Neko-chan
Lovin' The Homestead
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- Thread starter Neko-chan
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Neko-chan
Lovin' The Homestead
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Neko-chan
Lovin' The Homestead
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Lesa
Lovin' The Homestead
Now you are talking!! I really want to try making mead. We have plenty of delicious honey from our bees. Have you made it before? How long before you drank it? I am reading anywhere between 6 months and 2 years...Dh says we need a hydrometer??
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Neko-chan
Lovin' The Homestead
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Dawn419
Almost Self-Reliant
Great thread, Neko-chan! 
I'll get last years pear wine and this years watermelon wine recipes posted in a few days.
I'll get last years pear wine and this years watermelon wine recipes posted in a few days.
Dawn419
Almost Self-Reliant
Pear Wine 2010:
(recipe from C.J.J. Berry's 'First Steps in Winemaking)
The main recipe we followed for our pear wine:
4 pounds of pears
2 pounds sugar
1 teaspoon citric acid
1 gallon of water
Yeast and yeast nutrient
The above ingredients are for a 1 gallon batch of wine. We multipled the ingredients by 5 for out batch (except for the water and yeast).
October 31st:
We cut our pears into small chunks and placed them in a large cooking pot. We didn't bother to peel them or remove seeds and stems, only cut out bad spots. We took part of our measured water and barely covered the pear chunks then put the pot on the stove. Bring this slowly to a boil and gently simmer for 20 minutes ( any longer than 20 minutes and the wine may not clear later). Let cool. Once this was cool, we ran it through a strainer.
We had our sugar in the fermentation bucket and poured the pears and water from the pot into a mesh fermentation bag that we had stretched over the bucket opening. Once we were done cooking down our pears, we added the citric acid and yeast nutrient to the pear juice and sugar in the bucket. Then we added the rest of the water to the fermentation bucket (ours is 6 gallon which is perfect for making 5 gallon batches as you need to make sure that there is "breathing room" for the fermentation process to take place.
November 2nd:
We let this sit for 24 hours, then added the wine yeast and nutrient.
November 3rd:
Fermentation bubbles in the airlock!
November 8th:
Siphoned wine to 5 gallon carboy for 2nd/continued fermentation.
December 5th:
Siphoned wine from carboy into bucket (strained through fine mesh bag to avoid any sediment), then from bucket back into carboy. We could have bottled at this time but decided not to, just incase it decided to start fermenting again.
January 8, 2011:
Bottled the wine!
We used recycled plastic bourbon bottles to do this as we didn't want any glass bombs going off in the camper. Plastic bottles can also explode but the damage isn't near as dangerous as glass. Learned this lesson years ago when we were using pop bottle CO2 reactors to fertilize the plants in our home aquariums. I'd capped what I thought was a "spent" bottle, forgot about it and it exploded. The shredded plastic actually mowed off several leaves of the Mother-in-Laws Tongue plant that it was sitting near.
Here's some of the pix of the process, can't find the ones from cutting up the pears and straining them but will add them to the album when I find them:
Pear Wine
We didn't use anything fancy, as far as equipment is concerned, with this batch.
(recipe from C.J.J. Berry's 'First Steps in Winemaking)
The main recipe we followed for our pear wine:
4 pounds of pears
2 pounds sugar
1 teaspoon citric acid
1 gallon of water
Yeast and yeast nutrient
The above ingredients are for a 1 gallon batch of wine. We multipled the ingredients by 5 for out batch (except for the water and yeast).
October 31st:
We cut our pears into small chunks and placed them in a large cooking pot. We didn't bother to peel them or remove seeds and stems, only cut out bad spots. We took part of our measured water and barely covered the pear chunks then put the pot on the stove. Bring this slowly to a boil and gently simmer for 20 minutes ( any longer than 20 minutes and the wine may not clear later). Let cool. Once this was cool, we ran it through a strainer.
We had our sugar in the fermentation bucket and poured the pears and water from the pot into a mesh fermentation bag that we had stretched over the bucket opening. Once we were done cooking down our pears, we added the citric acid and yeast nutrient to the pear juice and sugar in the bucket. Then we added the rest of the water to the fermentation bucket (ours is 6 gallon which is perfect for making 5 gallon batches as you need to make sure that there is "breathing room" for the fermentation process to take place.
November 2nd:
We let this sit for 24 hours, then added the wine yeast and nutrient.
November 3rd:
Fermentation bubbles in the airlock!
November 8th:
Siphoned wine to 5 gallon carboy for 2nd/continued fermentation.
December 5th:
Siphoned wine from carboy into bucket (strained through fine mesh bag to avoid any sediment), then from bucket back into carboy. We could have bottled at this time but decided not to, just incase it decided to start fermenting again.
January 8, 2011:
Bottled the wine!
We used recycled plastic bourbon bottles to do this as we didn't want any glass bombs going off in the camper. Plastic bottles can also explode but the damage isn't near as dangerous as glass. Learned this lesson years ago when we were using pop bottle CO2 reactors to fertilize the plants in our home aquariums. I'd capped what I thought was a "spent" bottle, forgot about it and it exploded. The shredded plastic actually mowed off several leaves of the Mother-in-Laws Tongue plant that it was sitting near.
Here's some of the pix of the process, can't find the ones from cutting up the pears and straining them but will add them to the album when I find them:
Pear Wine
We didn't use anything fancy, as far as equipment is concerned, with this batch.
RobinsValleyVT
Power Conserver
We brew our own beer, mead and hard cider. I don't have my husband's recipe book handy and we sometimes just wing it on the mead.
We made our first batch of mead when I found out I was pregnant with our daughter in Jan 2009, we let it age until about October 2009 before we drank it. Mead definitely needs time to age, as it can have a "plastic-y" taste to it at first. Champagne yeast is also a good idea with mead, we've been very happy with the results. We like mead since we've been able to gift it to our gluten free friends who can't try our beer.
Last year we made a cyser, basically a cider mead, with 5 gallons of local cider and 5 pounds of local honey and some champagne yeast, that stuff is GOOD! We made it in October and let it age until almost June before we tried any. We still have a few bottles and it seems to get better with age.
This year we finally got a usable crop from our hop plants and will be brewing some beer from our homegrown centennial hops. The hop plants really need at least 3 years before they give a good crop we were told, and this year was the third season for ours. We grew 3 varieties, cascade, centennial and fuggles. The cascade has not wowed us with it's growth but is bigger each year. The centennial surprised us and yielded about 3 oz of dried hops. The fuggles grew like crazy, but the did not have as many nice big cones as we'd hoped for, I think next year we need to trim back more secondary growth and hope for better cones.
We made ginger ale one year for Christmas gifts, but I'm not sure we'd repeat that too quickly, we had a few bottle rockets result from the grolsch bottles we used and some bottle burst in the fridge. That could have been our technique though, so maybe we'll try again with less sugar. It was really good though!
We've got our first batch of hard cider fermenting now, although my husband did it it while I was making apple butter, so I didn't see his exact process. I think he skipped adding any additional sugars and just used an ale yeast. It's been bubbling away for two weeks now and we'll transfer it to a secondary carboy soon.
I'm not a huge wine fan, but we'd love to grow our own grapes and try making that as well.
We made our first batch of mead when I found out I was pregnant with our daughter in Jan 2009, we let it age until about October 2009 before we drank it. Mead definitely needs time to age, as it can have a "plastic-y" taste to it at first. Champagne yeast is also a good idea with mead, we've been very happy with the results. We like mead since we've been able to gift it to our gluten free friends who can't try our beer.
Last year we made a cyser, basically a cider mead, with 5 gallons of local cider and 5 pounds of local honey and some champagne yeast, that stuff is GOOD! We made it in October and let it age until almost June before we tried any. We still have a few bottles and it seems to get better with age.
This year we finally got a usable crop from our hop plants and will be brewing some beer from our homegrown centennial hops. The hop plants really need at least 3 years before they give a good crop we were told, and this year was the third season for ours. We grew 3 varieties, cascade, centennial and fuggles. The cascade has not wowed us with it's growth but is bigger each year. The centennial surprised us and yielded about 3 oz of dried hops. The fuggles grew like crazy, but the did not have as many nice big cones as we'd hoped for, I think next year we need to trim back more secondary growth and hope for better cones.
We made ginger ale one year for Christmas gifts, but I'm not sure we'd repeat that too quickly, we had a few bottle rockets result from the grolsch bottles we used and some bottle burst in the fridge. That could have been our technique though, so maybe we'll try again with less sugar. It was really good though!
We've got our first batch of hard cider fermenting now, although my husband did it it while I was making apple butter, so I didn't see his exact process. I think he skipped adding any additional sugars and just used an ale yeast. It's been bubbling away for two weeks now and we'll transfer it to a secondary carboy soon.
I'm not a huge wine fan, but we'd love to grow our own grapes and try making that as well.
Ooh, I am certainly going to follow this thread!
SO gets migraines from beer, wine, and some liquor. Would mead be worth a try? We aren't sure that it isn't the yeast that is the culprit, but I could drink it!
SO gets migraines from beer, wine, and some liquor. Would mead be worth a try? We aren't sure that it isn't the yeast that is the culprit, but I could drink it!
No matter what kind of yeast you use, it'll go dry. Sweet wines and meads can be made by killing off the yeast with their own alcohol output, but that can be too strong, depending on the yeast. I think champagne yeast will make a pretty strong mead. Otherwise, you can add a non-fermentable sugar, which the yeast can't eat. Or you can take the easy road and kill off the yeast chemically and add sugar when it's still.Neko-chan said:
Peptic enzyme helps clear fruit wines, maybe it'd work for meads. Also, you can use egg whites or bentonite to clarify.
