What are you making and what have you made ???

[Dinich]

Just Bottled:
5 gal green Apple Reisling
5 gal White Zinfandel

In secondary:
5 gal chocolate mead
5 gal Pear Wine
1 gal Blueberry wine
1 gal blueberry melomel
1 gal blueberry honey mead
1 gal cranberry honey mead
1 gallon Southern Belle honey mead

In Primary:
6 gallons Welches White grape wine (Used for wine margaritas)
2 gallons Welches grape wine

D

 

[Larryh86GT]

I started my red raspberry, honey, hops wine/mead this past Saturday. It's a 'gallon' batch that I overdid a little so I should end up with a full gallon plus a 1 1/2 liter bottle. My starting SG is 1.102 - My recipe called for boiling the hops 1 1/4 hr. I was boiling the hops, added the honey and sugar, brought it to a boil and then made a big mistake. I pushed the bag of hops into the boil and had an instant eruption of sticky water all over the stove and floor. Fortunately I backed up quickly and didn't get burnt. It took awhile to clean up the mess but at that point I decided not to boil anymore and let it cool. My 4 bags of various hops that were in vacuum sealed bags in the freezer that weighed like feathers soaked up the water and now weighed 2-3 lbs. I used about 5 lbs of raspberries from the freezer also. Placed everything in the primary bucket,waited til Sunday, started the yeast and pitched it in. I removed the hops before pitching the yeast. I didn't want it to to overpower the raspberries. Right now the yeast seems happy and is bubbling away. I love the smell of how this is right now.
Larry

 

[arcticsid]

Funky Pumpkin

Had a free fermenter bucket last night. Not permissible. So as an experiment.

4.5# canned Pumpkin
16 ox can Jellied Cranberry Sauce
1 cinnamon stick
3 whole cloves
1 cup brown sugar
6 cups white sugar
1 gallon water
( all the normal chemicals)
Boiled the water, dissolved the sauce, added the sugar, dissolved, stirred in the pumpkin. Tossed in the stick and cloves.

SG 1.100

Originally made a starter with 1116, it didn't go.(never pitched it except down the drain) All I had left on hand was good old bread yeast, made a starter with that and pitched it. It is fermenting away.

Don't know what the result will be. But am not expecting much so I will not be dissapointed either way.

Batteries are dead in the camera or a picture would be here, but this is some funky looking stuff, lots of pulp. Brown funky looking pulp. The pectin E seemed to help break it down, but not as much as I would have expected.

Its only been 12 hours but don't see a cap yet, although it is fermenting nicely.

Taste is good. If this goes anywhere it may be turn out to be one of those mulled wine that is good for the commom cold!!

So this is the craziest one I ever made, and who knows it might be one of the best.

Troy

 

[Russ Stewart]

In the Primary: 5 gallons of concord
5 gallons of catawba

Ageing and about ready to bottle:
5 gallons of Gewurtz
10 gallons of Reisling
3 gallons of strawberry/rhubarb
14 gallons of Catawba
6 gallons of red blend from my own grapes
10 gallons of Pino Grigiot

Just bottled:
5 gallons of Niagara
3 gallons of blueberry/cranberry

 

[non-grapenut]

My Adhoc 2nd must wine smells like Juicyfruit gum! This is what I ended up putting in it:
Last years balance of frozen pineapple musts (2 full gallon Ziploc bags crushed pineapple)
2 gallons storebrand Apple Cider (no sorbate/sulfites)
8 bags Lipton's Mango/Peach tea
10 lbs. fresh Scuppernong grapes/pressed
10 lbs. sugar
3 gallons hot water
Some Lavlin yeast (I think 71b 1122)
and all the usual chemicals

Can't wait to try this one!

 

[bryano]

My 6 gallon chocolate strawberry port is done fermenting. It's degassed and stabalized, secondary ingredients is in. Only time will tell if it's as good as Wades 3 gallon recipe, I still have 2 bottles for the comparison.

 

[Sacalait]

My Adhoc 2nd must wine smells like Juicyfruit gum! This is what I ended up putting in it:
Last years balance of frozen pineapple musts (2 full gallon Ziploc bags crushed pineapple)
2 gallons storebrand Apple Cider (no sorbate/sulfites)
8 bags Lipton's Mango/Peach tea
10 lbs. fresh Scuppernong grapes/pressed
10 lbs. sugar
3 gallons hot water
Some Lavlin yeast (I think 71b 1122)
and all the usual chemicals

Can't wait to try this one!

Hey that sounds great, let me know how it turns out since I still have muscadines in the freezer.

 

[non-grapenut]

Hey that sounds great, let me know how it turns out since I still have muscadines in the freezer.

So far the fermentation is crazy! The musky grapes and the piney pineapple are an interesting scent mix.

 

[ffemt128]

Just updated my list, started some Apple today for fall drinking prior to starting the fall batch.

 

[NSwiner]

I bottled our Gewurztraminer last night we are very pleased with it and it's only young ,can't wait to see what it's like after it ages a bit .

 

[Torch404]

Just bottled 3 gallons of orange juice wine, hoping to do it again tonight or tomorrow. This time I'm gonna try to get less on the floor.

Just got a brew belt to speed up my blueberry so I can use it to make Skeeter pee...mmm

 

[arcticsid]

Is less on the floor equal to lees on the floor?
Just wondering.

 

[reefman]

I bottled our Gewurztraminer last night we are very pleased with it and it's only young ,can't wait to see what it's like after it ages a bit .

Hi Darlene,
Is your Gewurztraminer sweet or dry? I've heard it makes a good sweet wine.

 

[non-grapenut]

Had an empty primary now that I secondaried my "juicyfruit"-smelling wine of Scuppernong and 2nd Pineapple batch run.

Found 15 lbs of bananas on clearance at the grocery, added 3 gals bottled apple juice and all the normal chemicals (extra acid blend to balance the pH, though.) Boiled the bananas in about 3 gals of water for a bit (4 with skin on)..Good stuff so far!

 

[IQwine]

I started this hobby in January of 2009…… and the rest of the story…...

Waiting to be made
W E Luna Rossa
We Lodi Ranch 11 Cabernet Sauvignon
WE Petite Verdot

To Do List (Have to study up on these first)
Strawberry
Pear
Blackberry
Other fruits

Primary


Secondary
WE Selection Speciale - Chocolate Raspberry Port
Skeeter Pee - Lemon
Skeeter Pee - Lime

Carboys

W E Selection Estate Lodi Ranch 11 Cabernet Sauvignon
W E Selection Original Luna Rossa
Skeeter Pee - Lemon
Skeeter Pee - Lime
Apfelwein (German Hard Cider)


Made and Bottled

From Juice:
Apfelwein (German Hard Cider)
Skeeter Pee - Lemon

Cellar Craft:
Red Mountain Cabernet (grape pack)

Wine Expert:
Island Mist –
-Black Raspberry Merlot
--Pomegranate Zinfandel

Selection Estate
– Lodi Ranch 11 Cabernet Sauvignon

Selection Original
– Luna Rossa
--Symphony

Selection International
-- Italian Montepulciano
--Chilean Carmenere

 

[boatbums2]

My attempts

After rocky start: see post on "have a laugh on me guys"
Bottled 6 gals WE French Merlot
Secondary: 6 gal WE Sangiovese
Carboy ageing: 6gal WE Amarone

On order Chilean grapes:
6 gal Malbec
6 gal Cabernet Franc
6 gal Syrah

April will be joyfully busy

 

[femki]

Hey guys, I just found this forum yesterday and it seems like a good place to hang out and get ideas and advice. I got into wine making because of an upcoming wedding - MINE! We made a RJ Cellar Classic Cab/Shiraz and a Cellar Classic Sauvignon Blanc. I was expecting the store owner to tell me to start my wines about 2 months before the wedding, but thankfully I had visited him much earlier in the year and he recommended that I start a batch ASAP and age for the remainder of time (6 months). That was my first experience with kits and was pretty impressed with the results. This was a Ferment-On-Premises shop.

Our honeymoon was spent in wine country (Niagara) and our palates were opened up. We had always been wine enjoyers but received quite an education! I committed ourselves to a laundry room reno which included building a cold room and a wine rack. Of course, you can't have an empty wine rack, so I thought that making some more kit wine would be easier on the pocket books than buying $20-$30 bottles of VQA wine.

So here I am with this small list to share:

Wine Made (and drank)
RJ Cellar Classic Cabernet Shiraz
-- Pretty good, very fruity, not much depth, a little CO2 left over, could have done with some aging
RJ Cellar Classic Sauvignon Blanc
-- On par with a low-end sauv blanc, used the rest for cooking as we're not white drinkers

Wine Currently (Bulk) Aging
RJ Grand Cru Cabernet Sauvignon
-- Pitched yeast Aug 2009
-- Planning to bottle Apr 2010
Fontana Extraordinaire Australian Shiraz
-- Pitched yeast Aug 2009
-- Planning to bottle July 2010
RJ Grand Cru International Pinot Noir
-- Pitched yeast Feb 2009
-- Planning to bottle June 2010

Making this Year
RJ RQ 2010 Portuguese Trio do Vinho Tinto (Tempranillo, Cab Sauv, Trincadeira)
RJ Grand Cru Coteau Royal
RJ En Primeur Malbec

So the bug has bit me, but only so long as I can convince my other half that this is a worthy venture. If after making the EP Malbec we don't see a quality on par with what we currently enjoy from commercial wineries, I may have to scale back visions of a well stocked cellar with wine made all myself.

I would really like to see some sort of comparison of how kit wines stack up against commercial wineries.

I'm looking forward to sharing my thoughts on these current batches and discussing wine making with all of you!

 

[non-grapenut]

Welcome, Femki! You will find much inspiration here, as well as support when things don't always go the way you planned!

 

[NSwiner]

Hi Darlene,
Is your Gewurztraminer sweet or dry? I've heard it makes a good sweet wine.

Sorry i missed your question earlier we love it and thats only at the early stage it is an Off - dry . I was going to make it my first wine to back sweeten but it didn't need it . Having said that everyone has thier own taste and way they like wines . But this one was easy to tell at the time it was stablized & cleared that we didn't need to sweeten it .

 

[Runningwolf]

I agree with Darlene, This is a fantastic white and no back sweetening needed. I am starting my second batch. The first was a WE Limited Edition and the second is Heron Bay Ultra.