My first foray into troubleshooting...

So... there was no fermentation at all in the pumpkin spice. I waited through the weekend to see if it was just slow, but nothing was changing. Wine friend suggested it was too cold, so I put my heating pad on high under it and hoped. Still nothing. As a last resort, I went back to the wine store to get another packet of yeast. This really is a complete last resort, because one packet of yeast is a LOT of yeast, and the odds of every single spore in there being dead is very very very low. But I had nothing else to try, so might as well.

While there, I ran through my issue with the guy over the counter. He asked if I'd checked the specific gravity (I had.. as much as I could with as goopy and viscous as it is), when I'd pitched it, and the like. He, too, was baffled, as that particular yeast is known for being able to handle very extreme conditions, and is often used to restart stuck fermentations where other yeasts fail. The temperature range is HUGE (down to 50F, which my house never gets that low. It stays around 70 in winter), has a high alcohol tolerance, needs few nutrients, and can handle incredibly high sugars. It should have worked!

He ended up giving me another packet for free and suggested that I just sprinkle this one on the top instead of rehydrating and activating it, as that is what he always does. It's not unknown for a whole packet of yeast to be dead, but it is rare, and he said that that's the only thing he could think of, as he knows that "[I] know what [I'm] doing". That did make me feel better, that after 3 batches, I'm considered knowledgeable and not a beginner, because I sure as hell don't feel like I'm all that experienced! Just ask Wine Friend. I pepper her with questions all the time at work!

Anyways, on Monday I got home, stirred the must (which, after sitting in pectinase for coming up on a week, is pretty gross and goopy looking), and sprinkled the yeast on top. And hoped.

Apparently I *did* get a bad pack of yeast!

Within an hour, the yeast had puffed up and started foaming a bit, which showed they were prodicuing carbon dioxide. It was such a fantastic sight! I very very gently stirred the must before going to bed, making sure to leave some yeast on the top, just in case the sudden transition to a place with very little oxygen would kill things.

The next morning, I saw a FEW bubbles popping up, but not as many as I was hoping. But at least there were some bubbles. I attributed it to the fact that the must is so damn thick that it's hard for gas to get to the surface. A vigorous stir and more came up, but still not in the amounts I was getting with my last two batches.

But... things took a turn for the better in the next few days! Every stir has been easier and less thick. More bubbles come to the surface and fizz every time, and I see more when I take off the lid, too! This morning (Thursday) it was FINALLY thin enough that I could accurately measure the specific gravity (1.100) so fermentation is DEFINITELY happening! I'm so relieved!

We will probably rack it into the secondaries tonight. I say "we" because the nylon bag is SO HEAVY with pumpkin, goop, and spices, that I can't hold it by myself and let it drain. I'm going to need Boyfriend's help with this one. Maybe later I'll have a video showing the airlock blooping away.

I've been tasting the actual liquid this whole time, and if this is what it's going to taste like, but with alcohol in it, this is going to be a seriously awesome wine and I will need to make this every year. It seriously tastes just like a pumpkin pie. Though I haven't been able to taste much alcohol in it yet. Right now, the tang is more "Not sure if alcohol, or just ginger". 

I feel like a cross between a 3 year old (BUBBLES!!!) and Dr. Frankenstein (IT'S ALIIIIIIIIVE!!).

Updates and a new batch!

So I kind of felt that making posts that were essentially "Racked both. Still taste funny. Wine friend says they'll mellow and be good. Looking pretty!" every month would be pointless, so that's why I haven't updated. And that's my story.

But, I started a new batch! Pumpkin spice!

So, Jack Keller doesn't have a pumpkin spice recipe, but he DOES have a pumpkin recipe (Pumpkin Wine), and an apple spice recipe (Apple Spice), and so I sort of franken-recipied one for myself. I took the pumpkin wine recipe and just added spices in what I thought would be decent amounts to give it a nice pumpkin pie spicy flavor. Apples are about as light bodied as you can get, so I added more than the apple spice recipe called for. In total, for a 3 gallon batch, I added:

4 oz whole cloves
4 oz whole allspice berries
10 three inch long cinnamon sticks (my cinnamon sticks were kinda old...)
4-5 oz whole nutmeg
4-6 oz (didn't really weigh this one) fresh chopped ginger

The rest of the recipe remained the same. So, the first step was chopping and grating the pumpkins. Which, yes, if you do this, get a food processor. Do NOT try and do this by hand, even if just a 1 gallon batch. Your arm will die. Seriously.

Firstly, I used pie pumpkins, NOT jack-o-lantern pumpkins. Now if you're like my boyfriend who has only made a pumpkin pie from pumpkin in a can, you might wonder why you would never make an adorable tiny jack-o-lantern out of those adorable smooth pie pumpkins. And also, why *can't* you make a pie from the big pumpkins? And also... why are we getting 9 of them?

Going out of order, the answers are:

We're getting 9 of them because they're pretty small:

 

Shown next to my food processor for comparison. This was obviously before any grating or even scooping had started, because everything is still relatively clean. 

Pie pumpkins are small. And they're called "pie pumpkins" because, well, you make pie from them. Also because 1 pumpkin usually equals 1 pie. It's kinda cool that way. Anyways, to open these suckers, take a large knife (seen in the bottom left there), and slice vertically, but don't go through the stem because your knife won't go through.  Start just to the side of the stem, and slice down. I try to slant it to go through the middle of the pumpkin.

And that's the reason you don't make jack-o-lanterns from pie pumpkins. They have very thick rinds. Also why you make edible things from them, because they have very thick rinds.

Just like any other pumpkin, scoop the seeds and fibrous stuff out. You don't have to get it completely perfectly clean, but decently so.

Chop your pumpkin up into pieces that will fit in your food processor. How big, I will leave up to you. Note, up till now, you could still make pie out of these. I could cut this up, bake skin side down until they're soft, scrape out the flesh, and pulverize to make pumpkin goo. But that's for a later time.

Grated pumpkin looks like cheese:

I left the skin on because I was honestly too tired and too pressed for time to cut it off. I'm glad I decided that because some of my pumpkins weren't exactly fully ripe. Unripe pie pumpkins have the consistency of a bowling ball. I had to call in help to even cut them, much less chop them up.

On the ground because he was afraid he would crack my counters. Yes, they were that hard. We had to chop them into pieces using a huge knife, and a rolling pin to pound the knife through.

It took all 9 pumpkins to get the full 15lbs, and even that only barely.

To this I added all the spices above. The sugar, I also followed Jack's recipe, and used 10 1/2 lbs of it. I put all of it in my largest pot and added water quart by quart until I couldn't add anymore (about 8 pints), then carefully stirred things up. Once everything was in suspension, I turned the heat on low to slowly heat it up, but not bring to a boil, as I wasn't yet ready wtih the pumpkin. Eventually, it all DID dissolve, and I was ready, so I turned up the heat. After pouring the boiling sugar water over everything, brought to a boil the rest of the water, and added it.

It looked disgusting:

The rabbit poop things are allspice berries. I promise.

Cover and left overnight.

The next morning, I crushed 3 campden tablets, dissolved them in a tiny amount of the must, and added and stirred. This must is...... different. There's SO MUCH solid in there that it takes a good effort to stir it, but I wanted to make sure all the powder got through it.

Covered and went to work.

When I got home, I added the pectic enzyme, stirred again, and went to bed.

This morning, I added the citric acid (1 1/2 oz of it!), as well as yeast nutrient, energizer, and the yeast itself.

As you can tell, I used a different brand of yeast instead of the Red Star I had been using. This is one that Jack suggested for a high alcohol dry wine, and my wine friend uses thsi one almost exclusively. This also apparently is incredibly hardy and is used to revive stuck fermentations. The alcohol tolerance is aroudn 18%, but can go up to 20% if conditions are right.

The must didn't look much better:

Actually, I think it looked worse. But it smells FANTASTIC!

As of now, the yeast has been in there coming up on 12 hours, and I'm starting to get worried. This is a very fast acting yeast, but has low flocculation, and low foaming. Two things that my other yeasts were very high in (especially the Montrachet!). This must is also not as watery as the others, so I don't hear or see bubbles as easily. Boyfriend is confident it's working, and I hope it is. I'll give it another stir before bed tonight.

If things go well, I'll stir it in the morning and evening tomorrow and Saturday, and depending on how it looks Saturday evening, we may be ready to rack into the secondary containers by that time. I hope so, because I don't want to leave it until Sunday night, and I really want to taste how it's coming along!

I decided to dump the overflows from both the blackberry and the peach banana as they were starting to taste off, and markedly different than the main bottles, so I now have two extra secondary containers, and one extra airlock. Win-win for me!

Ok so I fail on keeping up with this...

Just hush. I'm horrible at keeping a journal. This goes for online and physical ones. I'm good for about 2-3 entries and then I start petering out.

It's now late Saturday night (early Sunday morning) on August 3rd/4th. The peach banana has not only been under the airlock for coming up on a week, but I've completed all the additional sugar adding steps and the like too. Now it's just to wait for fermentation to finish, the yeast to die, and it'll get racked every 3-4 weeks.

So what happened in all that time?

Firstly, I tried to check the sugar before adding my yeast, but that didn't go over so well due to all the solids in the must. But here's my hydrometer:

It's got a couple of different ways to show the sugar content, so it's pretty handy. And fairly cheap, too. (I think the nylon bag cost more than this did!)

That.. didn't give me a reliable reading, so we're just going on a wing and a prayer here. Ah well, it tasted good when I put it under the airlock the first time.

Next step after all the enzyme, campden tablets, citric acid, etc was to add the yeast nutrient, and the yeast itself. I opted for a different yeast than last time, hoping for a lower alcohol, sweeter white wine.

Also this yeast was going to expire in January. Good enough! I did check with my local wine store, as well as ones online, that this will do well with peaches and for the wine I hope to get in the end. So it wasn't totally on a whim.

Unlike the blackberry, Jack suggest to simply sprinkle the dry yeast on the top of the must, instead of activating it in the warm water and doing the starter culture. So:

Didn't look too appetizing, and I was dubious, but I don't want to get crazy here and start thinking that I know what's best. I checked in a few hours, and bubbles had started to form so at least some did survive, and when I stirred it 12 hours later, it was quite foamy and bubbly. Great sign!

Jack suggests 3-4 days of stirring twice daily. I had planned on putting it in the secondaries on Sunday night, after only 2 1/2 days. It's 75-78 degrees in my house currently, and Jack usually does his fermenting at 60-65. Things progress much faster at higher temps, as I found out with the blackberry. However, the best laid plans of mice and men and all that jazz. I went down Sunday morning to give it a stir and.............. no bubbles. None. I'll admit, I freaked out a bit. Time to go into the secondary and get the next batch of sugar in!

It.. did not look appetizing when I took the lid off:

Firstly I squeezed the peaches as much as I possibly could to get all the juice out. There... wasn't much left:

9lbs of peaches. That's what I got when it was all done. Wow.

I added 1 lb 10oz of sugar and mixed it quite well. Then siphoned. It looks like a banana smoothie:

Once again I appeared to have added way more liquid than needed. Next time I'll go by the marks on the side of the bucket, and not just guessing. I had to use my 4th bottle to get the overflow, and use the airlock from the blackberry overflow for it. The blackbery overflow is now sporting a "cap" of duct tape to keep it airtight. So far it's working, I think!

Both the full bottle and the overflow went in my pantry, next to the blackberry:

And then I sat, terrified my yeast had all died. Luckily, both airlocks started blooping madly within a few hours. Whew!

The recipe said to wait 5 days before adding the last of the sugar, but obviously with my warmer house, it was done early. Wednesday afternoon had me pouring the last of the sugar in. I added 1 lb 10 oz to the big jug and 7oz (enough for one gallon) to the smaller one. I did kind of forget about the whole "volume displacement" that happens, so I had to quickly siphon some from the big jug to the smaller so I could get all the sugar in. I had a very very long dowel that I used to stir both of the bottles to get all the carbonation out and to mix in the sugar and get the yeast suspended again.

Once again, a lot of "please don't be stuck please don't be stuck please don't be stuck" happened afterwards, but they started blooping almost immediately. As of now, they still are but not as rapidly. I guesstimate that the active rapid fermentation will come to an end within the next few days. Jack suggests to rack every 3 weeks after that, so we'll see. The blackberry is due to be racked on the 21st (or October 21st, depending on if I rack every month, or wait the 3 Jack suggests) so I might let that go a bit more, and rack these all at the same time after Labor Day.

And that's pretty much the last that this blog will get updated until then. I have no more wines planned until late October/November and sometime in December, and MAYBE February. I hope to have at least one of these bottled by then, so I don't have to keep buying more airlocks and bottles.

Whew... this is fun but I'm getting impatient! The blackberry has darkened considerably as the yeast keep falling out. It no longer looks magenta, but is approaching what most red wines look like. Maybe a little lighter. I hope it'll get that nice dark look after all is said and done!

When in Rome....

I am not originally from Georgia. I grew up in Texas, and moved for graduate school. I've only lived here for 5 years, so I am so not a "Georgia Peach."

But man I love me some peaches.

I also hate the peaches song. You listen to that 10 times in one day while at a job and see if you like it after that. Also, the bicycle song. Both will send me running for the hills. 

I first tasted peach wine my first year here in Georgia. It was Taste of Athens, and a new winery nearby had a booth. If you live in the area, Boutier Winery is an amazing place, and the owners are simply awesome. Anyways, their peach wine was the first wine I'd ever had that I actually liked. This might come as a surprise, but for nearly my whole life before this, I absolutely hated wine. Could not stand it. Much preferred screwdrivers if I were to have any alcohol. I know now this is because my father, when he does drink wine, prefers the dry reds that most men (it seems) like. And my mother, to try and appeal to his taste as well as others, tended to get the dryer whites.

I canot stand dry wine. It just tastes like bad fruit juice, but without the nice fruit flavors.

This is my personal taste, and by no means a judgement. Just want to put that out there. I also like boiled hotdogs, which is apparently is a crime against nature. Also, I hate tuna in all forms. Yes, even a perfectly seared-on-the-outside-rare-on-the-inside tuna steak. So take my likes and dislikes with a grain of salt.

Anyways, I grew up with wine that was not to my liking, and had never had a sweeter wine, until that day. And I was hooked. I even bought Boutier's magnum of peach wine at one point because I loved it so much. Naturally, when I thought about getting in to making wine myself, a peach wine was one of my top ideas.

Originally, I was going to do a fig wine next, as figs are coming in to season and will be far cheaper than they would be normally. But the boyfriend and I were at the grocery store last weekend and peaches were $0.64/lb. That is insanely cheap for peaches. And yes, I know, I'm in Georgia.

Did you know that South Carolina actually produces more peaches than Georgia? It's true.

I quickly looked up some peach wine recipes on Jack Keller's site to see how much I would need. According to all three of his recipes, to do a 3 gallon batch, I would need 9 lbs of peaches. Totally doable at that price! I decided I was very intruiged by that peach banana wine, so that's what I decided to try next.

Also, I'm trying to stay away from anything grape or grape related, just because I want to experiment and see what kinds of wines I can make from other fruits. And his description of a "superb golden wine" hooked me.

So.. 9lbs of peaches and 3lbs of bananas for around $8 later, it's time to start!

If you've ever had to peel a peach, it can be rough, especially if you get the really really really ripe (in other words, mushy) peaches. Luckily, I didn't have to peel them, but I did have to destone and slice. Which can be a hassle if you don't know how to do it.

Firstly, don't get mushy peaches. I know when you get them in a can, they're all mushy and sweet and lovely, but a mushy peach is a bad peach when you get them fresh. Get ones that are firm, but not rock hard. They give a little bit when squeezed but don't, well, mush.

Washed well, they looked delicious enough to eat right then and there.

Note: This is not all of the peaches. I sliced, in total, 27 of them. My hand hurt afterwards.

The next step is to get it open without completely destroying it. To do that, take your knife and cut in a circle all around it. The stone will keep you from going completely through. In essence, you're cutting it in half, with only the stone keeping it together

Take one half in either hand, and twist.

Then just pull apart!

And there you have two peach halves!

To get the stone out of the other half, you can either get a spoon to dig it out, if you want just peach halves, or you can repeat the process with just that half to get a quarter.

From there, you can grasp the stone itself and work it out.

The peaches need to be sliced as thin as you can make them, but peaches aren't as firm as apples or pears, so the slices won't be paper thin. Just as thin as you can get them. I had to stop to work out a cramped hand before I could get all 9lbs done.

They look a bit like apples though.

The recipe also calls for bananas t be used, but not as a whole banana. It wants the juice and sugar of the banana, but not the starchyness of the banana itself. So they were boiled. 1lb of peeled, sliced bananas in 1 pt of water. (So 3lbs in 3 pts).

Did you know that bananas swell up when you boil them? I didn't. Made a bit of a mess in my kitchen.

While everything was getting hot and boiling, I added half the sugar needed (again, according to the recipe.) 2lbs 10oz of sugar. My boyfriend was watching with wide eyes, as he hadn't seen me put the 7 1/2 lbs in the blackberry wine. A repeated comment was "Thats....... a lot of sugar." Well yes, but it's not to make it sweet. It's food for yeast!

Sugar is in. Bananas are draining. Time to get those peaches steeping in boiling water! I poured 12 pints of boiling water over the sugar and peaches, and stirred gently (so as not to tangle my nylon bag) to get the sugar dissolved.

I then left it to cool overnight, as I had to go to work in the morning and couldn't wait up to do the next part.

At approximately 6am this morning, I came downstairs, made sure the peach/sugar/water mixture was cooled, and then poured in my approx 3 pints of banana water, and enough water to make up to 3 gallons. I estimated I didn't really lose that much in the boiling of the bananas and so added 9 pints. (12 over the peaches + 3 with the bananas + 9 more = 24 = 3 gallons). I also added two things I haven't used before.

1) Citric acid:

Citric acid gives a wine a "fresh" flavor due to the acidity. Peaches and bananas aren't all that acidic when compared to grapes or blackberries, so an additive is needed. I added 1 1/2 tsp.

2) Campden tablets

Campden Tablets contain potassium metabisulfide, which then disassociates to form sulfur dioxide.

The sulfur dioxide performs two tasks. Firstly, it kills off any wild yeast that happens to be in the mix. Secondly, it kills bacteria, which would normally thrive with the extra citric acid, and thus contaminate my wine. I put three tablets (1 tablet per gallon), as well as the citric acid into a plastic bag and crushed the tablets with a rolling pin. I love my boyfriend's marble rolling pin. I love it even more since he moved in with me between me buying it for him for Christmas and him moving in. It was like giving myself a new kitchen toy. (I didn't know he'd be moving in when I bought it. It just worked out that way, honest!)

After adding my banana water, more water, citric acid, and campden tablets, I stirred the must, re-covered it, and then went off to work.

12 hours later, I was home, napped, and a bit more relaxed. I then added some pectic enzyme, like I did for the blackberry. Again stirred up and re-covered. You will notice the difference with this wine is that I still haven't removed the solids yet. The peaches are actually going to stay in there for the whole of the primary fermentation, and only removed and strained when the wine goes into the secondary and goes under an airlock.

Tomorrow morning around 7am I will add the yeast nutrient and the yeast itself. Excitement!

And in blackberry news, I was getting concerned as it looked like my overflow container was getting almost brown to black. This is Not Good as that means oxidation has happened and the wine is unstable, or possibly even turning to vinegar. I discussed the issue with my wine co-worker who had never had the problem. I promised to send a picture when I got home.

Well, apparently my eyes are horrible, and my pantry is darker than it looks, because when I got it out on the table and under normal light, it looked just fine. Better than fine, actually, as it was already noticably clearer than before, and the dead yeast were definitely starting to pile up on the bottom.

Less than a week since it's been under the airlock, and you can see a difference. It looks like the darkening isn't because of any oxidation, but because the yeast are floating down to the bottom, and they were the ones making it that bright pink color. You can see them on the bottom. They're the lighter pink.

So joy! The wine is not ruined. As far as I know. When I rack it the first time I'll take a taste. Hopefully I won't taste acetic acid.

Until next time!

And now... the waiting game...

Something I hadn't been doing all along was checking the specific gravity of my primary, which is a big mistake. Not in the "I have to throw it out now" category but in the "I don't know how much alcohol is in here and if there's enough sugar to make what I want" category. Oops...

I started checking two days ago, and it was at 1.040, which makes sense. The SG is measured relative to water. 1.000 is water. Above is something denser than water (say, water with sugar in it). Below is something less dense than water (say.. alcohol). Most wines start with a SG of around 1.096-1.100 depending on how much residual sugar you want. Want a sweeter wine but don't want to sacrifice your alcohol amount? Start with more alcohol and then the yeast won't consume all of it by the time they die off from alcohol poisoning. Luckily Jack Keller seems to prefer dryer wines and following his recipe has led me down a good path.

Yesterday, my SG was 1.020. I was surprised as you typically rack into the secondary at 1.010, it was getting close with two days left! This afternoon, I checked and it was about 1.005. Time to get it out of that bucket and under an airlock!

This, itself, is an interesting process because you want to keep your wine from contacting oxygen as much as possible. Oxidation leads to vinegar, and that's bad. So instead of pouring and hoping, I used my racking siphon and put the hose way at the bottom of the container. My siphon is a wonderful tool suggested to me by my wine enthusiast co-worker that makes siphoning FAR easier, with less sucking on a tube and getting stuff in your mouth.

Here you see the whole setup. It kinda looks like a blood transfusion.

Holding the siphon. You can't see the whole thing, but the intake is about 1 inch from the bottom of the wand. This is so when I rack, I won't have to be careful to not get any of the lees in with the wine. I use this by pumping the top a few times and it gets the suction and the siphoning going.

You see my hose is all the way at the bottom of the container to be filled, in order to minimize the wine's encounter with oxygen.


I filled this container to the narrowest point, again, to avoid as much surface area contact with oxygen. It looks really pretty, I think.

The airlock is on top. It's filled with water and will let the carbon dioxide out, but not allow any oxygen in, thus keeping things truely anaerobic. I truely didn't expect it to be such a vibrant pink, however. And it is cloudy, yes (a friend commented that it looked like an alcoholic smoothie). There's still billions of yeast in there doing their yeasty thing, so it'll be cloudy until the yeast die and float to the bottom.

Another thing when it comes to red wines. Light is bad. It won't affect the taste of the wine, but it will affect the color. I had planned to store these in my pantry anyways, but that does get opened frequently, so I wanted to protect things as much as possible. Enter a shirt I didn't care for!

Doesn't cover it all, but covers most of it.

The wine's home for the next who knows how many months.

Now, I knew I'd have more than 3 gallons. The recipe called for 21 pints of water, which is only 3 pints less than 3 gallons, and I KNOW I had more than 3 pints of juice after doing all the mushing and extraction. I decided to use one of my other bottles for the overflow. I will use this to top up my main one every time I rack, so as not to dilute things with water. Luckily, I'd planned on doing another batch relatively soon, so I had a second airlock.

Ignore the messy pantry.

You can see I had probably about a gallon extra, so that will make for some decent topping up supply, and maybe even an extra bottle or two when all is said and done.

As of now, both airlocks are bubbling away, telling me fermentation is still going on, and eventually both will fill with carbon dioxide instead of air, so even the extra one will be away from the bad oxygen.

We did taste some. Definitely not to my taste as I really don't like dry reds, but my boyfriend absolutely loved it. Which is good because he's the reason I'm making this one first. I wanted a nice robust dry red for him. So far, so good!

So, this is the last I'll post about the blackberry for at least a month. After that, I'll rack it for the first time and see how things are proceeding.

Next up.... either a fig or a peach banana wine!

Time for fermentation!

And the day where I will actually start making WINE is here! Until now I just had some very dark  unsterilized fruit juce where some minor fermentation had started to happen. Now... the fun begins!

How do I know some minor fermentation had occured? Well...

It's a bit foamy. No telling what kid of yeast is in there, though, so I won't be making wine the way Grandpa did it. Just letting it sit until it stopped being foamy. I'm going to add my own yeast where I know what the alcohol tolerance is, and keep it more under control.

For this, I decided to use Red Star Montrachet. It's a pretty common strain used to make dry reds and whites, and works really well on non-grape fruits.

Now, Jack Keller would prefer that you innoculate your yeast with a 72 hour process that gets it ready to go, as well as used to the environment that you're putting it in. I..................... did not do that. I will try that next time. Oops.

I did follow the directions on the back, however:

Apparently the water coming from my hot water tap gets to abover 112F. No wonder doing dishes is painful. I put 1 cup of hot water into a soup bowl and let it cool a bit.

Perfect.

Unsurprisingly the yeast didn't look much different than the activated yeast you use for baking. Beige. Powdery. Smells like bread.

Mmmmm yeast culture.


The one deviation I did do was to add about 1/2 cup of the must into the yeast and stir it around some. Firstly to introduce it to the must environment, as well as to lower the temp a bit more so it's not going from 101.2F to 75F in one go.

Looks kinda like tomato soup.

I poured this slowly into my primary and gave it a good stir. Lots of bubbles formed as the other yeast that were already in there had produced carbon dioxide, and the stirring released the gasses. I also added 3 tsp of yeast nutrient to my primary, as it's good to have about 1tsp per gallon.

Doesn't look like much, but it has a lot of nutrients that yeast needs that most non-grape fruits don't have. This should keep my yeast happy and alive and munching on that sugar and producing carbon dioxide and ethanol.

While downstairs getting the above picture (because I totally forgot to take one during the process), I took a peek in the primary. There's definitely some fermentation going on! It's only been about an hour since I added it!

Whether that's the natual yeast or the stuff I added, I don't know. But there is fermentation happening!

The next step is to keep it covered and only uncover to stir it once a day or so to keep all the yeast in suspension. They can ferment still when they're on the bottom, but they don't do as well, and I want them to do as much as possible as fast as possible. On Saturday or Sunday I'll rack this into a secondary, and then the real test of patience begins!

Oh, and it totally already smells like wine, by the way.

Please no maggots, please no maggots, please no maggots....

Ok, the title of this post needs explaining. Sorta.

I was excitedly telling my wine guru co-worker about my starting, and about the farm I went to. The farm obvously was pesticide free because, well, fruit flies. Everywhere. Good ol Drosophila melanogaster. I didn't mind all that much because, hey... pesticide free! And after a thorough washing, the fruit looked absolutely flawless and I couldn't see any contamination.

My co-worker agreed that it was a-ok, but did relay a story about the very first time she tried fig wine. She uncovered her primary after 5-6 days and saw....... well, let's just say "baby fruit flies" swimming all in it. That whole batch got dumped.

Now, rationally I knew there was NO way that could happen. After all the squishing and pulping I had done, followed by pouring nearly 3 gallons of boiling hot water on top of it, if there ever WERE any bugs, eggs, or anything not fruit, it was long dead. When it comes to us higher multicellular organisms, boiling water is pretty harsh, and being completely immersed in it is fairly deadly.

Still, there was that niggling doubt. Hence the chang of "please no maggots, please no maggots, please no maggots" as I was uncovering my must.

No, there weren't any maggots.

What did hit me, however, was a VERY strong odor of fruit juice and a bit of a tang that indicated that fermentation of some sort might have started already. Yay!

I donned some gloves (that totally didn't help, by the by) and lifted out my nylon bag. And then set about gently squeezing all that delicious juice out of it. Or at least as much as I could to the point that, when just let fall, it wasn't even slightly dripping. I wasn't going for complete dryness, just so it wasn't dripping anymore. The result was an almost wine looking tub of fruit juice.

And a few splatters on the floor.

This really heartened me because I was worried that the 3 gallons of water would severely dilute the color of the juice. Obviously my worries were completely unfounded. I did resist tasting though. Barely.

After this, I added a whopping 7 1/2 lbs of sugar to my soon to be wine. I thought it would take a while to dissolve, because that's a LOT of sugar. Turns out, it didn't take very long at all. I took a wooden cooking spoon and got a good whirlpool going to get it all mixed up.

Then it was time for the pectic enzyme:

This is 1/2 tsp per gallon of primary, so I added 1 1/2 tsp. Pectinase is needed for a few reasons. Firstly it breaks down the cell walls in plants to help degrade them and bring out flavor. Secondly, it gets rid of  "pectin haze" which is when the pectin in fruit wines causes the wine to not be clear, and as such, clouds it up.

A quick stir, and the pectic enzyme is all incorporated, and my must is ready to sit for another day while the enzyme does its work.

Looks pretty much the same. Just stirred up.

Next step will be in 24 hours where I will add the yeast and yeast nutrient, and then fermentation will start! And... wine will be produced! Exciting!

Blackberry Wine - The start...

As this is my very first attempt to make wine, I wanted to start with something simple. Not a lot of ingredients needed, or prep, or the like.And naturally, I needed a fruit that was cheap and plentiful.

It's summer here in Georgia, and this means that all sorts of berries are in season. Being originally from Austin, Texas, the idea of fresh picked blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, figs.. etc et was completely and utterly new to me. And absolutely delightful. I asked my boyfriend what he would like my first batch made from, and after thinking of what is in season, he decided he would like for me to try a blackberry wine. So here goes!

The first step was to find a recipe. A co-worker of mine pointed me towards Mr. Jack Keller and his website (http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/). Firstly, this is an AMAZING resource for the beginner winemaker.. as well as for the more experienced one. Secondly, his recipes are astounding. If it's got it's own sugar, Jack Keller has a recipe for it. Except for perhaps durian. But who would want durian wine? The thought makes me shiver.

Quickly searching gave me Jack's blackberry wine page: http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/blackbr2.asp

Now my boyfriend and I are very much alike normally, but in wines, we can't be more different. He loves the bold, deep, full bodied dry reds. I like the light, sweet, fruity whites. But as I was asking him what HE wanted, I decided to do a full bodied dry red. So I'm choosing to do #5 on this list, even though we don't really have Brazos blackberries out here. I have faith though!

The second step was to make 100% sure I had all supplies. So I inventoried what I had bought a year ago:

1 primary fermentation bucket - can hold up to 6 gallons
1 siphon with hose
1 airlock
yeast energizer
yeast nutrient
pectic enzyme
campden tablets
acid blend
citric acid
grape tannin
jumbo mesh nylon bag
3 different strains of yeast

Ok... almost there. I didn't have any secondaries, and the yeast I had wasn't really going to be good for blackberry. I went to my local wine store and got three P.E.T. "Better bottle" carboys (3 gallons), along with the bungs, and another airlock. I also bought some Red Star Montrachet yeast, as that is a common one, as well as one that will make a good red wine from blackberries.

(Why three secondaries and the extra airlock? Because I plan to do at least another batch relatively soon! I'm planning ahead).

With all my supplies in hand, it was fruit time. Store blackberries are expensive. Frequently $5 for 10oz, or more. I was going to need 15-18lbs of them.  At store prices, that was going to run me near $150. Not something I wanted to spend for my firs batch. So I researched U-Pick markets, and hit gold.

The boyfriend and I headed to Weaver Berryland Farms in Jackson, GA. (http://www.weaversberrylandfarm.com/) where we picked 3 gallons of gorgeous blackberries (ok, and 1 gallon of blueberries... because BLUEBERRIES!). Each gallon held around 5-6lbs of blackberries (or blueberries). So 3 was perfect. $30 got me what would have cost $150 in the store. And I had the absolute joy of picking it all myself, and getting some exercise while doing it. And I know exactly where these berries came from, and their growing practices. Plus the whole "made from locally grown produce" just feels so good.

Don't they look amazing?

 Once home, it was time to wash all 3 gallons, and get them in the primary. All were washed VERY well to make sure no bits of leaves, stems, or bugs were fermented along with the berries. After washing, they were put in my primary bucket that I had lined with my giant nylon bag.

Then the fun began. Time to MASH! My kitchen looked like a crime scene after.

 Delicious berry juice. My potato masher apparently did not survive my move, so I had to improvise, as well as get quite dirty.

 The weapon of choice is in the background. I used a granite pestle to do the intial mashing, and then got my hands all in there to squeeze and mush the rest of them up.

Afterwards, this is what the must looked like:



The berries used to be pretty. But I'm sure they'll make pretty wine!

And then, as this is a x3 recipe based on Jack's, I added 21 pints of boiling water directly to the must.

This will steep for the next two days as the hot water pulls as much sugar as it can out of the berries.

Whew! It's been an exciting day! But so much fun! I am SO excited to finally be starting!

No humans, but many many many berries were harmed in this venture.... so far.