Are you ready for harvest?  We are!  We recently recieved our shipment of grape and apple crushers,
bladder presses (80 liter in the photo), ratchet presses, and fermenters.

Bladder presses are the easiest grape presses to use, as standard water pressure is used to press the grapes.  Just hook up a garden hose to the press, fill with grapes, and start the water flow.  Bladder presses allow you to press very gently with very little exertion on your part.

We have 2 sizes of bladder presses, the 40 liter and 80 liter.  The 40 liter would be for batches under about 20 gallons (you run about 2 batches to get 5 gallons of juice), and the 80 liter for batches up to about 60 or 80 gallons.   We also have larger sizes available, up to 170 liters!

Below is a grape de-stemmer/crusher great for red wine making.   We also have a crusher only for white wine, and an apple/pear crusher.



We also rent all of this equipment, except the bladder presses.

New this year are these large primary fermenters.   At the left is a 350 liter (92 gallon) fermenter that we have in stock, and we also have a 500 liter available.  These are great for large batch wines.

Click here for more information on these large primary fermenters

Also new this year are these stainless steel variable volume fermenters.

What makes these great fermenters is that the lid is a floating lid, that has a rubber tube that you inflate to provide a seal at any level of volume.  Pictured below is a 100 liter (26 gallon) unit.

We also have these available in
200 liter (52 gallon),
300 liter (79 gallon) and
500 liter (132 gallon) sizes. 

Included with the fermenter is the pump, lid, inflatable tube and airlock. 

Also available are stands to lift these off the ground, and pumps to easily move the wine.

Click here for more information on these variable volume fermenters

 

For the October Issue of "Brew Your Own" that just hit the newstands, I wrote a feature article on recipe formulation.

I wrote the "Replicator" column for Brew Your Own from 2001 to 2006.  This article reveals the secrets I used to come up with clone recipes for reader requests of beers that they loved for the magazine, and for our recipe file.

Pick up your copy of BYO today here at the store (limited supply), or at your local newstand.  For those of you who are subscribers, you will receive it in the mail this week.

Click here for Steve's Replicator Archives

 

Robust Porter!

One of my favorite beer styles is Porter, and this Robust Porter is a Porter with a bigger overall profile. 

This beer is malty with some residual sweetness from the crystal and caramunich malts, balanced by the coffee flavors from the roasted barley and burnt toast flavors from chocolate malt flavor, and a significant hop bitterness.  

This is a great cold weather beer, and now is a great time to brew it so that it has a bit of time to mature before you start drinking it.

            3.3      lbs Unhopped Dark Malt Syrup   
            3         Lbs Light dry malt powder        
            3/4      lb Chocolate Malt                                                         
            1/2      lb 60L Caramunich Malt                                                 
            1/2      lb 60L Crystal Malt      
            1/4      lb Roasted Barley                                            
            1         oz. Nugget Hops (boil 60 min)              
            1/2      oz. Cascade Hops (boil last 15 min)
            ½        tsp Irish Moss (boil 60 min)
            ¾        cup corn sugar for bottling
            White Labs British Ale Yeast
 
original gravity   1.059
final gravity      1.018
alcohol content   5.5%
IBU's = 50
 
            Steep crushed malted grain in 2 gallons of 150° water (tap water is about 130°) for 30 minutes.  Don't fret the temp too much, relax.  Remove the grain from the hot water with a strainer, then bring water to a boil.  When boiling starts, remove pot from burner and add 1 cup malt syrup.  Return to a boil, then add boiling hops and Irish Moss and boil for 60 minutes.  Add second addition of hops for last 15 minutes of the boil.  At the end of the boil turn the heat off, add the remainder of malt syrup and dry malt extract and stir to mix, waiting 10 minutes to sanitize.  Fill your sanitized carboy with 2 gallons of cold water.  Strain the hot wort into the carboy and top off to the 5 gallon mark.  Add yeast when beer is less than 78°, and ferment and bottle as ususal.

Click here to print a PDF file of the Robust Porter reciepe