Jan 2015 Wine of the Month Club

[Jericurl]

Happy New Year.

Can you believe it's already 2015? Where did the last year go?! (or the last 5 years...heck, what happened to my 30s for that matter!)

This is the official thread for our unofficial club, open to anyone who is interested in making a one gallon (or larger) test/experimental batch and sharing the recipe, process, ups and downs with the rest of the club.

We like:
a) full recipes with all ingredients and steps as you go along
b) pictures
c) helpful suggestions on recipe ideas, stumped members
d) thinking outside the box
e) pictures! (did I say that already?)

At the end of the month, we would appreciate a recap of the good, the bad and the ugly of the primary fermentation, as well as periodic updates throughout the year as you go along.

At the one year mark, we will all pop open a bottle of the previous year's wine and take pictures, post comments on how it turned out, and hopefully have a tried and true recipe to post in the recipes section.

Some months we have a lot of people participate, and sometimes life catches up with us and we aren't able to ferment as much as we might like. Feel free to drop in, drop by, drop a comment, whatever.
We welcome questions and suggestions from participants and casual observers alike.

If you aren't participating in this months thread, feel free to share your thoughts and ideas for any WOTM wines you have planned for this year.


January participants:

1. TX Jrod..........Strawberry wine

2. Stressbaby..........Passion Fruit wine

3. Jericurl.......... Saffron, Preserved Lemon, Ginger, and Bay Leaf Mead

4. Drumlinridgewinery..........Berries and Rhubarb Wine (AKA Freezer Cleaner Wine)

5. JimmyT..........Grapefruit wine

 

[Tx_jrod]

Strawberry Wine


This is my first attempt at a non kit wine. I combined a couple of recipes I found online and used a winexpert instruction as a base to write this up.

Started it Dec 31st I'll keep yall posted on how it goes


Primary Ingredients


30 lbs. bucket of frozen strawberries


1-2 packets of dry yeast (Lalvin EC-1118)


5 tsp. Bentonite


6 Campden Tablets (¼ tsp. metabisulphite can be used)


3 tbsp. Citric Acid or Acid Blend


5 tsp. yeast nutrient (or follow instructions provided with nutrient)


2 tsp. wine tannin


1 tbsp. Pectic enzyme


Water


Clarifying Ingredients


3 tsp. Potassium Sorbate


1 package Isinglass or Chitosan


6 Campden Tablets (¼ tsp. metabisulphite can be used)


F-Pack (Sweetened Juice)


4-6 lbs. Frozen Raspberries


½ Tsp. Pectic Enzyme


1-cup sugar


2 Vanilla Beans














1 Primary Fermentation





Clean and sanitize primary fermenter and lid, spoon, thermometer, hydrometer and test jar, and wine thief. Rinse thoroughly.


1. Add 2 liters (one–half gallon) of hot water to the bottom of your sanitized


primary fermenter. Stir the water vigorously and slowly sprinkle Bentonite onto the surface. Stir for 30 seconds to ensure even dispersal, and to break up any clumps.


2.Sanitize a straining bag by dipping it into your sanitizing solution. Rinse thoroughly with water.


3. Mash the thawed frozen strawberries. Strain berries into a mesh bag over the fermenter. Tie off mesh bag, and add to fermenter.


4. Top up fermenter to the 23 liter (6 US–gallon) mark with room temperature water. Add wine tannins, citric acid, Campden tablets (crushed), peptic enzyme, and yeast nutrient.


Stir vigorously for 30 seconds.


5. Draw a sample of the juice and use your hydrometer and test jar to check the


specific gravity. It should read between 1.080–1.100. If not add sugar by adding approximately 2 liters of the juice to a pot with a pound of sugar and heat until the sugar has dissolved. Add back to the fermenter, mix and draw another sample. Continue this until you reach the required gravity.


10. Ensure that the temperature of the juice is between 22–24°C (72–75°F). Do not proceed to the next step (adding yeast) unless the juice is in this range.


11.ADD YOUR YEAST NOW. Open the yeast package and sprinkle contents onto the surface of the juice. Do not rehydrate the yeast. Do not stir it in. It will activate on its own.


12. Cover the primary fermenter and place in a location with a temperature of


22–24°C (72–75°F). If your primary fermenter uses an airlock, insert it now.


Remember to fill airlock halfway with water.


13. Using a sterilized spoon, push the strawberries under the surface of the liquid once every day for the next 7 days, stirring gently.


Fermentation should start within 24–48 hours. In 7 days proceed to Secondary Fermentation.











2 Secondary Fermentation





Clean and sanitize siphon rod and hose, hydrometer and test jar, wine thief, 23–liter (6 US–gallon) carboy, bung and airlock. Rinse well.





After 7 days draw a sample of the juice and use your hydrometer and test jar to check the specific gravity. It should be 1.010 or less. You must rack (transfer) the wine into a 23–liter (6 US–gallon) carboy at this time.


NOTE: The lower the fermenting temperature, the longer it will take to reach this stage. If your gravity is not at or below this level, wait, testing the gravity each day, until it is.


1.Place the primary fermenter up at least 1 meter (3 feet) onto a sturdy table.


2.To remove the berries and prepare for racking, simply remove the mesh bag, gently squeezing as you pull it up and out of the primary fermenter. Discard or compost berries


3.Wait 10 minutes prior to racking in order to allow any particles to settle.


4.Carefully siphon wine into a clean, sanitized 23-liter (6 US gallons) carboy. Leave the thickest sediment behind, but make sure you transfer as much of the liquid as possible. This should almost completely fill the carboy.


5.Attach airlock and bung to carboy. Remember to fill airlock halfway with water.


6.Leave carboy in your fermentation area at the temperature of 22–24°C (72–75°F) for 10 days.


You may not see further fermentation activity in the carboy. This is not a cause for worry. In 8 days you can proceed to the next step.





3 Making F-Pack (Sweetened Juice)





Two days before stabilizing and clearing, you must make a F-Pack. This can also be done at the time you prepare the primary fermentation and frozen until needed.





1.Make simple syrup with the 1 cup of sugar and hot water. The less water the better.


2.Combine Raspberries, simple syrup, Pectic Enzyme, and split vanilla beans in a bowl. Cover this and leave at room temperature for 24 hours.


3.After 24 add contents to a mesh bag and hang above a bucket to catch the juice for 24-36 hours.


4.Discard the berries in the mesh bag. The juice in the bucket is your F-Pack.








4 Stabilizing and Clearing





After 10 days in secondary fermentation, check your specific gravity. It should be 0.996 or less.


If it is higher than 0.996 wait 2 days and measure again–remember, temperatures below 22-24°C (72-75°F) will extend fermentation time.


Once the gravity of the wine reaches 0.998 you can proceed with fining and stabilizing.


If you do not verify the gravity reading, your wine may not clear properly!


Before proceeding, clean and sanitize hydrometer, test jar, wine thief and spoon. Rinse well.


NOTE: Do NOT rack the wine before stabilizing and fining. The wine requires that you stir the sediment back into suspension. Racking the wine off the sediment prior to fining may permanently prevent clearing. Please be sure to stir all of the sediment up from the bottom. The wine needs extremely vigorous stirring during this stage. Without hard stirring, trapped gas in the wine will prevent clearing. At each stirring, whip the wine hard.


Drill-mounted stirring devices (see your retailer) can ensure efficient degassing.





1. Dissolve Campden and Potassium Sorbate in 125 ml (½ cup) of cool water. Add to carboy and stir vigorously for 2 minutes to disperse the stabilizers and drive off CO2. Be sure to stir up yeast sediment from the bottom, and stir hard enough to agitate gas out of the wine.





2.Remove 500 ml (2 cups) of wine from the carboy to make room for the contents of the pack and to get an idea of how much of the F-Pack to add. Add very small amounts of F-Pack to the 2 cups of removed wine and taste to achieve desired taste and color. Reserve this wine for topping up the carboy (Step 5).


3.Gently pour desired amount of F-Pack contents into the carboy. Stir vigorously for 60 seconds. Your gravity will now read between 0.998 and 1.007.


4. Shake contents of package (Chitosan or isinglass clarifier). Carefully cut open the corner of the pouch(es) and pour contents into carboy. Stir vigorously for another 2 minutes to degas the wine. If you do not degas the wine completely, it will not clear.


5. Return any wine removed to the carboy now.


6. Fill airlock halfway with water and reattach bung and airlock to carboy.


7. Leave carboy in your fermentation area at the temperature of 22-24°C (72-75°F) for 8 days to clear.





5 Racking and Clarification





After 8 days your wine will be quite clear.


This next racking will help to brilliantly polish it.


Clean and sanitize carboy, siphon rod and hose.


1. Rack the wine into a clean, sanitized carboy. Take all of the clear wine, and leave the sediment behind.


NOTE: This recipe contains very low levels of sulphite compared to commercial wine. If you want to age your wine more than 6 months, you must add extra metabisulphite powder to prevent oxidation.


To do this, dissolve 1.5 grams (¼ teaspoon) of metabisulphite powder in 125 ml (½ cup) cool water and gently stir into wine in the clean carboy. This extra sulphite will not affect flavor or early drinkability.


2. Do not add any additional water (`top up’) to your carboy at this time. Topping up will change the character of your wine. Your wine will not oxidize or spoil during the time remaining to bottling.


3. Fill airlock halfway with water and reattach bung and airlock to carboy. Leave the wine 14 days to finish clarifying.


4. After 14 days, check your wine for clarity by drawing a small sample into a wineglass and examining it in good light. If it is not completely clear, leave for another 7 days. Do not bottle cloudy wine: it will not clear in the bottle.





6 Bottling





Clean and sanitize thirty 750 ml (25.4 fl. oz.) wine bottles, siphon rod and hose, and siphon filler.


Rinse well.


NOTE: If you are not bottling at this time you must remove the bung and airlock and replace them with a solid rubber or silicone bung. This will help to prevent oxidation until you do bottle. If you intend to leave the wine in the carboy longer than one month, you will need to top it up to within 2 inches (about the width of two fingers) from the bottom of the solid bung with a similar wine. Alternatively, you can transfer the finished wine to a smaller vessel to eliminate any headspace and reduce the danger of oxidation. If you wish to filter your wine, you should do it now, immediately prior to bottling.


If you are concerned about disturbing any sediment on the bottom of the carboy when bottling, clean and sanitize a primary fermenter or carboy, rack or filter the wine into it, and bottle from there.


1. Siphon your wine into clean, sanitized bottles and seal with a good quality cork. Be sure to leave two fingers–widths of space between the bottom of the cork and the level of the wine in each bottle.


2. Leave bottles upright for 3 days before laying them on their sides, to allow corks to seal. Store bottles in a dark, cool, temperature-stable place.

 

[Jericurl]

3 tbsp. Citric Acid or Acid Blend

I know jack sprat about acid additions, but just wanted to confirm that is tablespoons?

Sounds like a good recipe.
I'll be interested to see how it does with you fast tracking it.

 

[Stressbaby]

I know jack sprat about acid additions, but just wanted to confirm that is tablespoons?

Sounds like a good recipe.
I'll be interested to see how it does with you fast tracking it.

I bet that is correct, 1.5tsp/gallon since he's making a 6 gallon batch.

Jrod, which did you use, acid blend or citric? I'm moving away from acid blend personally and more toward citric or tartaric/citric for most of my fruit wines. I could be wrong, but it seems like the ones without malic acid just taste better. (Apple is the exception)

Also, make sure you have a 5 gal carboy around. I predict you won't end up with 6 gallons of wine. I usually drip drain the bag, add water to my final wine level, and then replace the bag. This at least gets me close to my final volume. Sometimes it means using more fruit though.

 

[Tx_jrod]

I used citric as I saw online that people agreed with you and only going to use acid blend if I need to add a bit more later.

As for the carboys, I have one 6gal for secondary fermentation. And two 5 gal for clearing and aging.

 

[Stressbaby]

I'm in for January. Basically this will use every passion fruit I was able to grow last year. The plan roughly is as follows.

Passion Fruit Wine

2# 13oz passion fruit pulp, frozen
1 can Welch's white grape concentrate
1# 8oz sugar
Kmeta or 1 campden
7 pints water
Citric acid* to pH of 3.3-3.4
1t pectic
2g Bentonite
1g Booster Blanc
Lalvin QA 23
GoFerm 1tsp
Fermaid K 1/4 tsp, divided.

Thaw just enough to remove about 4oz pulp and reserve for use in the secondary. While fruit is thawing, add Kmeta (I used 1/8tsp in 15ml water, then added 5ml to the fruit). Allow to thaw overnight. The next morning, add sugar, concentrate to primary. Bag the pulp, reserving any juice, and add bagged fruit and juice to primary. Heat 7 pints water, and add to primary, mixing thoroughly to dissolve the sugar. When cool, add 1tsp pectic enzyme and 1g Booster Blanc. Wait 12 hours, adjust pH and SG if needed, then add starter of QA 23. Add bentonite after 2 days and add Fermaid K at end of lag phase and at 1.050-1.060 range.

Rack to secondary when SG under 1.010. Rack again when fermentation complete. After second racking, add the reserved 4oz passionfruit pulp and leave for about a month. Rack off the extra pulp. Cold stabilize, then after 6 months clarify, stabilize, backsweeten, bottle.

*Interestingly, Keller lists malic as the primary acid in passion fruit. I found this difficult to believe, so I did a little research and found instead that there is 4-5 times as much citric acid as malic acid. We're going with citric for this batch.

 

[Jericurl]

Oh I love passionfruit.
I bet that wine is going to be fantastic.

 

[the_rayway]

I love that you're using fruit from your greenhouse! Looking forward to your progress.

Looking at doing an Apple-Pear Bochet this month. Likely a 3 gal batch, but TBC depending on how many pears I have in my sister's freezer.

 

[Jericurl]

I'm still planning mine out but I think I'm going to make a mead with saffron, bay leaf, preserved lemons, and grain of paradise.

Right now my concern is with the preserved lemons. They have been aging for a few months and you have to use quite a bit of salt. I'm going to rinse them off really, really well, then run through the food processor. I know that too much salt will kill the yeast, but I'm hoping I can make a super strong starter and add it.
I've got EC-1118 and KV yeast that I'm thinking of using. I've also got D47 but I'm thinking one of the others might work a little better.

 

[Stressbaby]

I'm still planning mine out but I think I'm going to make a mead with saffron, bay leaf, preserved lemons, and grain of paradise.



Right now my concern is with the preserved lemons. They have been aging for a few months and you have to use quite a bit of salt. I'm going to rinse them off really, really well, then run through the food processor. I know that too much salt will kill the yeast, but I'm hoping I can make a super strong starter and add it.

I've got EC-1118 and KV yeast that I'm thinking of using. I've also got D47 but I'm thinking one of the others might work a little better.

Jeri,
What is your inspiration for that combination? I had to google grains of paradise!
I made a bay leaf wine a couple of years ago according to Keller's recipe. Last time I tried it, it wasn't very good, but I haven't opened a bottle in many months.


Sent from my iPad using Wine Making

 

[Jericurl]

Moroccan, Arabian, and Lebanese food serve as my inspiration this month.

I miss living in a larger metro area where you can find all sorts of wonderful new flavors in restaurants and grocery stores.

Bay, saffron, and preserved lemons is a pretty common flavoring trio. Some even add a bit of mint to it.

I actually just made a chicken dish last week with the saffron and preserved lemons. The grain of paradise is a spicy almost citrusy pepper tasting spice. I have some in a grinder and it adds a nice zip to dishes.

Making preserved lemons is dead easy, it just takes awhile for them to age. And the end result is so delicious and versatile.

 

[the_rayway]

Jeri, you make the most amazing combinations of flavours! You're much more adventurous than I've ever been.

My Dad used grains of paradise in a mango chutney, Indian inspired, and it's wonderful.

 

[Jericurl]

Oh I adore Indian food!

I cook. A lot. And I'm lucky that Manthing will eat just about anything and is just as food adventurous as I am. It's only the two of us and no children so I'm not really limited as to what I can set on the table. If we ever win the lottery we are going to figure out how to set up a culinary tour of the world and just take a year off to travel and eat our way across earth.

I loosely followed this chicken recipe last week and that's my inspiration for this month's wine.
http://moroccanfood.about.com/od/maindishes/r/chick_lem_olive.htm

I skipped the olives because I didn't have any. And the cilantro because I'm not a fan.

 

[Jericurl]

Oh, and I forgot ginger.

I want to add ginger to it as well.

I have fresh and candied. Looking for suggestions about which to add....

 

[Tx_jrod]

had to rack a few days early due to work schedule. Coming along just fine!

 

[the_rayway]

Oh I adore Indian food!

I cook. A lot. And I'm lucky that Manthing will eat just about anything and is just as food adventurous as I am. It's only the two of us and no children so I'm not really limited as to what I can set on the table. If we ever win the lottery we are going to figure out how to set up a culinary tour of the world and just take a year off to travel and eat our way across earth.

I loosely followed this chicken recipe last week and that's my inspiration for this month's wine.
http://moroccanfood.about.com/od/maindishes/r/chick_lem_olive.htm

I skipped the olives because I didn't have any. And the cilantro because I'm not a fan.

That recipe sounds delicious! A friend of mine married a Moroccan, and he's apparently quite the traditional cook. I need to get myself invited over for dinner I am also a cooking enthusiast, however, children do tend to curb a person's abilities for creativity. Once they're a bit older I will be able to expand my repertoire again. Bryan used to be a meat and potatoes guy - but in the few years before they came along he was really starting to open his eyes to the possibilities.

I recommend candied ginger, but the regular would be nice too.

 

[Stressbaby]

Jrod, that looks good!

Passion fruit wine update:
No need for any citric acid additions. The pH was 2.75. I added 2.25 tsp of calcium carbonate to bring it up to 3.25 prior to pitching the yeast.

 

[Jericurl]

Insert cleverly named mead title here

Ok, here is my January 2015 Mead

Orange Blossom honey to 1.09ish
1 gallon of water
1 tsp of grains of paradise (roughly whizzed through the grinder)
2 bay leaves
1/2 tsp saffron
2 coins of crystallized ginger
1 preserved lemon
1 tsp nutrient
1/2 tsp energizer

Add water, ginger, and bay leaves to a large stock pot and bring to a boil. When water boils, turn off heat and add honey. Mix well.
Allow to cool, check SG and make any needed adjustments.
Add nutrient and 1/3 of total amount of energizer.
Pitch yeast.

Add 1/3 nutrient and energizer when SG falls to 1.06

and the last 1/3 when SG falls to 1.03
After SG falls to below 1.00, rack to secondary and add preserved lemon (after rinsing very well) and possibly more saffron.

 

[drumlinridgewinery]

Freezer cleaner wine

Ok this is not a small batch but its what I got. Started on 12-31-14

3 lbs wild black raspberries
7 lbs red raspberries
10 lbs strawberries
8 lbs blueberries
2 lbs rhubarb
4 lemons with the rind sliced up
All fruit frozen some for 2 years then thawed
3tsp pectic enzyme
1\4 tsp k-meta
Also added 5 lbs sugar and 1 gal of H20. Let sit for 36 hours in a bucket under a towel

After 36 hours gave the bag a good press and added H20 to the 5 gal mark also added
1tsp tannin
3 tsp nutrient
3 tsp energizer
sugar to 1.088 S.G.
Added 71B-1122 yeast

Racked to a 6 gal carboy tonight. 1-5-15. S.G. 1.037. Added 1 oak spiral medium toast

It looks and tastes like a high on fruit dragon blood. Will have a pic or 2 on the next post when I rack off the lees at the end of the month.

 

[drumlinridgewinery]

@Jericurl - If you made yours a 5 gal you would have a little coin in that with the saffron threads. It sounds interesting though