New From North Mississippi

[nafarmboy]

Howdy, joined the forum couple weeks ago and just been reading and looking around, wanted to say hello and looking foward to learning from the vast information on this forum. When I was in high school we made wine from everything from welch grape juice to canalope, back then we just throwed some sugar and bakers yeast and juice in a butter churn.........when it stopped bubbling if there was any left(after sampling) we strained in through a sheet or t-shirt and it was ready to drink, never heard of a hydrometer or racking cane. I'm 51 yrs old now and I plan on perfecting my skills a little over that. I planted some muscadine vines 4 yrs ago and some blackberry vines last yr. My muscadine vines are really producing well and I made enough jelly last year to last 2 or 3 yrs so this year for some reason I got infatuated with making some wine from them. It started with one of those 80 dollar beginner kits and I thought I would give it a test run with some strawberries while I was waiting on my muscadines to start coming in..............3 weeks later I have 3 6-gallon carboys, 5 1-gallon carboys a 10 gallon fermentor made from a rubbermaid brute, 2-5 gallon fermentors made from pickle buckets from my restaurant, enough yeast, ingredients and additives to fill a wheelbarrow, with one more 6-gallon and 3-3 gallon carboys on the way. Already have 6 gallon of strawberry in secondary and a batch of scuppenog from juice collected last year fermenting and 50 lbs of blackberries ordered from one of my vendors at the store for a batch of blackberry. I dont know what is the most addicting........drinking wine or making wine. nafarmboy

 

[robie]

Sounds like the wine bug has infected you real badly!
Hey, make sure those fermenters, which used to be pickle buckets, don't still smell of pickles. If there was vinegar in those buckets, it can have a drastically bad affect on your wine making.

You can go to most any big store that has a bakery (Target, Wal-Mart, ..etc) and they will give you their empty 2, 3, and sometimes 5 gallon food grade buckets, which have had nothing in them but maybe cake icing or doe.

Keep us up to date about what's fermenting and welcome to the forum.

 

[winemaker_3352]

Welcome aboard!!!

 

[BobF]

Welcome to WMT!

 

[Runningwolf]

Welcome aboard.

 

[nafarmboy]

Thanks all. robie thanks on the advice about the pickle buckets........usually the vinegar smell comes out pretty good if you wash them real good and sit them in the sun for a few days, if not I want use them, I had a couple empties by the door the other day when I was leaving work and some gromments at home so I thought they might be handy for small batches in the 3 gallon carboys. nafarmboy

 

[Julie]

Hi nafarmboy

Welcome to winemakingtalk

 

[SpoiledRotten]

Welcome nafarmboy! Glad to have another Mississippian here. Have you still got your restaurant? What's the name and where is it. Me? I'm in central, near the Ross Barnett.

 

[vacuumpumpman]

Welcome and join the fun !!

 

[nafarmboy]

SpoiledRotten, still in the restaurant, I am partners with a guy that opened it in 1979. Started as a New Orleans Famous Fried Chicken, you probably heard of them being from brandon, but we dropped the name about 15 yrs ago and named it George's, if you ever through New Albany stop in.

 

[olusteebus]

you in deep for a farm boy! Good for you.

 

[nafarmboy]

you in deep for a farm boy! Good for you.

LOL, havent got any choice now other than to learn how to make wine, huh.
nafarmboy

 

[SpoiledRotten]

SpoiledRotten, still in the restaurant, I am partners with a guy that opened it in 1979. Started as a New Orleans Famous Fried Chicken, you probably heard of them being from brandon, but we dropped the name about 15 yrs ago and named it George's, if you ever through New Albany stop in.

I can guarantee I'll stop in and see you.

 

[oldwhiskers]

Welcome to the forum.

 

[saramc]

Welcome to WMT!!

 

[SuperDave1969]

Hey nafarmboy! Welcome to the forums. I'm still a newbie, having made only a couple of kits so far. It's good to see a fellow North Mississippian here. I'm from Baldwyn myself. Again welcome!

 

[nafarmboy]

I guess we are all continuing to make our winemaking area better and more organized and better, with that being said I had a few glasses of bought wine waiting on mine to finish and was looking at my table and thinking about shelves, ph meters, all in one vaccum pump that my wife hopefully has ordered for my birthday, and all the other things i want and need, but looking at the table, all I can really think about is what I am going to put in those last 3 empty carboys. nafarmboy