October 2016 Wine of the Month Club Thread

[wineforfun]

I've been wanting to make this but I have no idea where to find gesho.
I'll definitely be following this one.
What are your thoughts on how T'ej tastes?

So, Bernard Smith on here turned me onto it. For me, it has an off-dry, semi-sweet taste(from the honey) and some bitterness/smokiness (from the gesho). It is an acquired taste.
I have to buy the gesho from Brundo, online. It isn't cheap. I looked for it a an Ethiopian store here in town, but they don't have it.
Brundo sells it for $6.95 for 8 oz. and then another $6.95 for shipping. You use approx. 4 oz. at a time.
I have made quite a few batches. I used D-47 yeast per Harry's recommendation in the beginning, but then Bernard turned me onto 71-B. I think it makes just a little smoother product in the end. As you see, I don't add any nutrient, acid, pectic, etc. I make it just like they did back in the day, with the exception, I add yeast. In the end, I don't add clearing agents, kmeta, etc. I follow the recipe and his process pretty much spot on. It ends up being cloudy in the end.
I bottle it in empty pop bottles and keep it in the fridge. I do usually bottle up one 375ml out of the batch and put on the wine rack. The oldest I have had is approx. 9 mos. I was mostly seeing if I ended up with a "bottle bomb" since I don't add sorbate. So far, so good.

Go check out these sites, very informative.
http://www.pitt.edu/~kloman/harry.html
https://ethiopiantej.wordpress.com/2016/05/12/5-making-tej-at-home/

I have been emailing Harry back and forth for quite awhile. Very nice guy to correspond with. I usually pick him up business cards from the various cities I travel too that have Ethiopian restaurants. He collects them.

 

[Jericurl]

I will check those out. Is it 4 oz gesho per 1 gallon?

eta: Nevermind, found it!

 

[BernardSmith]

My October wines include a gallon of hopped mead (using galaxy hops boiled for about 10 minutes in the water that I then used to add to the honey). Started this at the beginning of the month and it is still bubbling away (albeit very slowly); a gallon of cider using apples from Vermont (71 B yeast) and a half gallon of cider made from Trader Joe's apple juice but using some wild yeast I cultivated from some locally produced raw honey. If this latter version tastes OK my plan is to obtain a few gallons (five or six) of apple juice from a local orchard and use the lees from this batch to inoculate some of the juice to make scrumpy (a cloudy, quick drinking cider) and to make some cyser using some mesquite honey.

 

[Jericurl]

My October wines include a gallon of hopped mead (using galaxy hops boiled for about 10 minutes in the water that I then used to add to the honey). Started this at the beginning of the month and it is still bubbling away (albeit very slowly); a gallon of cider using apples from Vermont (71 B yeast) and a half gallon of cider made from Trader Joe's apple juice but using some wild yeast I cultivated from some locally produced raw honey. If this latter version tastes OK my plan is to obtain a few gallons (five or six) of apple juice from a local orchard and use the lees from this batch to inoculate some of the juice to make scrumpy (a cloudy, quick drinking cider) and to make some cyser using some mesquite honey.

How much hops did you use?
I'm not much of a hops fan, but Manthing is and I keep wanting to make him some kind of hopped mead.

These sound pretty good!

 

[BernardSmith]

I used about 1 T of hop pellets. * The last time I made a hopped mead I used about 1 oz and although the boil time was also about 10 minutes - after which I removed the hops from the tea - others I shared it with thought that it was "too hoppy". The thing about hops though is that as the mead ages the flavor of the hops dissipates. A long boil brings out the acids, a short boil brings out the flavor and dry hopping (see below) brings out the aromatics).
There is a recipe online for what is referred to as an IPA mead - and I have made that and it is quite delicious, in my opinion, although my practice is always to add the hops to the water and not to the honey must unless I am "dry hopping" (adding hops without boiling to the secondary).

* I found an old Jewish cookbook with a recipe for a mead ("med") that used wild yeasts and which called for 1 tablespoon of hops and which would have been made for Passover in Eastern Europe. I don't have my notes with me at this time but I believe that I used 71B

 

[Stressbaby]

Here is a pic of the Lemongrass Mint just after racking from primary to carboy.

 

[Stressbaby]

Here is the Blueberry Rosé after racking to carboy. This ferment was pretty slow, 8 days to get to 1.012.

 

[the_rayway]

I racked my WEI off the lees today. Seems like I'm finished at 1.000. Great pink colour.

Tasted dry: fruity, with up front tart cherry, and acidic.
Tasted sweetened: starts with apple, then the stone fruits come up. Finishes with the tart cherry.

This one is going to be AWESOME.