Saturday, July 7, 2012

Update on the Wines

So today was the day to open the lemon balm wine and put it in a jug. I used my racking cane  with new tubing this time and this was the sediment that was on the bottom of the bucket.
Here they are now in the jugs fermenting. I will rack the cranberry wine again in about 3 week and then the lemon balm in a month. I did taste the lemon balm wine. It was not nearly as strong as I thought it would be but it definitely had a kick to it.
Aren't they pretty!
Now I hope you don't think that the primary will be empty now. I bought 4 cans of Welch's grape juice concentrate. Here is the recipe only I used the 4 cans that I had.
http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/reques65.asp
The juice is in the primary bucket now and tomorrow I will be adding the yeast. I'm going to have to buy a couple more airlocks...
Speaking of wine, I bought an issue of The Backwoodsman magazine today and it just happened to have an article titled Primitive Wine Making by Jacob Spiese. There were a few recipes and I found it interesting that this man does not like to leave his wine until all the carbonation has finished. He likes the bubbles in it and he actually corks the bottles but does mention that they can sometimes pop off. Anyway, I don't believe I will follow that advice. He did have an interesting recipe for tea wine though.
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12 comments:

  1. Green DragonetteJuly 7, 2012 at 4:09 PM

    Hi Becky,

    All the best with your wine-bet you can’t wait to taste it!!

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  2. Felecia CofieldJuly 7, 2012 at 4:32 PM

    Hi Becky! Wine making looks so interesting! Maybe you can share where you purchase your supplies. I would love to give this a try, but I just don't want to start another project at this time. Can you make wine any time of year?

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    Replies
    1. Felecia CofieldJuly 7, 2012 at 4:32 PM

      Blessings from Bama!

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    2. becky3086July 7, 2012 at 5:35 PM

      Sure, you can make wine any time you have the stuff to make it with. I buy my supplies off eBay, just so easy to fine everything you need at a decent price.

      Delete
    3. Felecia CofieldJuly 9, 2012 at 4:15 PM

      OK, thanks!

      Delete
  3. Little Home In The CountryJuly 7, 2012 at 8:46 PM

    Looks great - you inspire me every day :)

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  4. LizJuly 8, 2012 at 8:26 AM

    Those bottles remind me of my dad. He likes to make his own booze, although these days it is usually traditional beers and ales but in the past there were huge varieties of wines and fruit beers.

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    Replies
    1. becky3086July 8, 2012 at 8:43 AM

      Wines, for me, seemed the easier thing to make. I wouldn't mind trying beers later though.

      Delete
  5. DavidJuly 8, 2012 at 10:59 AM

    After final racking and bottling how long do you wait before doing quality control?

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    Replies
    1. becky3086July 8, 2012 at 12:24 PM

      Oh I don't know, some of it may never make it to the bottle cause it looks pretty good right now, lol.

      Delete
  6. MistyJuly 9, 2012 at 12:34 AM

    My dad made mead years ago, I was still a little girl. Mead (honey wine) is something you don't hurry. It sits with an air lock on the jug for about a year and a half before it is bottled. Well, he thought his mead was ready to bottle. The bottles were stored down in the Michigan basement on pantry shelves. It was a very short time after bottling that a bottle exploded and caused a chain reaction of exploding bottles. There was glass and wine everywhere in the basement. What a mess. The wine that did survive, though, turned out like champagne, all bubbly. (It shouldn't have been bubbly at all.)

    A few years ago I made Melomel... mead with fruit. In this case, it was honey and peaches. It was a long, long process and ended up tasting similar to beer with peach flavoring. I liked it. Thankfully my mead never exploded. (But I did have homemade root beer explode in my fridge.)

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  7. Kev AlvitiJuly 9, 2012 at 4:56 PM

    I've had two instances of exploding bottles, one was with blackberry wine whihc exploded all over my tools. The other was with a homebrew beer kit, they were stored in the dining room and for some reason we decided to have tea in the other room. Half way through we heard three explosions, the bottles had started to go and one had enbeded a piece of glass into the wooden side board! Just lucky we weren't in there!
    Also made lots of good wine as well (to end this comment on a positive!)

    ReplyDelete

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