CC's not so fine WINE diary

wyoDreamer said:

Golden Strawberry wine!
I would never have guessed that strawberry wine was not red.

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Me too, but just because a strawberry is red on the outside doesn't mean the wine will turn out red. Unless artificially colored. I guess most everyone tastes with their eyes, as much as they do with their nose and tongue. My wife said I don't care what color it is as long as its good. I agree with her, so Golden Strawberry Wine will remain Golden with no artificial flavorings or colors. The way it's supposed to be

I would leave it natural color also.

6 gallons plus a pint of Blueberry wine. 1.097 starting gravity/.990 final gravity or 14.5% alcohol by volume. It's ready to be racked and back sweetened. I need to get it off the dead yeast and lees that has settled out on the bottom, before it creates off flavors. Its nice its cleared out now and I can actually see the dead yeast and lees on the bottom. I'm surprised to see it's turn a pretty shade of red. Contrary to popular belief, blueberry juice is naturally red, unless you add blue food coloring

I have lots of red stained clothing to prove that too! I used to pick wild blueberries, now that is a chore. Those plants are less than 18" tall...

That blueberry wine is a pretty color!
Can't wait to see what other pretty colors you end up with.

wyoDreamer said:

I have lots of red stained clothing to prove that too! I used to pick wild blueberries, now that is a chore. Those plants are less than 18" tall...

That blueberry wine is a pretty color!
Can't wait to see what other pretty colors you end up with.

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I bet blueberry picking is a real chore. Would take a good back for sure.

I racked, back sweetened to gravity of 1.000 and degassed the Blueberry last night. I want to let is sit another week or so before I bottle it. Just to make sure I didn't pick up any lees during racking that could settle out in the bottles.

My wife helped me with back sweetening, its really a two person job. One to slowly add sugar and one to stir so it all dissolves. Out of necessity, I made a whisk to attach to my drill with a plastic coat hanger and some length of weed Wacker line. It worked well for stirring and degassing. Amazing how much CO2 was in the wine. I whipped it up to a froth. The whisk is the pink thing pictured.

Your whisk is ingenious! Way to create the tools that you need.

Do you use regular table sugar to back sweeten or a bakers sugar which dissolves faster?

wyoDreamer said:

Your whisk is ingenious! Way to create the tools that you need.

Do you use regular table sugar to back sweeten or a bakers sugar which dissolves faster?

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Regular table sugar, it dissolves pretty easy adding a little at a time and whisk it in.

I've been reading and they say to create a syrup with 2 parts sugar to 1 part boiling water. But honestly adding sugar directly seems way easier than cooling down the syrup to room temperature and plus no added water to the wine. I also add a campden tablet (potassium metabisulfite) per gallon at the same time so I'm not concerned with picking up a secondary infection.

My watermelon wine made with a vintner's best wine base, has given me nothing but troubles. I followed the directions, pitched red star montrachet yeast as per the directions and it took off like a rocket. After some time it slowed to a crawl then stopped fermenting. I thought it was done fermenting, but when I checked it with my hydrometer the gravity was at 1.012. Directions say its done when the gravity is .998 or lower. I checked the gravity every day for 5 days and it was 1.012 every day. So I had my very first stuck fermentation.

After pitching two more dry yeast packs, it still would not fire back up. So I made a yeast starter with plenty of sugar, yeast nutrient, 2/3s water 1/3 must and got that going. Every day I would add a l add more must and yeast nutrient to the starter. When I had the starter volume up to a gallon (many days), I pitched the starter into the must and after two days it still didn't start fermenting bound and determined to get the must fermenting again. I poured the must from one bucket to another 12 times. The next day I had a little fermenting activity. it's been slowly ramping up over the last few days and now I have a good active ferment again

The problem it seems was there was not enough oxygen in the must for the yeast to continue to reproduce. So it basically suffocated and died off. This is why your supposed to put a towel over the fermenter and not a lid and airlock for the duration of the initial ferment (usually when the initial gravity is 1.040 or a little less is considered the end of the initial ferment) and stir twice a day to oxygenate the must for the yeast to be able to continue to multiply.

Anyways i have a healthy ferment going again, I hope it continues I've lost 10 days (240 hours) due to the stuck fermentation but that's the way the cookie crumbles sometimes. I learned something new and figured out the root cause on my own and fixed my error, so it's all good... Like I said before... Experience is a strange thing, you get it right after you needed it.

I was just about to the point where I was going to pour 5 gallons of wine must down the drain into the septic tank. I'm glad that sometimes, I'm stubborn and don't give up easily.

Good luck - hope it behaves going forward!

Trying to decide if my blackberry wine is ready to bottle. It's not clear enough yet.

I don't know if you can see in the picture the super tiny bubbles of CO2 in the glass or not. This batch has been in the making 2 months. I have not back sweetened it, its super dry @.990 gravity (water is 1.000) but I like the taste just the way it is. I'll rack it into a fermenting bucket, de-gas it in bulk, add benonite fining and the rack it back into the carboy and jug then stick it back in the deep freezer for another week. See what it looks like when I inspect it again.