Matt's Blog

We've been to Wisley RHS gardens. Lots of ideas for plants and garden plans. Time to start some serious replanning of the garden I think.

I've been making strawberry wine this weekend. We picked 19lbs of strawberries from Gray's Farm. I never even the knew the place existed until I was searching for PYO strawberries. We plan to go back and try out their veg as well as the fruit.

The strawberries were washed and then crushed (which is what the big thing of the right was for!). I'm building a new tray for the cider press so I couldn't use that. All the pulp was then chucked in a 5 gallon brewing vessel with 4 1/2 bags of sugar, the juice from a couple of lemons (as they happened to be in the fridge) and hot water. Once it was cooled I added some general purpose wine yeast and some yeast nutrients. The nutrients seemed to make a big difference as it started to ferment on the same day.

It needs to be stirred every day for a week (to mix up the pulp for maximum flavour). Then I can filter out the pulp and leave it to ferment. The press should be back in action by then to I'll give the pulp a pressing.

I'm not sure about racking off to help clear it. I don't think I'll bother and just bottle it around 1005-1010 sg.

I'm not sure what the original gravity was: around 1060 but it was difficult to measure because of all the pulp. Still, that'll give about 8 or 9% alchohol if I don't add any more sugar.

We're back from our holidays. I spent the first week decorating and then we spent the second week away (leaving Will at home) in Cheshire with my parents. We had a few very nice days out, walking along the canal, going to Chester, going to Buxton etc. Sue had her hair done and now sports a very attractive bob with a fringe.

We finally stopped off at the ice cream farm on the way to Buxton that we've driven passed loads of times. The ice cream was delicious (though Sue is still looking for the ice cream trees) and there were a variety of cute farm animals hanging around which you could stroke.

On the way back home yesterday we stopped off at an animal sanctuary not far from Chipping Norton. Now we all want to have some more pets. If only we could agree what sort of pets we wanted we'd be ok.

It's back to work and decorating tomorrow. Hopefully the kitchen fitters will get a move on so I can have a cooked dinner when I get home from work!