VILNIUS · LOGGING SINCE AUGUST 2022 · 24BATCHES PUBLISHED · NO BATCH ON THE BENCH TODAY
Ferment the Unexpected.
One person, a garage floor in Vilnius, and a hydrometer. Mostly fruit wine — bananas, pineapple, grapes, plums — measured, logged and published here, including the two batches that failed and why.
LATEST №33 · PINEAPPLE WINE · OG 1.090 → FG 0.998 · 12.1%ABV · 98D · STILL AGING
Two tools worth bookmarking.
Most fermentation sites tell you what they made. These tell you what to do next: which strain will survive the alcohol you are aiming at, and how much sugar a 12 % wine actually takes.
Pick the strain that will survive your cellar
Tell it what you are brewing, your target strength and how cold the room gets. It answers with strains you can order from Lithuanian shops today.
10 STRAINS · MEAD / WINE / CIDER / BEER
The three numbers that stop the guessing
ABV from your two hydrometer readings. Sugar or honey for a target strength. And what a starting gravity can plausibly become.
OG · FG · SUGAR · POTENTIAL
Everything for one small batch, curated monthly.
One recipe, the dry goods, the right strain, and a printed log sheet with the days already ruled in. Your job is to stay curious and write the numbers down.
29EUR / MONTH · CANCEL ANY TIME · SHIPS IN LITHUANIA FIRST
Every batch, including the two that failed.
The archive is the point. A failed batch with the reason written under it is worth more than a photograph of a full bottle.
The best thing I have made. The mango comes straight through and the smell is cosmic. The taste is thin, though — no tannin, no depth, and you can tell it is not strong. A great deal of lees, and only about half of what I started with reached a bottle.
| OG → FG | 1.050 → 1.000 |
| YEAST | Not recorded in the diary |
| YIELD | About half of the batch |
Racked for its last aging with nothing added at all. The taste is sharp and the alcohol is very obvious, but the fruit is in there too. I do not quite catch a real, full flavour yet — it will need sweetening, at least a little. It really behaves like a white: it will want chilling.
| OG → FG | 1.090 → 0.990 |
| ADDITIONS | None |
| STARTED | 8 June 2023, still aging |
Extra sugar added. Real vinegar — or rather, just not nice. Bone dry. Simply no good. Over fourteen days the gravity did not fall, it climbed: 1.010 to 1.020. This one never made alcohol, so there is no ABV to print under it.
| GRAVITY | 1.010 → 1.020, upwards |
| ABV | None — it never made alcohol |
| WHAT I DID | Added extra sugar |
Ferment the unexpected.