My first Dragons blood

[Chris Gibbs]

So, I'm new here. I've always been a whiskey/Bourbon guy myself, but I had an excess amount of muscadines last year with which I made my first wine. Now I'm hooked! I made my first dragons blood a couple of months ago using lemon, lime, and pineapple juices as the base. I messed up and purchased blackberry, raspberry, and strawberry blend for the must. All ingredients were used in Dangerdave's proportions. At the time i had no pectic enzyme, so the wine came out cloudy. I even added some enzyme after fermentation, but it didn't help.

I've bottled it and it tastes just fine cloudy. Its meant for drinking on ice around the pool this summer anyway, nothing else. I'm just trying to identify the taste at the end. Up front it tastes like a solid blush, then there is a tangy note at the end. Is that the citrus?

Pics?

This is right after stabilizing and degassing...



Just before bottling...


I've now got 15lbs of muscadines fermenting in the juice of 2 large watermelons, going to secondary tonight!

 

[bkisel]

Welcome to WMT!

Yeah, I'd agree with your being hooked.

BTW, with fruit/country wines cloudiness/haziness can be tough to deal with even when using pectic enzyme.Did you use clearing agents?

 

[Chris Gibbs]

The local brewery shop had isenglass sp? So I hit it with that. Didn't do much for the haze. I've since purchased some super kleer to have on hand. I enjoy making wines from fresh fruit, so there may be a filtration system in my future!?

Any thoughts on the ending taste?

Thanks!

 

[Arne]

Glad you have the first one that tastes good. We always like to have them come out that way. If you try to filter a cloudy wine it is likely to plug the filter. Filtering works great on a mostly clear one and makes it sparkle. Getting that second one thru fermenting without the watermelon going south is kind of a trick, but sounds like you have managed it. Watermelon tends to get pretty nasty smelling if you don't get it going. the juice tends to start spoiling before the alcohol gets strong enough to preserve it. You will know if that happens as it has a terrible smell. Glad yours made it thru it. Arne.

 

[Chris Gibbs]

Thanks Arne! I used Jack Keller's recipe for watermelon mustang wine and just substituted black Ison muscadines. The muscadines were washed and frozen from last season. In order to get the fermentation going I skipped the k-meta dose and separated the must into two smaller batches around 2 gallons each. They each got their own packet of yeast an hour after pectic enzyme. Then I put them in my pantry where the temp is in the mid 70's. I understand that I may lose some of the delicate watermelon flavors at such a high temp, but I think I want to add watermelon and muscadine fpacs before bottling. So far so good...