Dawn419
Almost Self-Reliant
I'm not sure what it is about living differently than we were used to ("normal home" as opposed to our "22' camper home") but Doc and I have really gotten into homebrewing since we've moved to our new life.
Guess it's mostly the challenge posed by others of what they think we can't do.
We bought raw/undeveloped land and were told we wouldn't be happy. "They" couldn't be more wrong! Sure, we've had our ups and downs but the ups sooo out-weigh the downs, at least for us.
In the fall of 2010, my aunt had a phenomenal pear crop with one of her unpampered pear trees that was a good producer when she and my uncle moved to their old homestead 30+ years ago. My mom had canned a lot of those pears and she had a lot more to do when she asked us just what was she going to do with all of the rest as she was tired of canning them. Doc and I jokingly said, "make pear wine" and came home with a 5+ gallon bucket of them.
So began our journey in country wine making!
Pear Wine
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.
In 2011, we were given more watermelons than the 2 of us or our 14 chickens could ever get eaten, so we decided to attempt Watermelon Wine.
Watermelon-Grape Concentrate Wine (makes 1 gallon)
6-8 lb watermelon
12 oz white grape concentrate
water to make up 1 gallon
juice and zest of 2 lemons
2-1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 crushed Campden tablet
1 tsp yeast nutrient
Champagne or Sauterne wine yeast
Cut the rind off of melon, cut melon into one-inch cubes, remove loose seeds, and put melon and any free juice in primary. Thinly grate the yellow off two lemons, juice the lemons, and add the juice and zest (gratings) to primary. Add grape concentrate and crushed Campden tablet to primary. Add water to make up 3-3/4 quarts total liquid. Add sugar and stir well to dissolve. Cover primary with cloth, wait 24 hours and add yeast and yeast nutrient. Cover and ferment 5-7 days, stirring daily. Siphon off sediments into secondary, fit airlock and ferment 30 days. Rack, top up, refit airlock, and repeat 30 days later. After additional 60 days, rack, top up, and stabilize (add 1/4 tsp potassium sorbate and another crushed Campden tablet). Wait 10 days, rack, sweeten to taste and bottle. Allow to age in bottles 3 months to one year. [Author's recipe]
It's from Jack Keller's winemaking site.
Things we did differently:
Cut watermelon into slices, well away from the rind and put the slices into a strainer to juice it. The strainer contained most of the seeds...only had to pick out a few escapees by hand.
Our favorite thing about this one is that most people are afraid to even try this one as the watermelon juice tends to spoil before it even ferments. So I spent 2 - 3 weeks researching and was given advice on jump-starting the fermentation process by using a yeast starter and that did the trick! We made it through the fermentation process and didn't have a problem with the juice spoiling.
From everything I've read, this one won't be really drinkable for atleast one year and then it will have to be refrigerated/chilled to really appreciate...a good lesson in patience for me!
I'll post an update in about 2 weeks when we siphon off the the watermelon into another carboy.
Looking forward to hearing from others that are interested in this hobby. We can't wait to have more room to were we can begin experimenting with meads/beer and wine combinations. Probably don't have all the terminology correct but I'll get there!
Guess it's mostly the challenge posed by others of what they think we can't do.
We bought raw/undeveloped land and were told we wouldn't be happy. "They" couldn't be more wrong! Sure, we've had our ups and downs but the ups sooo out-weigh the downs, at least for us.
In the fall of 2010, my aunt had a phenomenal pear crop with one of her unpampered pear trees that was a good producer when she and my uncle moved to their old homestead 30+ years ago. My mom had canned a lot of those pears and she had a lot more to do when she asked us just what was she going to do with all of the rest as she was tired of canning them. Doc and I jokingly said, "make pear wine" and came home with a 5+ gallon bucket of them.
So began our journey in country wine making!
Pear Wine
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.
In 2011, we were given more watermelons than the 2 of us or our 14 chickens could ever get eaten, so we decided to attempt Watermelon Wine.
Watermelon-Grape Concentrate Wine (makes 1 gallon)
6-8 lb watermelon
12 oz white grape concentrate
water to make up 1 gallon
juice and zest of 2 lemons
2-1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 crushed Campden tablet
1 tsp yeast nutrient
Champagne or Sauterne wine yeast
Cut the rind off of melon, cut melon into one-inch cubes, remove loose seeds, and put melon and any free juice in primary. Thinly grate the yellow off two lemons, juice the lemons, and add the juice and zest (gratings) to primary. Add grape concentrate and crushed Campden tablet to primary. Add water to make up 3-3/4 quarts total liquid. Add sugar and stir well to dissolve. Cover primary with cloth, wait 24 hours and add yeast and yeast nutrient. Cover and ferment 5-7 days, stirring daily. Siphon off sediments into secondary, fit airlock and ferment 30 days. Rack, top up, refit airlock, and repeat 30 days later. After additional 60 days, rack, top up, and stabilize (add 1/4 tsp potassium sorbate and another crushed Campden tablet). Wait 10 days, rack, sweeten to taste and bottle. Allow to age in bottles 3 months to one year. [Author's recipe]
It's from Jack Keller's winemaking site.
Things we did differently:
Cut watermelon into slices, well away from the rind and put the slices into a strainer to juice it. The strainer contained most of the seeds...only had to pick out a few escapees by hand.
Our favorite thing about this one is that most people are afraid to even try this one as the watermelon juice tends to spoil before it even ferments. So I spent 2 - 3 weeks researching and was given advice on jump-starting the fermentation process by using a yeast starter and that did the trick! We made it through the fermentation process and didn't have a problem with the juice spoiling.
From everything I've read, this one won't be really drinkable for atleast one year and then it will have to be refrigerated/chilled to really appreciate...a good lesson in patience for me!
I'll post an update in about 2 weeks when we siphon off the the watermelon into another carboy.
Looking forward to hearing from others that are interested in this hobby. We can't wait to have more room to were we can begin experimenting with meads/beer and wine combinations. Probably don't have all the terminology correct but I'll get there!
We may have to buy some in (@ $10.00 a gallon) but we won't do that until after we see how many my mom has in her freezer.
