Winemaking project: Pictures page 6!

[Emerald]

Great job on the wine! I have about 15 gallons of assorted one gallon batches all sitting around with airlocks just aging. I have been collecting wine bottles so that I can start bottling and I kinda decided to use some Zorks corks to bottle with as you don't need a corker and I can't afford one right now any way.
So far the favorite of the taste tests is the Apfelwein and the apple raspberry.
Others in jugs bulk aging are White grape peach-wild berry mix-more apple and more apple raspberry and blueberry mead and blueberry pomegranate mead and apple mead.
After surfing the net and becoming a member of a beer/wine brewing forum I found that making mead is great! And they have all kinds of funny names for meads with fruits and apples and such. lol

OH did I forget to mention that this wine making can become very addictive??

 

[freemotion]

Emerald, where did you get your recipes and instructions? I'd like to make one-gallon batches. Especially of unusual flavors and wines made from stuff I gather myself. I will be buying a five-gallon pail of local honey so would like to try some mead. I will also be getting some one gallon jars so I can experiment and age stuff right in the bottles like you do. I don't know how much yeast to use from the little packets that one buys for the five-gallon batches. What do you use?

Some of my corks popped overnight....champagne bottles....so I will be rebottling those ones in regular wine bottles. I hope I didn't bottle too early! Meanwhile, I just shoved the corks back in until I have time today to clean some bottles and transfer the wine.

Oh, and mom liked the wine! We didn't expect her to, as she likes a sweeter wine. They will be picking some elderberries for me today, hopefully.

For my vinegar, I filtered the dregs through a gauze-lined funnel into a half gallon jar. I was able to remove a piece of vinegar mother from a purchased bottle of rice vinegar with a bamboo skewer, so I plopped that into the jar and topped it with a piece of gauze held in place with a rubber band. It is in my fermenting cupboard with my kombucha and my liqueurs and herbal tinctures.

 

[Emerald]

I kinda just read a bunch of recipes on line and then joined
Homebrewtalk forums and they had a huge forum of just recipes for wines and meads and beer. Many of the recipes can be cut down to one gallon ok.
it all started with googling apple wine which came up with Ed Wort's famous Apfelwein(just apple wine in German lol) and I made the apfelwein and it just kinda ran away with me! lol

 

[freemotion]

Uh-oh! I feel a new obsession coming on!!!

How much yeast from the packet do you use for a gallon batch? Do you try to get a fifth of the yeast? Or what? Do you fold up the packet and save it for another batch later?

 

[Beekissed]

I'm surprised ol' Sew'n' Sew is not posting to this thread...she's a wine maker from way back! I think she is in the process of making some right now, as a matter of fact.

 

[freemotion]

I still haven't rebottled any of the wine yet. I check the boxes, sitting in the middle of my kitchen, twice a day and have not had to push too many corks back down today. Maybe 3 or so. No more are popping.

I called the winemaking place and the guy told me that I probably got a little fermentation started up again by oxygenating the wine by racking it, then bottling it. Should've waited a few days after racking. He said I could put it all back into the carboy, wait a week, then bottle it. I ended up watching all those re-pushed-in corks and hoping for the best.

I asked hubby to stop by on his way home from work and pick up a small recipe book that I had the guy put aside for me. It has recipes for one-gallon batches of interesting wines one can make from many, many fruits....and veggies, and grains! Imagine that! Rhubarb wine, onion wine, barley wine....the possibilities are endless. Oh, and turnip wine, beet wine, mountain ash wine! I never knew there was a use for mountain ash berries!

This part-owner was actually a former student of mine, remembered me, and gave the book to dh as a gift for me. How sweet was that!

And on cl yesterday I saw an ad for someone who would give grapes in exchange for help with picking. Another ad for a lard/fruit press, antique, that I have been eyeing in various ads and on ebay for a while now. I hinted to dh. We have an anniversary coming up. Antiques make great gifts. Especially food prep antiques in working condition!

 

[Emerald]

Uh-oh! I feel a new obsession coming on!!!

How much yeast from the packet do you use for a gallon batch? Do you try to get a fifth of the yeast? Or what? Do you fold up the packet and save it for another batch later?

Even tho most of the wine makers there say to use the whole packet for just one gallon to five gallons- I do only use about 1/4 of the packet and then I put the folded over packet in a small vacuum pouch and just seal it shut and put it back in the fridge(I always have those end pieces of food saver bags and can't throw them out so I found a use for them) I can get about 4 uses from each packet so that is about 4 single trial gallons. I am frugal with my yeast!
So far I like the Lavlin EC-118 the best but do have two gallons of apple raspberry mead that I used Montrachet in and while the smell while it was fermenting was just atrocious, the flavor of the taste test I just had was outstanding and now the two gallons are just in the glass gallons under airlocks just bulk aging-but I might have to break into one of them for the holidays!
Also I tend to let my wines ferment out to dry and then just back sweeten a tad when I go to drink them-that way I don't have to worry about any bottle bombs by the fermentation restarting in the bottles.

Most websites about wine yeast say that Montrachet will leave the best fruit flavors after ferment. And Montrachet is only about .50 a packet so it is a good one to start with.
But I have almost 5 gallons of apple wine that is too sour for some reason and it is not vinegar, just tart, but I know that I will probably not drink it this way so am planning on buying a small bottle of live/raw apple cider vinegar with the mother and just inoculating it and making about 4 or so gallons of good apple wine vinegar. Worst comes to worst-I'll have 4 gallons of good cleaner!

 

[freemotion]

Wow, good info, Emerald! Thanks! Gotta get me some gallon jugs!

 

[FarmerDenise]

I really have to get my rear in gear and join you in the winemaking. Can't let you have all the fun

 

[freemotion]

If you can scrounge some basic equipment (my dad bought stuff years ago, two 5-gallon carboys, airlocks, siphons, brushes, hydrometer (? the thing for testing specific gravity), the rubber "corks" with a hole in the middle for the airlocks, etc.) or improvise, it can be rather inexpensive. Especially the ones from my new little recipe book. It will only take 2.5 lbs of peaches for a gallon, for example. And I have access to the ingredients (minus sugar and yeast) for many, many recipes for free. Elderberry, for example, and all the veggie wines.