Program is to promote beer literacy & the appreciation of real beer, & to recognize beer tasting & evaluation skills.” Most other people think the beer styles quoted are too narrow (half the British ales would fail) & that they are too eager to keep on moving the goalposts as a method of justifying themselves. At least some (restrictive) definitions are laid down. I think they are best regarded as guidelines only. A summary can be at hbd.org/ford/styles/bjcp99chart.pdf.
COLOUR: The colour of beer is normally measured in EBCs (European Brewing Convention units) or in SRM (the US Standard Reference Method - Lovibond units are similar.)
The EBC colour is for a 50mm “depth” of beer whilst the SRM is for ½ an inch. When the beer, in a plain, un-stemmed glass, gets down to the required value, stick the glass on a piece of white paper, view from above & compare the colour with a beer colour chart. OR hold the glass up to the light & take a guess! The latter could be the most accurate as the chart is rather dubious & also appears to be non-linear & non-logarithmic.
1 SRM ≈ 0.508 EBC (may be assumed to be one half for most purposes).
COUNTRY WINE: See wine.
FINAL GRAVITY: The FG may also be referred to as the “finished” gravity & is the SG of a brew that has fermented out or stopped.
LAGER: Bottom fermenting lager is one of the two main branches of the beer family. The word lager is derived from a German word meaning "to store". Here in the UK it is generally any light coloured, bottom-fermented beer.
MUST: Un-fermented wine - the stuff you shove in a demijohn.
ORIGINAL GRAVITY: The OG is the SG of our beer or wine etc. before fermentation starts.
RACKING: This simply refers to siphoning a beer or wine into a clean storage vessel or bottle, leaving all the sediment behind.
SHAMPOO: An imitation poo.
SPECIFIC GRAVITY: The S.G. or simply the “gravity” of a substance is it’s relative density compared with water. 1 litre of water at 20°C & 1 Atm. weighs 1Kg & therefore has an SG of 1 or 1.000 or 1000 depending on personal preference, you may also see it referred to simply as “0” when using “brewers degrees”.
If we have a wort or a must with an SG of 1.060 or 1060 or 60 then 1 litre will weigh 1.060 Kg, A fermented wine may have a gravity of 993 (using my preferred notation) & so 1 litre will weigh 993g or 0.993 Kg.
WINE: By true definition it is a drink made from fermented grape juices & is typically in the 10-16% ABV range. On the vast majority of sites like PetesPintPot, wine is generally considered as being made from any fruit juices, the term “country wine” is technically much more accurate.
WORT: In our case this is pronounced to rhyme with shirt, is the technical name for the stuff in your fermenting bin that you add yeast to, eventually making beer. Other, non-brewing pronunciations include wart or whart & possibly with a few more variations.
MAKE 12 BOTTLES OF WINE FOR LESS THAN £6.60 or 6 bottles for less than £4.
Tesco’s are presently flogging 1 litre Tetra-Paks of various juices at “3 for £2”. The varieties include, red & white grapes, apple, orange, apple mango & lime, grapefruit & prune juices. For 4.5 litres (6 bottles) all you need is 3 litres of fruit juice, some sugar (typically 500-700g) & a packet of yeast, for two lots all you need is a bit more sugar, you can easily split the yeast between two demijohns. See my “piggy-back” wine recipes or visit www.yobrew.co.uk/wine.php#FruitJuiceWine for a few ideas or simply use a calculator such as my free wine recipe calculator to work out a few combinations you may fancy.
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The figures assume 11.2g of sugar per 100g apple juice (see the carton side for the correct information). | |||
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Supermarket apple juice Sugar Priming sugar g/litre Pectic enzyme Bentonite Yeast nutrient Wine yeast |
4.5 litres 200g 6 1 tsp 1 tsp ½ tsp 1 tsp |
Calculations (4.7 litres original vol.):- O.G. F.G. Alc. % Acidity % |
1058 995 8.3 0.81 |
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Actually I’m telling porkies here as this is, by definition, is really a cider as it is made using sugar. | |||
6.3%
6.1%
0.0%
37.5%
6.2%
31.3%
12.5%
0.0%
These are previous figures from the site hopefully, showing an improvement.
