Winemaking project: Pictures page 6!

[freemotion]

I put the peach wine into the gallon jug with an airlock tonight. The specific gravity was...um....was it 1.020? Yup. It filled the gallon jug and a quart antique milk bottle, which one of my drilled stoppers fit. I strained the elderberry, the specific gravity was 1.010. I did not have a stopper to fit the other jug, and I know that this one will also fill a two quart jug, so I will have dh pick those up tomorrow on his way home from work along with a few other supplies.

I picked three or four gallons of free raspberries, so I set some aside for a desert, some for my folks, and started a five gallon batch of raspberry wine. Tonight I rinsed the berries and put them into the primary (a tall plastic pail that looks like it might hold 10 gallons to the top) and boiled up four gallons of water with 10 lbs plus 2.5 cups of sugar and carefully poured that over the berries. I covered the primary with a plastic trash bag and held it in place with a ring of rubber bands tied together. Tomorrow, when it is nice and cool, I will add the yeast....after straining out the berries and using the fifth gallon of boiling water to extract more juice and color from the berries.

Sheesh, I don't even drink wine! But I am fascinated with all things fermenting, and this is like a big science experiment. The results won't be known for a year. But we all know how a year can fly by before you know it, and I will know if I want to make it all again just in time for everything to be ripe again.

The peach actually smelled good to me. It tasted harsh but tolerable. I will have to start another batch while I can still get peaches....IF I can still get peaches.

 

[TanksHill]

Fascinating!!

 

[ducks4you]

I gotta know--does winemaking really work well, if you freeze your juice first? I am in the middle of harvesting apples, peaches and Concord grapes. I've been just freezing the grapes, because I have to deal with the peaches, or else they go bad. You see, I didn't prune back either my peach tree, or my red (no clue of type) apple tree, they are decades old and have started the on-again, off again fruiting. (BTW, I'm on TEG, and I watch Illinos Gardener, so next year I'll be correctly pruning my trees to avoid this.) Anyway, I picked 40 gallons worth of red apples, and I've picked about 50 gallons worth of peaches--1/2 of which is now canned. (All that fell to the ground are being fed to the horses and the chickens.)

BTW, the apples are 1/4 of what the tree produced, and the peaches are 1/2 of what the tree produced this year.
Desperate, inquiring ducks NEED to know!!

 

[Emerald]

I gotta know--does winemaking really work well, if you freeze your juice first? I am in the middle of harvesting apples, peaches and Concord grapes. I've been just freezing the grapes, because I have to deal with the peaches, or else they go bad. You see, I didn't prune back either my peach tree, or my red (no clue of type) apple tree, they are decades old and have started the on-again, off again fruiting. (BTW, I'm on TEG, and I watch Illinos Gardener, so next year I'll be correctly pruning my trees to avoid this.) Anyway, I picked 40 gallons worth of red apples, and I've picked about 50 gallons worth of peaches--1/2 of which is now canned. (All that fell to the ground are being fed to the horses and the chickens.)

BTW, the apples are 1/4 of what the tree produced, and the peaches are 1/2 of what the tree produced this year.
Desperate, inquiring ducks NEED to know!!

I have made wine with frozen blueberries just fine-I just put them in my primary fermenter and poured the amount of boiling water needed over them to thaw them-- but I think I might buy a mesh bag as it is a bear to rack off blueberries! I then racked into glass gallon jugs to finish.

 

[ducks4you]

What great news!! Thanks!!
I am also canning masses of Roma tomatoes--no time to even make salsa or spaghetti sauce. It will be MUCH easier to make wine and the other stuff after the season is over. My house is gonna continue to smell great, even after the ground has frozen this year.

 

[freemotion]

Change of plans....I ended up not adding the extra gallon of water to the raspberry, since the line on the pail was more than a gallon over the five gallon mark. I didn't strain the berries out, either, after re-reading (how many times, now? 10? 15? 20???? ) about making berry wines in Wild Fermentation. I've been stirring it twice a day and the berries float on the yeast bubbles, so they need to be stirred back in. Interestingly, I didn't get to some of the saved berries in the fridge and they are getting moldy!!! And the ones at room temp in the primary fermenter are just fine. In fact, I look forward to stirring them because I get to lick the spoon! It is still more "raspberry candy" than "raspberry wine." Yum!!

I was online, looking at wine recipes, and noticed that many of them...the more old-fashioned, country wine ones....seem so herbal/medicinal. Many feature plants and ultimately extracts that would be quite healing. For example, I've found recipes that feature elderberry flowers (elderberries themselves are very healing), dandelion flowers, nettles, beets, sumac, and many more. Rejuvelac is made with grains and there are wines made with grains. Many herbal tinctures are made by soaking the herb in vodka for a month...well, make wine with this herb, and you essentially have a tincture, right? Onion wine, turnip wine....

Mama needs her med'cine!

 

[~gd]

Change of plans....I ended up not adding the extra gallon of water to the raspberry, since the line on the pail was more than a gallon over the five gallon mark. I didn't strain the berries out, either, after re-reading (how many times, now? 10? 15? 20???? ) about making berry wines in Wild Fermentation. I've been stirring it twice a day and the berries float on the yeast bubbles, so they need to be stirred back in. Interestingly, I didn't get to some of the saved berries in the fridge and they are getting moldy!!! And the ones at room temp in the primary fermenter are just fine. In fact, I look forward to stirring them because I get to lick the spoon! It is still more "raspberry candy" than "raspberry wine." Yum!!

I was online, looking at wine recipes, and noticed that many of them...the more old-fashioned, country wine ones....seem so herbal/medicinal. Many feature plants and ultimately extracts that would be quite healing. For example, I've found recipes that feature elderberry flowers (elderberries themselves are very healing), dandelion flowers, nettles, beets, sumac, and many more. Rejuvelac is made with grains and there are wines made with grains. Many herbal tinctures are made by soaking the herb in vodka for a month...well, make wine with this herb, and you essentially have a tincture, right? Onion wine, turnip wine....

Mama needs her med'cine!

Just keep in mind that the yeast that are converting sugar into alcohol may be having an effect on your medicinals. Usually a tincture has a much higher alcohol content than a wine. Wine is water based, tinctures depend on the alcohol to extract the active agents into the alcohol (often things that are not soluble in water)

 

[Wifezilla]

I finally got around to bottling a batch of grape mead I made last year. It has been quietly sitting in the secondary fermenter all this time

I added a little honey before bottling for a little sweetness (it was SO DRY) and hopefully a little carbonation.

I will taste test in another week even though it wont be REALLY "done" until summer.

 

[freemotion]

Got it, gd. I'm still gonna tell anyone watching that I am taking my herbal tinctures! Don't tell on me!

WZ, I was gonna ask you about mead. I ordered a five gallon pail of raw honey and will be trying mead, too, after all the fresh ingredients are gone and the primaries are available again. I would like to try a spiced mead, with the chai spices, basically....waddaya think? Have you (or anyone else) tried that?

 

[Emerald]

What great news!! Thanks!!
I am also canning masses of Roma tomatoes--no time to even make salsa or spaghetti sauce. It will be MUCH easier to make wine and the other stuff after the season is over. My house is gonna continue to smell great, even after the ground has frozen this year.

I just can stewed tomatoes and then freeze some nice diced hot peppers and when I want salsa in the winter I open a can of stewed tomatoes add the frozen diced hot peppers and fresh onion and a bit of lemon juice and cumin and bang! you have fresh salsa in the winter.(if you like fresh cilantro, you can add that too, we just don't seem to like that soapy after taste here)

Also if you are running short on time and just want to do plain tomatoes, when you need them just open a jar and you can just run them thru the food processor or the blender and then cook down a bit more and add your garlic and herbs for spaghetti sauce-I sometimes end up doing this as we go thru more sauce than stewed and still want spaghetti!
I also tend to only make all my stuff(sauces and stewed) plain with out any herbs as I noticed that my spaghetti sauces always needed more herbs and garlic when I opened them anyways I just now, season when I open the jar.