CC's not so fine WINE diary

[wyoDreamer]

I used to buy seconds from the apple orchards near our first place. I made alot of apple pie filling and applesauce those 4 years.
I have 2 ancient apple trees right now - beyond full-grown. No-one knows what kind of apple they are, the guy who grew up in our place told me that they were lousy apples, lol. I found out that they are decent apples if you pick them in early to mid-August - which is very early for an apple to be ready for picking. Most apples aren't ready until September around here.

One of our friends planted a number of apple trees in his yard, then spent the winter making an apple grinder so they can make apple cider. He was going to build an apple press, but found one on-line that was cheaper than he could build one. Now with all the flooding and the river being high at his place, all his apple trees are dying because the ground is saturated and the roots are rotting. He told me he was hoping that I would have an excess of apples so they could use their new toys.

 

[CrealCritter]

I used to buy seconds from the apple orchards near our first place. I made alot of apple pie filling and applesauce those 4 years.
I have 2 ancient apple trees right now - beyond full-grown. No-one knows what kind of apple they are, the guy who grew up in our place told me that they were lousy apples, lol. I found out that they are decent apples if you pick them in early to mid-August - which is very early for an apple to be ready for picking. Most apples aren't ready until September around here.

One of our friends planted a number of apple trees in his yard, then spent the winter making an apple grinder so they can make apple cider. He was going to build an apple press, but found one on-line that was cheaper than he could build one. Now with all the flooding and the river being high at his place, all his apple trees are dying because the ground is saturated and the roots are rotting. He told me he was hoping that I would have an excess of apples so they could use their new toys.

Just a FYI... My friend at the home brew store told me to beware of those cheap made in chine presses. He said they are mere toys and not sturdy enough for doing what they are supposed to do.

 

[wyoDreamer]

I am not surprised to hear that at all. I haven't seen it yet. I did tell him he can have all the apples that are left AFTER I can applesauce for DH and I. Looks like my trees are only producing 1/2 a tree each. The tree on the north is producing apples on the bottom, north side of the tree and the top south side of the tree. The tree 25' south is producing on the south side of the tree ...
I gave my friend a set of plans to build one from scratch - and it would have been really sturdy. Their toy - not mine. Hopefully no-one gets hurt.

 

[CrealCritter]

Cranberry Premier Blanc 1096 part 3

16 July - I carefully syphoned the cleared cold crashed cranberry wine off the lees from the 1/2 gallon canning jar into a clean and sterile quart canning jar. The wine is cold inside the jar, so the outside of the jar is sweating but the wine is crystal clear.

Of course I had to taste test it. Oh my Lord, it's supper light bodied, delicate, dry and delicious. I still cant believe i actually made this wine.

I'm no wine connoisseur thats for sure, but I can say I have had way worse tasting wine at restaurants that I paid dearly for. And this cranberry wine is still green, not even bottled yet, let alone aged any. It tastes so good that, I just want to drink the quart jar but I know better... it would totally kick my ass @ 13.6% Alcohol By Volume if I chugged it.

This batch of cranberry wine developed an infection called flowers of wine. I'm not going to try and save it. It's going down the drain. I'll most likely start a new batch of cranberry wine over the next week when I can find the time.

Here are a few pictures of the cranberry wine infected with flowers of wine.

 

[Mini Horses]

It looks & sounds like my kind of drink! I may have to look harder at wine making! Waiting is the hardest part.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Wow - That sounds delish!

 

[CrealCritter]

It looks & sounds like my kind of drink! I may have to look harder at wine making! Waiting is the hardest part.

It does take a long time no doubt about that.

I've read wine made with grapes using natural yeast already present on the skins take a very long time...

Racked 1 week after starting
Racked 4 weeks after first racking
Racked every 3 months after that (three times)
For an estimated total of 10 months and 1 week before its even bottled. Then cellar aged minimum of 1 year before sampling.

I don't think I have that level of commitment for a grape wine. I'll stick with fruits and berries for now - thank you very much

 

[CrealCritter]

I wished you all could taste this cranberry wine. I'm a good 2 weeks to 3 weeks before I bottle this cranberry wine and look at it all ready. Its super dry, like 10 points dryer than water on the hydrometer scale (this cranberry wine is .990, water is 1.000). Very thin bodied and delicate, with just a hint of cranberry flavor, 13.9% alcohol by volume (ABV) and delicious. I simply can not believe I made a delicate wine like this.

 

[CrealCritter]

Water Malone montrachet 1096

This is amazing... There's a wine base in my home. Made out of Water Malone!

My watermelon wine base came in finally. I was going to do a from scratch watermelon but my buddy at the homebrew store told me watermelon is like one of the hardest to make. He tried several times and was never able to produce a good watermelon wine from scratch, it always came out sour. Well I'm not into hard, at least not yet, so he suggested this base. He said it will work and produce a good quality wine.

Destructions - it doesn't get any easier than this for $30.00, just add water, sugar and yeast. Unless of course you want to go and buy 5 gallons of finished watermelon wine from the liquor store, for big $$$.

20 July - easy smeazy... came out of the jug like a dark strawberry pancake syrup, pre-sweetened with fermentables to a gravity of 1.077 with the addition of 4 gallons if water. It also tasted like way over sweetened strawberry pancake syrup. I added water back into the jug and shook it up good to get every last drop.

I also added 1.5lbs of table sugar to boost the gravity to 1.090, but it ended up a little over at 1.096. Stirred in two packs of dry red star montrachet wine yeast.

Nothing to do now but wait for fermentation to start and follow the destructions.

28 July - curious, I popped the lid off the fermentation bucket and checked the gravity. I was surprised to see a gravity of 1011. That means 11.1% alcohol by volume was produced in 8 days wow! So I racked into a 3 gallon glass carboy and two 1 gallon jugs.

 

[CrealCritter]

Red Raspberry 1090 part 2

21 July - gravity 1048 approx 5.5% alcohol by volume produced so far. Nightly gravity reading at stir.

Notes: .7% alcohol produced in 24 hours. This is a drastic decrease. I pulled the fermentation bag and stirred in 3 tsp of yeast nutrient. This batch should be ready to rack in a day or two, once the gravity reaches 1040 or a little below.
The yeast ravaged the red raspberries, raspberries they look like clay in the chicken kitchen scraps bucket. I'll have some drunk chickens again tomorrow, they are real fun to watch though

22 July - gravity 1038 approx 6.8% alcohol by volume produced so far. Nightly gravity reading at stir.

Notes: I went ahead and racked into secondary glass fermenters, a 3 gallon and 2x 1 gallons, plus a quart of lees to cold crash for topping off.