While my storage project is on hold awaiting a replacement chassis, the weather is warming up and I'm keener by the day to get back in to brewing - and I should have started weeks ago.

Ginger Wine
My Ginger Wine is still a bit of a flop, I divided the batch into two 5L demijohns and poured a starter over the top - which helped but didn't do anything amazing.

I received my Stainless Steel 2 micron Air Stone from Craft Brewer and have thrown it into one of the bottles - continuously aerating it while I restarted it. Again, less than thrilling results so far.

Out of desperation I tried some different yeast which looked like it faired a lot better - I'm wondering if the yeast I have on hand isn't suitable.

Throughout all of this, I can't help but realise I jumped into the wine wine and ginger wine a bit hap-hazardly - I need to be more scientific and make sure I actually measure my starting gravities, pH, etc...

Big Wash
Thanks to this year's wine project, I now have some large fermenting vessels. I intend on using the one that's free at the moment to do a big 100 Liter wash. This should give me plenty of spirit base to play with flavouring things naturally, it might be time to buy some more 5L demijohns and do a second 100L run also.

New Still
I'm desperately in need of something bigger and faster than my (borrowed) 4L Air Still. Currently it takes about an entire weekend to do a 25L wash... clearly not sustainable if I'll be setting up a 100L wash.

I've had my eyes on the Still Spirits Turbo Still 500 for a while now, and am keen to get one this summer - but sadly it's going to set me back about AUD$750.

So in a pathetic bid for money around the silly season, I've set up a donation button on my site. I don't expect anyone actually reads my site, but on the offchance they do and want to support my dirty habit - now they can. As an added bonus for those people who clearly have too much money, I'll try to brew anything they suggest with their donation (within reason) - and if I know you, you'll get a bottle! Aren't I nice?

Spirits for this season
So, some things I'm looking at making this season:

• Ginger Wine (finally)
• Limoncello
• Espresso Vodka
• Apple Schnapps
• Real Irish Cream
• Strawberry Liquer

Wine Update
I'm on a big push to get rid of my Cabernet Merlot from this year. It's a bit dryer than I had hoped for, due to my failings in stopping the fermentation properly.

Nonetheless, the wine is still OK and I've got about 50L of the stuff left. Seriously, if you want some wine - please let me know. I need the vessel for other projects coming up!

I've recently invested in some corking gear, so can bottle wine properly. I've offloaded a case of wine so far, and have another ready to go to a thirsty home (are you thirsty? how about now?). This should also come in handy for corking bottles of liquer, etc as time goes on.

At this stage, if I haven't gotten rid of the wine after new years, I'll have to chuck it.

That's all folks!
So that's it for brewing at the moment, hopefully I'll have another update soon after I go to Brewcraft to pick up some straining/filtering gear and some more yeast.

Happy drinking!

Quick update on the ginger wine front, I'm having real trouble getting the yeast to do its thing on the wine.

I'm using EC1118 at the recommendation of the fine people over at Brewcraft, but it's been difficult to get it to do anything much past pitching it.

At first I thought it was temperature related, but keeping it insulated and actively heating it during the night hasn't helped any.

Now I'm beginning to think that either the pH of the ginger wine solution is too low, or that the solution is anaerobic because it's so dense... something like that, yeah.

Will have to call the good people at Brewcraft unless anyone has some advice for me?

Not too long ago I found myself flicking through the SixThousand site, which is supposedly covers the Perth subculture. Right, anyway. Flicking through I saw a post about making your own cheese. Awesome.

The recipe explains the very simple process of boiling milk then curdling it to seperate the curds and whey. If you take the curds away you're left with a Paneer Cheese, which is a pretty bog standard soft cheese.

As I was already trying my hand at some Chocolate Panacotta (yum), I thought I'd give this a go as well, as I've always wanted to.

First up, I decided to make the Paneer and add some Chilli flakes, to end up with something like the soft flavoured cheeses you get at the shops. The process is pretty straightforward:

• Bring 2L of milk to the boil
• Turn off heat
• Add 1 cup of lemonjuice or vinegar
• Stir the milk thoroughly to ensure maximum curdlage (yes, curdlage!)

In the end, you end up with something like this:

Lovely, om nommy cheese. Whilst the cheese was tasty and "dericious" (thanks Neil), it was a bit crumbly - and I suspected that I squeezed far too much liquid out of the cheese.

Ultimately I ditched this after leaving it uncovered in the fridge overnight, as it had gone rock hard (strange thing that). Not letting my feelings get hurt by cheese, I decided to give it another shot, this time opting to replace chilli with pepper and chives.

Unfortunately I don't have nommy photos of this cheese, however leaving more liquid in the cheese while it was setting gave me the desired soft cheese (essentially, a hard ricotta in texture and shape).

I served this up with a glass of my red wine (more on this in another post!) at a BBQ, and it was received pretty well, and I'm stoked.

At only around $2.80 for ~500gm, this cheese is not also unique and personalised but cheap! Cheese for everyone! The secret lies in how much liquid you leave in!

I'll play with this a bit more, but am very tempted to start getting some of the low-end cultures so I can make proper soft cheeses such as boccocini and brie/camambert at home. I'm not expecting much but like my beer, wine and spirits - it's a fun experience.

More soon, I promise :)