Winemaking – TestBlog

Peachity peach

Like I said, we played brewery all weekend long. The last thing we accomplished was setting up to make peach wine. The must is currently airing out and the fabulous Elizabeth will add yeast tomorrow and get things cooking.

Here’s what we did:

Ingredients

96 oz peach cubes and juice
48 oz peach pureé
3.75 gallons water
11 lb white cane sugar
3 tsp acid blend
4 tsp yeast nutrient
2.5 tsp pectin enzyme
1/4 tsp tannin
5 Campden tablets, crushed

Bagged the peaches in a muslin bag and mixed all the ingredients. We’re letting sit about half a day or so to let the Campden tablets do their thing and then adding yeast.

This should sit in the primary for about two weeks–we’ll probably rack it some time around the first of April.

Second racking should happen around 6 May.

Third racking and fining agent should happen around 3 June and we’ll look to bottle on 24 June (depending on gravity readings).

When we add fining agent we’ll also throw in 1.5 tsp Potassium Sorbate to reign in the yeast. If need be, we’ll back sweeten as well. This should be flavorful dessert wine (not unlike the gooseberry). Elizabeth intends to use this as a spritzer come August, but I’d also like to hold a few bottles back to enjoy in late fall / early winter.

Also…someone needs to remind me to do a write up on the black currant wine currently sitting in secondary in the basement. It had a nice ruby sheen to it when we racked it yesterday. Tasted pretty heavily of fusel alcohols and yeast when sampling from the gravity reading. Current SG: 1.011. Should be ready to fine next month and bottle some time in late April. Looking at a drink date in late fall for that one.

The difficult thing…

…is going to be leaving it in the bottle long enough to properly age.

We bottled the gooseberry wine last night and, per tradition, left a little in the bottling bucket to sample. And sample we did. And, well, it is a sweet (in every sense of the word) dessert wine. The gooseberry comes through nicely and we successfully avoided the cidery taste I had feared when we over-sugared it.

So there are 25 bottles of gooseberry wine sitting in the coal room now. They should sit there unmolested for at least two months but it was so much smoother than the Riesling that it’s going to be hard to not cheat a bottle here and there.

Thanks Dan and Doug for pitching in on this one. Many hands turns Nick into a supervisor. 😉

Dry dry dry dry

Last week, or maybe it was the week before, we uncorked a bottle of the Riesling for dinner.

It was so very dry which is not something we were shooting for. Others might like this however.

Adding to the pain, there was a bit of fusel alcohol still hanging about. This roughed things up a bit. Looks like there are a few more weeks (months?) to go on this one before we hit peak. Will also be sweetening the next Riesling after taking it down to 1.000.

Gooseberry wine?

Friday night we mixed up the second run of wine at Circle Bar Winery. Into the fermenter went:

96 ounces of gooseberries
4 gallons of water
12 pounds of cane sugar
1.5 teaspoons of acid blend
4 teaspoons of yeast nutrient
2 teaspoons of pectin enzyme
1/2 teaspoon of tanin
4 crushed Campden tablets

Initially we put in 10 pounds of sugar but the specific gravity was a paltry 1.060. We wanted something a little more wine-like so decided to add another pound. Then we did a silly thing and threw in the twelfth pound too. That might make a 15% ABV wine. Yikes!

The plan for now is to rack it at 1.060 and then let it get down to about 1.030 or so. If we hit that target we will rack it again and add the potassium sorbate to halt the alcohol production. Hopefully we’ll end up with a flavorful, slightly sweet dessert wine that does not overpower with a high ABV.

Getting back to what we did. The must sat overnight and got up to pitching temperature. Saturday morning we pitched one packet of Red Star Pasteur Red active wine yeast. By tonight we’ve got some pretty high velocity fermentation going. I popped the lid to stir (suggested by the recipe…something I’m not sure we should be doing) and take a specific gravity reading. We’re down to 1.100 already. Looking to rack it Thursday or Friday night at this rate.

Initial readings

Mixed in fermenter: 16 December, 2011
Yeast pitched: 17 December, 2011
Must temperature: 72°F
OG: 1.111
Potential ABV: 15%

For completeness’ sake, here’s the full recipe:
96 ounce can of gooseberries
4 gallons water
12 lbs sugar
2 tsp Acid Blend
4 tsp Yeast Nutrient
2 tsp pectin enzyme
1/2 tsp tanin
4 crushed Campden tablets
1 packet wine yeast
2 1/2 tsp potasium sorbate

Put gooseberries in muslin bag and tie off
Add all ingredients except for the yeast and potassium sorbate to the fermenter and mix well
Cover with damp cloth and let sit overnight (we’re just lidding the bucket with an airlock)
The next day sprinkle yeast on top of the must and reseal bucket
Check specific gravity of must daily and gently stir so as to not disturb lees
When SG reaches 1.040 (we’re going to shoot for 1.060) strain fruit bag and rack to carboy
Rack again when SG reaches 1.030 and add potasium sorbate and four crushed Campden tablets
After wine clears (2 – 3 months) bottle. Wine is drinkable at this point but could do with another 6 months or so in cellar before drinking.

Possible label

First attempt at mocking up a label for our little winery. Still some cleaning up and aligning to do but not bad for a few hours of work if I say so myself.

Sleepytime

The burbling through the airlock has slowed considerably. I think the yeast is running out of snackers. We should be right on schedule to rack this run some time this weekend.

This brings us to a task I’ve been punting for a while now. Somehow we need to scavenge, scrounge, or rustle up about three dozen 750ml wine bottles in the next two weeks. You have any we can use? Quite likely some percentage of your empties will be returned to you in a much less empty state…just in time for the holidays.

2011W01

Happy birthday, first batch of wine!

Today was the day Elizabeth and I took the leap and began making wine at home. What started as an obsession over various homemade fruit brandies at a church auction has borne fruit, as they say. After a quick trip to Cornhusker Beverage & Bridal (no, not the world’s best web presence but you get used to that living in flyover country) we wandered home with supplies.

Supplies!

Hot to trot, we set out whipping up our first run as soon as the box was opened. We definitely wanted to start with a kit first time out. There’s just enough uncertainty about what we’re doing that having the extra help is nice. Don’t get me wrong, 2011W01, we have high expectations no matter your provenance. And because both of us prefer a nice white to a nice red, we selected a Riesling. The Grand Cru Johannisberg Riesling kit to be exact; Lot 20046, packaged June 6, 2011.

After the initial rush to sanitize the primary fermenter and mix up the must we had to find a place for the wine to sleep. Because we wanted the wine to know we cared very much for it—and we wanted to keep a close eye on its temperature—we decided on a nice chair with a view in the dining room. Extra bonus points for being near the thermostat so other than the basement, probably the place with the most consistent temperature in the house.

For now we watch and wait. Nothing burbles through the airlock. That should change in the next 24 hours. This will be the sign that something good is happening inside. In two weeks we’ll sample the must with a hydrometer to check on the progress. If we get a reading that most of the digestible sugar is gone, we’ll rack this into a carboy for a few more weeks of setting out.

Initial temperature: 73˚F
Initial specific gravity: 100.082
Potential alcohol: 11%
Born on date: 12 November, 2011

More updates to come!