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The fundamental process is:
- Ferment stuff.
- Stabilise it, so it doesn't go bad.
- Separate the brew from the solids.
- This will be easier if you can move the former to a spare container, but this is not crucial.
- Sweeten it or otherwise finish it, if desired.
- Bottle it.
Sodium Percarbonate is an irritant, but you probably won't need to wear gloves unless you're using a lot of it, or doing this every day, or have cuts/scratches/eczema/etc on your hands. Just rinse it off thoroughly afterwards.
It makes surfaces rather slippery, including skin, so be careful when handling glassware.
Also note that it's not safe for consumption. However it does break down after about an hour into water, oxygen and chalk, at which time it's safe (hence 'no-rinse'). Unless it's on your hands, in which case the process of 'breaking down' will partially involve your skin. So rinse it off in that circumstance.
Read all the instructions for your yeast nutrient, etc before starting.
Ensure that you have sufficient water. Having a spare bottle of mineral water on hand might be a good idea.
- Clean everything thoroughly with detergents.
- No, REALLY thoroughly. And your work area.
- Rinse everything thoroughly too. We don't want detergents in the brew.
- We'll sanitise our equipment too, but first we need to make sure there's nothing stuck to it which could shelter bacteria, etc.
- Put a big spoonful (~20mL) of no-rinse cleaner in the demijohn and fill it to the brim with hot water (not boiling, tapwater is fine).
- Put about the same amount of no-rinse cleaner in a washing-up bowl or the sink and fill it up with hot-but-not-too-hot water, in which you will sanitise eveerything which will touch the brew including your hands (or gloves).
- The funnel, the bung and airlock, the spoon handle/stirrer, etc...
- Ten minutes is usually enough time for the cleaner to work its magic on the equipment.
- Scrubbing your hands in it for a few seconds should be enough for them.
- Once the demijohn has mostly finished bubbling (10 mins or so) empty it out. Don't rinse it under the tap. It's now as sterile as it's going to get and we don't want to mess that up.
- Fill the demijohn, but not to the top. Just above the 'shoulder' is about right unless you're certain the yeast won't foam up.
- Start with liquids.
- If adding honey, add a bit of warm/hot water beforehand to make it easier to stir later.
- Also consider mixing the honey with hot water before adding it, to make it easier to pour.
- It's easier to top up with water as necessary than it is to remove it if you've added too much, so get all your essentials in first.
- Stir it until it looks pretty well mixed.
- Combine airlock with bung and ensure that the airlock contains enough of the sanitised washing-up water as necessary to stop air getting through it.
- Insert bung into demijohn. Leave the demijohn somewhere clean, dry, and not too warm for a few weeks.
Depending on what you're brewing, it could take a week or a month to stop bubbling.
When your brew's airlock stops bubbling, it could mean one of three things:
- The yeast has run out of sugars to ferment. It will start to cannibalise itself if left to its own devices.
- The alcohol content is so high that the yeast can no longer function. (This is what happens with my mead, because it's easier than sweetening it later.)
- Fermentation has got stuck. (This has never happened to me so I don't know how to fix it.)
In either of the first two cases, it's time to make sure that the yeast is thoroughly inactivated. This is the point at which you should add Potassium Sorbate and Campden tablets, probably according to the instructions on their respective packaging.
The Sorbate stops the yeast reproducing, so even if it is able to continue fermentation it won't gather steam. The Campden contains sulphites, which kill mould, bacteria, and probably make things hard for the yeast too.
Put the bung and airlock back in place and leave it another day or two for the chemicals to work.
We now need to get all the dead (or dying) yeast out of our alcohol, and probably any remaining solids which are making it hazy. The cheapest and simplest way to do this involves gravity: if we can get all the crap to stick together it will fall to the bottom and we can siphon away our nectar.
This will actually happen of its own accord eventually, but note that yeast cells will start to break down after a while so you really want to get the brew out within the next few weeks, one way or another.
To help the clearing process along, I usually use Bentonite:
- Sanitise a whisk, a small bowl, a funnel, and a stirrer (spoon handle).
- In the bowl, add the appropriate amount of Bentonite to the appropriate amount of boiling water (usually about 5mL of bentonite and roughly half a cup of water per gallon of brew). Whisk out the lumps.
- Come back 15 minutes later and whisk it again.
- Tip the whole lot into your brew and stir thoroughly.
- Re-insert the bung and airlock and leave it to settle.
Bottling without stirring up sediment is awkward because you need to keep stopping and starting the siphon flow. Even with a bottling wand the hose will move and agitate the brew. If you have a spare container of sufficient size, you can siphon off your brew into that. This way you can pay close attention to keeping the racking cane steady and even tilt your demijohn gently to get the last little bit of liquid above the gunk.
Make sure you sanitise your second demijohn thoroughly in the same manner as the first.
You can get a siphon going by sucking on the end. This is strongly discouraged for brewing since you're guaranteed to contaminate the end of the hose...
- Sanitise your destination container and position it so that its top is below the bottom of the source. Place a bowl next to the destination container.
- Sanitise your siphon and racking cane in a bowl of no-rinse cleaner as before.
- Ensure the hose contains no air bubbles. Connect the cane to the hose if it isn't already, keeping both submerged.
- Put your thumb over the open end of the hose. Pointing the racking cane downward, lift the whole assembly out of the water. Spillage should be minimal and the hose and cane should still be full.
- Insert the cane into your source container carefully. Try not to stir up anything.
- Point the other end of the hose at the bowl. Move your thumb and allow liquid to flow until the hose contains brew rather than water.
- Put the end of the hose in the destination container.
- Pay close attention to the racking cane and try to avoid stirring up gunk. Tip the source container as necessary to get uncontaminated brew out.
If you've transferred everything to a clean container, adding sweeteners or additional flavours to it will be easy.
You can backsweeten without racking, but this means doing it during bottling, ie. adding a small amount of sugar, juice, etc to each bottle before filling. Doable, but awkward.
Be careful when adding fermentable sweeteners (eg. sugar) since if the yeast wasn't completely killed it might restart fermentation. Of course, this might be desirable if you want a sparkling brew, but beware the possibility of bottle explosions.
This is basically the same process as Racking (above), but you're filling a lot of smaller containers instead of one big one. You will therefore need to block the siphon between bottles. A bottling wand will do this for you, but a tap or a thumb will work too.
It is strongly recommended that you clean and sanitise sufficient bottles in advance of bottling, particularly if you intend to use the Thumb-Actuated Siphon Technique.
Bottles should first be cleaned with detergent, using a bottle brush if necessary and available to get at anything stuck to the inside. Thoroughly rinse off the detergent.
Sanitising bottles can be done with no-rinse sanitiser in the same manner as everything else, or it can be done with an oven. I personally prefer using the sanitiser since it eliminates the need to put glass bottles in an oven.
The above is suitable for simple things like flat cider, or mead, and assumes basic equipment.
- You may find it convenient to rack the brew multiple times. I typically rack it multiple times: once shortly after fermentation completes, and again just before bottling, with other rackings betweentimes if it seems necessary.
- If adding fruit, you may want to leave it in the sanitiser solution for a little while to kill off anything on the skin.
- For small fruits (eg. raisins) or spices (especially grated ginger) you will probably want to put them in a sanitised muslin bag to stop them causing you headaches when trying to rack the whole mess.
- For a sparkling beverage, you need to leave the yeast alive and give it a small amount of sugar before/during bottling. It will continue to ferment slightly in the bottle. I don't know much about this because I've never tried it (at least, not deliberately).