Oh wait.. I'm thinking of Texas.
Atlanta gets the name "Hotlanta" too much by people who don't live here and have been here for a few days during Dragon*Con. Over Labor Day weekend. Yes, it's gonna be pretty damn hot at the end of August. But honestly, it's not all that bad for the rest of the summer. Of course, take that with a grain of salt, because I grew up in Austin, Texas where 100+ temperatures are nothing unusual. In fact, a summer WITHOUT 100+ temperatures is damned unusual. My first summer away from Texas, they had a heat wave that had them at 100+ days... for 66 days. Straight. Mom took a picture of her outdoor thermometer reading 112 in the shade. Also, 85% humidity at the same time. Because any and all precipitation just vaporizes into the atmosphere before hitting the ground. So it's humid, AND damned hot!
So yeah... Atlanta... not so bad really. :-p
But what summer DOES mean is fruit. SO MUCH FRUIT! It's strawberry season now, and blueberry season is really ramping up. Soon blackberries, and watermelons too! And figs and plums later on in the summer. And fresh fruit means cheap fruit. And cheap fruit means WINE!
Bur first, I should update the prickly pear and the mead. Sadly, the prickly pear really is losing its PAINK color. As in, a lot. It's very very sad. :-(
See? So not PAINK anymore at all. It looks more red in the carboy thanks to there just being 3 gallons of it, but it's slowly fading. I don't know what it'll end up as, but it won't be the glorious PAINK color that I had hoped for. It's still fantastic though! Next time I will experiment with just juicing the prickly pears, or just fermenting them whole instead of boiling them.
The mead is coming along VERY nicely. Somehow between the first racking and the second, some kind of magic happened, and it turned in to a strong (STRONG) very spiced but very delightful drink. To me, the spice is too much, but boyfriend LOVES it and declares it the best thing I've made to date. Wine friend at work also absolutely loves it. I'm skeptical and think I added too much spice. Ah well. It's clearing delightfully though!
And now, the bounties of Georgia are getting me started on this summer's wine making. The first things in season that I wanted to use were the strawberries. Well, actually, it was the blueberries, but I also wanted to do a watermelon wine. While looking at Mr. Keller's site (I seriously love all his recipes!), I ran across his page o' watermelon wines, and saw Strawberry Watemelon Wine. Boyfriend thought I should just do a pure watermelon, but I was hooked. I knew I wanted to make a strawberry wine at some time, so I decided to start off this season with a strawberry watermelon.
This.... posed a few issues. Firstly, strawberries and watermelons are not in season at the same time. I would have to buy one of them out of season, and as the strawberries are the more expensive fruit to buy out of season ($3-5 per pound!), I decided it was the watermelons that had to be bought. The moment I saw the big watermelons appear in the store, I planned a trip to get 9lbs of strawberries.
And then it rained.
So.... sadly, there was no fresh fruit picking for this batch. But it's also hard to argue with 3lbs for $5 when all the u-picks were selling at $12/gallon (or about $12 for 5-6lbs). So, I nabbed 9 lbs of strawberries there.
The second issue was that, these were not in prime season watermelons and I had NO idea what kind of juice I was going to get out of them, so I got 4. Boyfriend and I LOVE watermelon, so if I had some leftover, we would gladly take care of it.
Issue number three was the biggest, and the one I'm still worried about. If you read Jack's intro, he notes that watermelon juice goes rancid FAST and you have to get the fermentation going, and the alcohol high enough really fast to prevent this. I'm doing all I can in only juicing RIGHT before I needed it, and putting all juice in my fridge until the exact time I needed it in my primary, but I don't have the space in my fridge to put my WHOLE primary for these first 12 hours. So... I'm just crossing fingers and hoping.
I *am* doing a yeast starter this time, though. To really make sure my yeast are viable and going to kick off and go nuts as soon as possible.
So, here's all that happened:
I juiced the watermelons by cutting them in half, then scooping out the flesh into my nylon straining bag. That, in turn, went in to a giant popcorn bowl and hand squeezed the crap out of. My hands STILL hurt, but it was probably the fastest way I could have done it without actually using a juicer.
Note to self: Next year, get a juicer.
I had.... vastly underestimated the amount of juice I could get from one watermelon. I needed 9 quarts to start things off, and then more to top up in 2 weeks. I figured I'd just aim for those 9 quarts, and if I needed more in 2 weeks, I'd juice more.
Yeah, I got those 9 quarts after only TWO melons!
Next up, strawberries!
Jack says to "roughly chop" the strawberries. Which sounds simple. It's not like I'm mincing them. But there are NINE POUNDS of them. After about the first 3 berries I went "screw this" and took the hint of my wine friend and got out the food processor. A few pulses with the chopping blade and VOILA! Coarsely chopped strawberries!
That's the last 3 lbs of them. Not pictured is the hell that is my kitchen after juicing the melons. Whew.
Boyfriend helped and zested and juiced the 3 lemons for me. I didn't feel like getting yet another fruit juice all over me.
As watermelons are VERY different in sugar content, this time I took a hydrometer reading before adding ANY sugar, and then added sugar until I got to the reading that would give me the potential alcohol that I wanted.
Before: 1.040:
After: 1.125 (or so):
I added, in total, about 6 1/2 lbs of sugar to get my specific gravity to where I wanted it. This gives me a potential alcohol of 17%, which is just delightful! Of course, to get that, I need a fast acting, high tolerance yeast!
So, for now, I have the juice and strawberries sitting and getting sulfited to get rid of all bacteria. I've started my yeast starter, and it's going happily. Every 2 hours I add another 1/2 cup of apple juice, a 1/2 tsp of sugar, and a pinch of yeast nutrient and stir vigorously. Stirring gives oxygen, and oxygen makes happy yeast. And I really really want happy yeast.
Unfortunately I do need sleep, so I won't be able to add any more at the 2am and 4am time points, but I'll be able to add more at 6am, and then also add pectic enzyme to the must. And then go to work. While at work, boyfriend has said he'll take care of my "new pet" for me and hopefully I'll be able to add it to my must when I get home from work. And then... we wait and see if the watermelon juice has gone bad.
I really really hope not. :-(
So, crossing fingers!
