Showing posts with label wine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wine. Show all posts

Sunday, August 22, 2010

$0.29/lb

Update 12/27 - Bottled. SG 1.024-25. A little cloudy, but pretty tasty and I'm tired of waiting.
Update 10/4 - Racked. SG 1.025. Still very sweet and cloudy.
Update 8/28 - Racked to secondary. SG 1.032. Note that I missed the straining step in Phil's procedure, so the plums were in primary for the past week.
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That's the price on plums this weekend at the market near us. So, naturally, I bought 12 pounds. This is basically Phil Montalbano's recipe, but I'm pretending I know better and reserving acid blend and tannin additions until after I've tasted the post-fermentation product.

Plum Wine
12 lbs plums, pitted, chopped (next time: freeze 'em first)
8 lbs sugar
2 gal water
2 tsp pectic enzyme
1 tsp Fermaid K
1 tsp Go-Ferm
8g RC-212 dry yeast
Potassium metabisulfite
OG: 1.110
FG: 1.024
ABV: 11.3%

Follow the directions HERE. Use Campden, not KMBS...the powder is way more potent than the tablets, and as a consequence, I needed to make a stock solution to get the right amount.

P.S. "Black Plum" is a stupid name for a fruit that's yellow on the inside and red on the outside. "Red Plum" is an okay name for a fruit that's black on the outside and red on the inside. They should switch.

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Because wine ought.

Update 1/30 - Bottled. Ended up with 23 bottles. Floor corkers are wonderful.
Update 1/12 - SG 0.995. Metabisulfite, sorbate, fishguts added. Stirred to degas...will use drill next time.
Update 1/10 - SG 0.995
Update 12/31 - Damn it. I racked into the wrong size carboy and had to dump a gallon of wine. Oh well. SG was 1.009 today.
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Mead bottled.

I "made" "wine" today. By which I mean I mixed some cat litter, grape juice, and water, and then sprinkled yeast on top. Seriously, it took longer to sanitize everything than to actually mix the must up. I'd like to try starting with grapes at some point, but really...why? This was super easy, and short of growing my own grapes, it doesn't seem like there's too much room for improvement on the grape end of things. I could be wrong. What do I know?

Wine Batch #01
Vintner's Reserve Pinot Noir
OG: 1.075 (18.2 Brix)
FG: 0.995
ABV: 10.5%

Follow the kit instructions. So far, that's mix 10g bentonite with 2L hot water, add 10L juice, dilute to 23L, and add yeast (Red Star Premier Cuvée, included in kit). Still, I had fun. I'm excited about having 30 bottles of home wine to hand out to people.