Greetings from AZ at 6,200 feet

[jamesngalveston]

talked too my sis in Tucson, yesterday...said that monsoons are late this year. we have a small depression going on in honduras..maybe that will send some rain your way.

 

[Crown_King_Robb]

Robb,

I hope things go well with your vineyard planting as well as your winemaking. We lived in Tempe for a number of years and had a place up in Pine, which is north of Payson. It was great to get out of the heat of Phoenix, for sure. Visit some of the winerys and vineyards in the Jerome area. They have some very good wine and I am sure you can pick up some great tips for your own endeavors. Cheers from San Diego, Gary

Thanks Gary,

I havent been to Jerome in many years, if I can get a break from the routine that sounds like a good trip to make. Been through Pine/Strawberry several times and that is a great place to be. We're pretty similar in CK as far as terrain goes. The roads are certainly better in Pine, haha.

The vines are doing well, those that have leaved out, are growing well. Out of the 51 vines planted last Fall, I have a row of 10, I think they were Pinot Grigio variety, that only one of them has shown any action. Im going to let them be for now and see what happens.

Two good developments yesterday though; I found a brew-shoppe just up the street and over, from my office, and they have great selection, prices and friendly 'keeps. Picked up another carboy while there.

Then the equivalent of a Tractor Supply Co. store (Rural hardware, supplies, feed, tack, etc) just opened a mile or two N. of my house in PHX. A God-send, in that Ill have some convenient, specialized shopping now for rural-living supplies for up on the Mountain. Its a big deal as there is nothing else like it on my route back and forth, and Home Depot is more Suburbia related in their offerings around here.


James,

I washed my truck today. First time since... February ? That should count heavily towards encouraging the monsoons to "get-with-it". haha.


UPDATE JUNE 24:
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The vines are making progress. A few are at the tops of their 4ft bamboo poles, and most are at the top of the grow tubes or better. Ive been spending most of my time recently trying to complete the rainharvesting system that will supply my irrigation, trying to get that wrapped up before monsoon hits. Which is kind of funny since when the monsoons come, I probably wont have to irrigate for a while anyway ?

I think I still have around 10 vines or so that havent done anything other than their best impression of a dead stick. A few others have just this week, sprouted their first leaves though.

Vines havent been touched but I have several recently-planted apple trees and I discovered evidence of the critters stripping the leaves off this past week. ( I know deer-poo when I see it) Monsoon will cure that problem too.


Meanwhile, batch number 2 of Ed Wort's Apfelwein in progress.

 

[Crown_King_Robb]

Proper apfelwein serving gear isn't easy to find in the US.
Took some searching.

I plan to bottle most in 1 litre bottles so the 1 litre bembel is just right.

 

[Crown_King_Robb]

Steam juiced Prickly pear with 1 lb of raisins and Montrachet yeast 6 days in the ferment bucket. Followed the root dragon blood skeeter pee recipe but I expect iI'll need some final adjustment.

Probably another week at current temperatures.

 

[Crown_King_Robb]

Here it is early September.

35 of the 51 vines grew. Some more than others. Not sure if was due to variety differences or location on the slope. Will take cutting s of those that did well to replace the non starters. This fall I'll be putting up the trellis'. We've been getting steady rain this summer and still are so the weeds have been doing well. Just sprayed a fewdays ago and probably will again. Haven't needed to irrigate since June. Probably won'thave to till spring.

.

 

[RCGoodin]

Hi Robb,

Welcome aboard. I'm in Goodyear and would love to tour your winery some day. I'm sure you know of Alcantara Winery. I recently visited Kief-Joshua Winery in Elgin, AZ. Kief has a Master's in the field and his dad, a Phoenix contractor, works at the winery during the summer months. We just purchased a Tempranillo from them that was excellent. They have several other wines that are fantastic also. Anyway they said they have an annual get together where all the wineries come. Anyway, I thought you'd like to make a contact with them.

Let's keep in touch and keep whining.

 

[Crown_King_Robb]

The prickly pear skeeter pee made good enough progress this weekend I went ahead and moved it to a carboy. This is my biggest carboy and its still fermenting a bit so I'm not worried about the air space. 2 shades darker than pepto bismal. Haha

Still have about a 5 gallon bucket of frozen prickly pears that I'll juice out in week or two for another kind of wine more like a regular fruit wine.

Still getting a lot of rain. Mixed blessings.

 

[Jericurl]

Hi and welcome.

I"ll be following your posts for sure! Can't wait to see how that prickly pear wine turns out.

You sure are in a beautiful area. I used to pan for gold in Yavapai forest. (I also got the worst sunburn of my life up there!)

 

[Crown_King_Robb]

Thanks Jeri, Thanks RCGoodin.

CK is an interesting place for sure. Not easy, but worth it. We like to say that we live in CK and work in the city. haha.

I started making these other types of brews to get me prepared / experienced for the day my vines produce enough grapes to do something with, but its turning out to be fun just themselves. Our primary activities up here include riding quads, working on the house/property, and drinking. I have lots of taste testers and folks not afraid to try some of the homemade stuff.

One of the other CK'ers is an official registered Sommelier. She gave a great speech a couple weeks ago to a cabin-party where some nice folks invited us all over for a tasting party and everyone brought over a bottle. She and I talked and neither of us is entirely sure how growing wine up here will do yet. Just gotta see what happens in the next few years. I have a lot of my neighbors encouraging me and crossing their fingers too. The elevation is a concern and then so is the annual timing of monsoon. Still getting rain every few days right now. As you noticed Jeri, if its not raining then the sun is surprisingly bright and intense up here, which I consider an advantage.

The prickly pears and the apple trees are going to be my plan B if all else fails. haha.

 

[Crown_King_Robb]

End of the first season I think.

 

[RCGoodin]

Hey Robb,

How are the vines coming? We haven't got the wives up there yet to look for property. As I follow the real estate market there, I see homes stay on the market for quite some time. I know the right thing will happen when it is supposed to.

I find out today how much income tax I have to pay in. That may have a bearing on available funds.

I'm getting behind on making wine. I have 6 unopened kits and 6 gallons of Amarone, 3 gallons of Ice wine, and 3 gallons of Strawberry Port to take into 2nd fermentation.

When does the snow start to fly up there?

 

[Crown_King_Robb]

I hope you get the time to make your wines. I hear there are some really great kits out there, any particular brands you are fond of and recommend ?

Actually had our first snow on Thursday morning.



It usually snows before Halloween but doesnt last long. Cold snaps can come anytime now, so between Halloween and Easter we drain the pipes, and put anti-freeze in the toilets and sinks. 3 years ago the power was out for 2 or 3 days and it got down to -2*F, so everyone that relied on their heat systems to keep the pipes from freezing got surprises. Noticed that the leaves were turning on the local indigenous deciduous, so some really pretty pockets of red and yellow in places.

On the vines,
Had some late sprouters so thats good news. I had almost given up on them. Several are just now reaching the tops of the grow tubes. I irrigated with well water before the rain capture system was complete and Im thinking that maybe the well water might hinder growth compared to the rain water ? One of the vines this weekend was torn up pretty good and I found several caterpillars going to town on it, so I applied direct pressure to the critters. Just the one vine. Ill have to watch that next year.

Friday Morning I was getting some firewood and I looked down and saw 3 bucks wandering through the vines. They saw me too and spooked so I didnt get a good picture, but I checked a security camera and found another deer (doe this time) poking around from a week prior




The real estate has been odd this Summer. Some places moved fast and then some sat all Summer which I thought were going to go quick. Seems to be a lot of buying / closing between Memorial day and January as an annual cycle and Im not sure why that is compared to say, Spring ?.

Had the Sat night potluck at our place on Saturday and I got out some of the Dragons blood that I have had going for about 4 months. Last month it wasnt that good and was more like MD 20/20, but this month it turned to "pretty-darn-good" We had all been drinking plenty of reds already, and then still managed to down 2 litres of the DB.

 

[Crown_King_Robb]

Things are warming up and staying dry this Winter. I watered the vines recently just to play things safe. Some time in April I'll be putting up the trellis'

I did have a "barn find" from down the road, follow me home recently.

The Admiral ! circa 1951 - 53 ? havent actually found anything based on the model number so Im guessing a little



At first I was going to turn it into a smokehouse, but then someone suggested that I should check the wiring and see if it works. Our best guess is that it last ran sometime in the 80's before the power was cut to the building and packrats chewed all the wires. By golly I was able to get the compressor running and it chills down fast. I used a Johnson Controls digital temp controller to bypass all the old wiring and to keep the temp accurate. Wired it right to the compressor and so far its been running great. Need to replace the door seal, but I think thats all I will do. I like the rustic patina on the outside, so no repainting.



cleaned and gutted the insides to make room for some home brew kegs and Ill be putting 3 taps in the door. I should be able to put a few glasses in the freezer coil section, for chilled mugs. I believe I can get two 5 gal corny kegs and at least 1 if not 2, 2.5 gallon short cornys in all at the same time. So maybe 4 taps ? Plan is for Apfelwein all the time, and Seasonal flavors of Skeeter Pee.

 

[sour_grapes]

Are you planning to disable the door latch mechanism (for safety's sake)?

 

[Crown_King_Robb]

Excellent point.

The latching mech is needed to keep the door tight to the seal, but currently its full of grilling charcoal bags and the door is facing the wall when we are not there.

Ill be putting an external padlock latch on for both safety as well as security.

 

[Runningwolf]

Very cool!

 

[Crown_King_Robb]

Getting the ADMIRAL flowing....





The apfelwein was flowing a bit foamy yesterday because I had to warm up the freezer section so I could get the glue to stick for the blue LED lighting strips I tucked away Still needs some lines routed and other touch ups to make it a finished project. (You can still see where I propped up some sticks to hold the light strips upside down while the glue is setting.) I will be able to keep mugs cold in the freezer coil section and the fans keep things consistent in the whole fridge.

I wired the door switch so that when the door is closed the fans run, when the door opens the fans turn off and the lights turn on. I dont plan on opening the door alot of course, itll be locked, but itll be neat when I do. I can fit the 2 5-gallon kegs pictured, and then one 2.5 gallon keg on top of those with the rack out of the way so all 3 faucets are in use.

Before I carbonated it, and used wine conditioner, no one else seemed to like the Ed Worts Apfelwein (10 months old) but now its a big hit. Tastes like Angry Orchard, however, at 9% alcohol its a sneak attack.

 

[Jericurl]

BUDWEISER?!

I'm seriously side eyeing you now!

 

[Crown_King_Robb]

Well yeah, Gotta have something portable.
I took the 18pk of PBR out before the picture, if that helps any ?

I did get a Dunkelweisen kit from the brew shoppe last week. As soon as I found out all I needed in addition to the wine making stuff I already had, was a 44qt vat to boil up a batch of beer, I was "in".

I had no interest in bottling beer, but the kegging makes it all a lot easier.

So far for variety, its going to be beer, Americanized "apfelwein", and then maybe a dragons blood style recipe that chilled and lightly carbonated might be like a wine cooler out of the tap? I have a prickly pear version that I backsweetened yesterday that is probably gonna get the first try in a 2.5 gallon keg. We'll see I guess.

 

[Crown_King_Robb]

Vines are looking lively. Some are earlier bloomers than others. Gave everything a little water

Killed the first keg of Apfelwein this weekend having a birthday party for our friends, Fryed a turkey and then smoked a turkey on the BGE. Almost got the timing on the two being done together, but was off by 20 mins. It worked out. Never fried a turkey before but my beer vat came with a fry basket in it, so the idea was conjured.

Next steps are brewing up the Dunkelweisen, getting a fresh batch of Dragons blood into primary and another Apfelwein going... and then to get the trellis' up. Found a couple local sources of oil field pipe for the end posts, and just plan to use T posts in the middle

Upgraded the ADMIRAL.
I had about 5 feet of LED strip left so I put it on the underside of the fridge tied in with the door lights. It lights up the porch when door is opened