Good morning and a question

[cmason1957]

As a bonus, he gets to formicate in public!

Isn't that illegal in most jurisdictions??

 

[FlamingoEmporium]

I’m brand new to wine making (I don’t even drink much) but the trees in our side yard have been fruiting, and I enjoy diy, particularly around food. Last year I made fig wine with a kit and it was delicious, if I do say so myself. We had some peaches that I tried to make into wine and oranges reading a couple books from the library. I just started the fruit in primary fermentation vessels and seem to have not understood something basic in the descriptions of how to do this. I have been looking at it a couple times daily to see if the fermentation is coming along and I seem to have attracted ants. Am I supposed to firmly close the buckets in order to keep out ants ? I thought the idea was to check on it regularly at the beginning and make sure the fruit is submerged and fermentation begins. Thoughts? My impulse is to scoop out the ants and continue, but I’m not sure what to do about -more- ants. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Oh and I’m inclined to be rather rough and ready in my approach to these kinds of projects. E.g. I will probably never learn to use a hydrometer, because people have bee making fermented drinks since there have been people, long before hydrometers. ;-)
Thanks!
Alida

Doctors were bloodletting before we knew better too. and we don’t try to cure diseases with mercury any more.

any little insects can carry unwanted contamination. Try to keep it where ants won’t get in.

and welcome

 

[BigDaveK]

When Dave announces his next batch, we all know what it's gonna be ....

Man has done some interesting things with bugs over the years. Tasty things.
I've tried various bugs and worms and scorpions over the years. Some tasty, crunchy, savory.
Ants? I don't have many ants this year, don't know why.
However...I have a boatload of butterflies.

 

[alida.field]

I put one bucket in the pool on the lowest step (so far, they don’t swim. ;-) and one in a larger bucket with water. It seems to be bc working ok.

And the orange wine is foaming vigorously. Yay!

 

[BernardSmith]

I’m very interested in the wines/drinks that people made for themselves in earlier times. The variety strikes me as wonderful, and at some point I hope to be able to say to people that I make methegolyn (sp.?), because who gets to say that?!! ;-)

Metheglin is simply a mead with added spices. However, in the middle ages, and even a little later, metheglin was typically made as a medicine (metheglin is , I believe Welsh and the word medicine comes from the same Celtic root). That said, you might check out a recipe for blaand. (as in blond/e, not bland) . This is a wine made from milk (or more accurately whey) and was indigenous to the north of Scotland and the Scandanavian countries. In the highlands and islands of Scotland , blaand was the first taste a baby would have and the last taste a person (man, I think) would have before he died. If you make cheese, it's easy to make, and historically, it was made from buttermilk (the leftover whey after making butter. Records do not suggest that yeast was added: and wine or beer yeast cannot ferment lactose. We use wine yeast today, and a) add sugar (or honey) and ferment the sugar on the whey, OR you can add lactase tabs to break down the lactose into glucose which the yeast can eat. Somehow, the wooden kegs in which this whey was carried contained yeasts that could ferment lactose. In the past blaand might have been 1 -2 % ABV, but today, it's made at 12% or there abouts.

 

[alida.field]

Metheglin is simply a mead with added spices. However, in the middle ages, and even a little later, metheglin was typically made as a medicine (metheglin is , I believe Welsh and the word medicine comes from the same Celtic root). That said, you might check out a recipe for blaand. (as in blond/e, not bland) . This is a wine made from milk (or more accurately whey) and was indigenous to the north of Scotland and the Scandanavian countries. In the highlands and islands of Scotland , blaand was the first taste a baby would have and the last taste a person (man, I think) would have before he died. If you make cheese, it's easy to make, and historically, it was made from buttermilk (the leftover whey after making butter. Records do not suggest that yeast was added: and wine or beer yeast cannot ferment lactose. We use wine yeast today, and a) add sugar (or honey) and ferment the sugar on the whey, OR you can add lactase tabs to break down the lactose into glucose which the yeast can eat. Somehow, the wooden kegs in which this whey was carried contained yeasts that could ferment lactose. In the past blaand might have been 1 -2 % ABV, but today, it's made at 12% or there abouts.

Thanks! That’s exactly the kind of thing I meant.

 

[ratflinger]

Metheglin is simply a mead with added spices. However, in the middle ages, and even a little later, metheglin was typically made as a medicine (metheglin is , I believe Welsh and the word medicine comes from the same Celtic root). That said, you might check out a recipe for blaand. (as in blond/e, not bland) . This is a wine made from milk (or more accurately whey) and was indigenous to the north of Scotland and the Scandanavian countries. In the highlands and islands of Scotland , blaand was the first taste a baby would have and the last taste a person (man, I think) would have before he died. If you make cheese, it's easy to make, and historically, it was made from buttermilk (the leftover whey after making butter. Records do not suggest that yeast was added: and wine or beer yeast cannot ferment lactose. We use wine yeast today, and a) add sugar (or honey) and ferment the sugar on the whey, OR you can add lactase tabs to break down the lactose into glucose which the yeast can eat. Somehow, the wooden kegs in which this whey was carried contained yeasts that could ferment lactose. In the past blaand might have been 1 -2 % ABV, but today, it's made at 12% or there abouts.

Think I'd rather drink the ant wine

 

[winemaker81]

That said, you might check out a recipe for blaand. (as in blond/e, not bland) .

@ratflinger, where is your sense of adventure? You might enjoy it, and if not? You have a yardstick to use the remainder of your life! E.g., "this is not as bad as blaand".

 

[ratflinger]

@winemaker81 I have that yardstick, I've had haggis and blood pudding.

 

[bstnh1]

@winemaker81 I have that yardstick, I've had haggis and blood pudding.

"BLOOD PUDDING"! I love that stuff. Which reminds me. I need to pick some up - haven t had any for far too long.

 

[BigDaveK]

"BLOOD PUDDING"! I love that stuff. Which reminds me. I need to pick some up - haven t had any for far too long.

Haven't had blood pudding but there's a similar Hungarian sausage, hurka, that can be made with either cow or pig blood. And yes, I love that stuff!! Not something that's carried at most deli's.

 

[winemaker81]

Haven't had blood pudding but there's a similar Hungarian sausage, hurka, that can be made with either cow or pig blood. And yes, I love that stuff!! Not something that's carried at most deli's.

My grandmother made it. When I was little, my dad purchased some from a store. He said it was terrible and never purchased it again. I guess his mom's was best.

 

[Earldw]

Welcome. It's very true that hydrometers are a very recent invention but folk who made wine have always found ways to monitor the progress of the fermentation. For example, in the middle ages in Europe, they might float an egg. The more sugar in solution the higher the egg would float. Now, what size egg was used I cannot say, and their hens eggs may have been a great deal smaller... That said, the point of using a tool to measure the gravity is more important as a means of monitoring the progress of the fermentation. You want to rack - (transfer) - the wine from the primary very shortly after active fermentation has ended , if not a few days before because while fermentation is active, head room is never a problem. The yeast fill that space with carbon dioxide gas. But after the yeast quit making alcohol, they quit burping out CO2 and that space fills with air. At that point air (oxygen) can damage your wien: it can discolor it, it can spoil its flavors; it can, in the presence of aceto-bacter transform your wine into vinegar. So you want to transfer the wine from the loosely covered bucket into a vessel you can fill to the top and can seal with a bung and an airlock. And I agree in the historical past folk may not have had airlocks and bungs BUT they might use plates that the gasses would force up to release the gas (under pressure) and in the past wine was often not so great and all kinds of materials were added to disguise the problems - including lead (a practice often used in ancient Rome)... so simply because wine making is thousands of years old does not always mean that what we might consider "good practice" from a scientific point of view was always evident. Medicine is about as old as mankind... that does not mean that trepanning and blood letting is good medicine.

I suspect vintners have used hydrometers of their own making for millennia. A sealed, weighted copper tube calibrated through experience with sweet, dry, weak, strong, etc. Archimedes had a pretty good grasp on displacement and density well over 2000 years ago.

 

[sour_grapes]

I suspect vintners have used hydrometers of their own making for millennia. A sealed, weighted copper tube calibrated through experience with sweet, dry, weak, strong, etc. Archimedes had a pretty good grasp on displacement and density well over 2000 years ago.

You may even say that he had a "Eureka" moment about that!