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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.

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!

* Home Page & Site Search

* Adverts & Other Trivia

* General

* Good Health

* “Diabetic” Beer & Wine Recipes

* Glasses

* Pete’s Pint Pot Problem Page

* Non-Alcoholic Drinks

* Alcoholic Cocktails

* Saints

* Piggy-back Beer Recipes

* Hops

* Alligator Wine & Other Recipes

* General Wine Recipes

* Grapes & Wines

* Poisonous Plants

* Cider, Perry & Meads Page

* Piggy-back Cider Recipes

Sex Welcome to my web site.

On the 5 March, the hit counter was updated to the “unique visitors” to my site, supplied by the site server (as opposed “visitor counts”).

After a bit of encouragement from Stephan at YoBrew (now also at
www.facebook.com/pages/YoBrew/225563240791684), 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 advertisers 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 & 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 will hopefully prevail. 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”.

Piggy-Back Beers,

Wines & Ciders

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!

PIGGY-BACK BEERS, WINES & CIDERS

Like most true Yorkshire folk I am quite thrifty (a word which too many outsiders mistakenly regard as a euphemism for “tight”), so when I’m making a beer or wine kit, I often produce another batch of my own stuff at the same time, I refer to this “piggy-back” brewing. These procedures can save both time & money (the cost of a packet of yeast & a bit of left-over beer!).

BEER

If, for example, I am making a kit & the fermentation is almost complete, I rack this beer into a clean, covered fermenting bin & leave for a week to “rest”, this allows some time for a lot of unwanted sediment to settle out before the bottling process, resulting in a lot less sludge in the bottom of the bottles. After this first racking the sludge left was previously discarded into my compost bin. Now I collect some of it, & most of the beer dregs, in a small sterile bottle. The bin can now be cleaned & used for a brew of my own, usually it is of a similar style to my kit as some manufacturers use different yeasts for beers & lagers etc. When the recovered yeast is added to the new brew fermentation starts very quickly as it is still quite active. After bottling the “rested” kit, any leftovers are put into the fermenter with my brew (this is why I sometimes end up with more beer than I started with!). This beer is then racked into a cleaned fermenter & left to rest for a week before bottling.

Some “piggy-back” beer recipes.

WINE & CIDER

My usual first step in wine kit making is to re-hydrate the yeast in about 50ml of slightly warm water (20-30°C), after 15 mins I double the volume by adding some fruit juice such as apple or orange, making sure the temperatures are similar as yeasts do not like sudden temperature changes. While the yeast is re-hydrating & multiplying, I can make my kit as normal, I can also make up my own wine or cider concoction(s) at the same time. When ready, the yeast can be divided more or less equally between the musts. Three or more lots can be made simultaneously but, to a simple soul like me, making two is at once is quite complicated enough.

Some “piggy-back” wine recipes.

Some “piggy-back” cider recipes.

GLOSSARY of some of the terms used on Pete’s Pint Pot.

AAU: Alpha Acid Unit is a stupid (to me) unit of bitterness sometimes called Home-brew Bittering Unit (HBU - an equally stupid term).

AAU = hop weight (ounces) x %AA.

For example, if your recipe calls for 12 AAU you will need to use 3 oz of 4% Alpha Acid (AA) hops, if you are using hops of 3.7 AA then good luck to you! This assumes you are brewing US (of course!) gallons.

ABV: Alcohol By Volume (UK) as opposed to Alcohol By Weight (a US measurement). At relatively low levels (<10%), the alcohol percentage by weight is about 4/5 of the ABV (e.g., 3.2% ABW is equivalent to 4.0% ABV).

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.

BEER: A fermented drink made from grain, most often malted barley, & 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 on my Beer Styles page & many more. See ale & lager.

BITTERNESS is measured in EBUs (European Bittering Units), these are the same as IBUs (International Bittering Units). See the Hops page for more details.

BJCP

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.

BREW/BREWING: There are three basic definitions for the terms:

1. To make beer etc. from malt & hops by steeping, boiling & fermenting

2. To make, for example tea, by steeping/boiling

3. To plot (mischief, trouble etc.)

Here, at Pete’s Pint Pot, we shall generally assume that brewing entails the making of beers, wines, ciders etc. (No. 1), & of course tea & coffee (2), I leave No. 3 to my wife!

CAMPDEN TABLETS: Or sodium bisulphite is harmful if inhaled or swallowed & may cause allergic reaction in some people, especially asthmatics. The tablets (E No. E222) work by causing the gas sulphur dioxide to be released, acting as a sterilizer, killing bacteria, germs, moulds, & other little nasties etc. The sulphur dioxide also help to preserve wine by displacing any air that may exist in the finished wine. Used properly, there should be no problems with Campden tablets as the gas is easily dispersed.

COLOUR: Beer colour, measured by a spectrophotometer, is the absorbance at 430nm (violet range of the spectrum) for a given path length times 10. The path length for the EBC (European Brewing Convention units) is 50mm & for the SRM (the US Standard Reference Method) is for a ½ inch. Both methods give a logarithmic scale.

When determining the colour of beer, use a plain, un-stemmed glass, get 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 most charts available on the internet are rather dubious. It is worth pointing out the perceived colour of beer may be totally different to the measured value, this is mainly attributed to the colour of the light used.

1 SRM ≈ 0.508 EBC (may be assumed to be one half for most purposes - do not be fooled by more complex calculations).

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.

HERBS & SPICES: Definitions of herbs & spices vary somewhat but here are my basic definitions:

Culinary herbs are annual, biennial or perennial plants whose green leaves, stems, tender roots or ripe seeds have an aromatic flavours & fragrance & like spices, they are used in small amounts & provide flavours rather than substance to food.

Spices usually come from tropical plants & trees & maybe in the form of buds/flowers, seeds, berries/fruit, seeds or even the roots or bark.

Some plants are used as both as herbs & spices, a good example is coriander whose leaves are a herb & their seeds are a spice.

See the Herbs & Spices page.

HOME BREW: My definition is rather broad-based in that it covers not just home brewing but home cider & wine making as well, in fact any alcoholic drink that is modified in some way.

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.

LOSSES/WASTAGE: I refer to the “original volume” - the “final volume” of a wine, cider or beer etc. as the “losses” or “wastage”. I generally quote a wines’ “original volume” as 4.7 litres to give a “finished volume” of 4.5 litres, enough to fill six 750ml bottles.

MULLS: Fundamentally made by heating an alcoholic drink (such as wines, ciders, beer or spirits) with sugar & spices to make a warming drink. See Mull Page.

MUST: Essentially (joke?) 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.

PRIMING: Puts the “fizz” in our beer, cider, sparkling wines etc. The amount of “fizz” depends the amount of fermentable material (usually sugar) added to the bottles to to cause a secondary fermentation, is often referred to as “volumes CO2” so if a litre of beer is carbonated to 2 “volumes” it will contain 2 litres of CO2.

RACKING: This simply refers to siphoning a beer or wine into a sterilized storage vessel or bottle, leaving all the sediment behind.

SPICES: See HERBS & SPICES.

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/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.

A Recipe for Disaster?

Pete’s YoBrew Beer & Wine Calculators V1.9 are now available.