What are your 2017 goals?

[wpt-me]

I hope to make more wine, maybe a kit or two. Remake a few fruit wine that i really liked.
But am hoping for better health for my G.F.so she can enjoy the spoils with me.

Bill

 

[brewbush]

I am planning to finish my kits that are on standby. Get the 3 fruit wines started from homewinery: Raspberry, Blackberry, and Passionfruit. Maybe make the blackberry into a port.

I plan to finish up with my Keezer project. Putting last coats of polyurethane on the collar. 8 taps. Planning on a carbonated IM peach/apricot chardonnay and 1-2 other wines pushed with nitrogen. Of course beer for the rest =)

Have a lot to bottle. It seems I am addicted to making wine....we just have a problem with drinking it.

 

[jswordy]

2017 goals:

1.) Get the blueberries planted in the shade moved up to fill some sunny spots where other blueberry plants died. Get the new portable irrigation system I glued up in place in spring so I can have a full year of watering this time and improve yields next year.

2.) Make a late winter/early spring scuppernong wine. I am hopeful one of the vineyards where I get grapes froze scuppernong late grapes in 2016, as she often does if there are any left after the pickers. Have to call soon to see.

3.) Finish bottling the remaining 5 gallons of my 15-gallon muscadine batch, then bottle the 9 gallons of Bell Bottom Blues blueberry and the 6 gallons of my first blackberry effort. I tasted a bunch of commercial blackberry wines this summer, and thought, "Meh, I can do at least this or better." So we'll see.

4.) I am down to my last 4 bottles of 2012 Norton, so I may want to try that this fall again.

5.) One of my vineyards has begun growing Marquette, so I may buy some of those and try a wine this fall.

6.) Of course, fall batches with gallons of my favorites, fresh muscadine and scuppernong. Using the old recipe I got handed down and matching that with modern finishing techniques, it is not foxy. Love it. Every wine at Sweetpea Farms is made from 100% native American ingredients (unless I cave and do the Marquette!).

7.) I have some leftover beer supplies and I need to make those up pretty soon. There are maybe 3-4 batches left. Probably late January/early February. It is warming up here too quick for lagering, so I we'll see if we get a cold snap. I am likely going to quit making beers after I use up the ingredients I have on hand.

8.) Under edit, oh yeah: I want to try to have a late spring Interesting Wine and Interesting People gathering at my place. Not sure if this will come off, since my wife is basically a hermit, but really want to try to gather up many of the cool folks I have met around here by handing out bottles and just let them all mingle with each other. We'll see.

 

[ceeaton]

7.) I have some leftover beer supplies and I need to make those up pretty soon. There are maybe 3-4 batches left. Probably late January/early February. It is warming up here too quick for lagering, so I we'll see if we get a cold snap. I am likely going to quit making beers after I use up the ingredients I have on hand.

Ever thought of making a California Commnon (Anchor Steam) type beer? I believe it uses a lager yeast fermented at higher temperatures (the WLP810 - San Francisco Lager yeast can give good results up to 65*F). Tends to be heavily hopped, but that usually isn't a problem around here.

I have reached my main goal by making three all grain batches since the new year started. Feels like my technique got better with each successive batch (Pale Ale/Premium bitter, Oktoberfest, Robust Porter).

 

[Boatboy24]

@ceeaton: next time we meet, bring some beer.

 

[ceeaton]

@ceeaton: next time we meet, bring some beer.

I have until April/May (Harford Chilean juice/grapes) to make some up, what is your favorite type?

I'm shopping LP for bulk malt as I think it will help curb my excessive spending on wine kits. I can get a 55 lb bag of Avangard Pilsen or Pale Malt delivered for less than a WE low end kit. That 55 lbs will make either 9 English Bitter/Pale Ale type beers (low gravity) or 5 really nasty alcoholic high gravity beers (or a mixture of both).

I think I'm finding out that I just like to make yeast happy by supplying something for it to eat. I just love the beer brewing process and am fascinated by the wine making process.

Edit: thinking about it a bit more as I drink a beer, I think I could be classified as a fermentation junkie.

 

[jgmann67]

My goal.

http://www.pennlive.com/news/2017/01/attorney_for_state_house_is_ca.html#incart_river_mobile_home

 

[ceeaton]

My goal.

http://www.pennlive.com/news/2017/01/attorney_for_state_house_is_ca.html#incart_river_mobile_home

Mann cites his wide range of life experience, in addition to his legal skills, as equipping him for the job of judge.

I don't see a reference to making wine as a life experience....

 

[Boatboy24]

I have until April/May (Harford Chilean juice/grapes) to make some up, what is your favorite type?

I'm shopping LP for bulk malt as I think it will help curb my excessive spending on wine kits. I can get a 55 lb bag of Avangard Pilsen or Pale Malt delivered for less than a WE low end kit. That 55 lbs will make either 9 English Bitter/Pale Ale type beers (low gravity) or 5 really nasty alcoholic high gravity beers (or a mixture of both).

I think I'm finding out that I just like to make yeast happy by supplying something for it to eat. I just love the beer brewing process and am fascinated by the wine making process.

Edit: thinking about it a bit more as I drink a beer, I think I could be classified as a fermentation junkie.

I like IPA's, Porter, Stout, Octoberfest-style. I'm a big fan of Dogfishead, if that gives you any guidance. Starting to think about spring now, but not sure that I'll have any carboy space (or intestinal fortitude) to do Chileans this year.

 

[ceeaton]

I like IPA's, Porter, Stout, Octoberfest-style. I'm a big fan of Dogfishead, if that gives you any guidance. Starting to think about spring now, but not sure that I'll have any carboy space (or intestinal fortitude) to do Chileans this year.

Got it, that's up my alley (as far as beer styles). All the styles you mention do well in the bottle. Sometimes I even bottle off the keg (have a counter-pressure bottle filler device, less sediment that way).

There is always UPS if you don't show up for Spring ingredients. I doubt @jgmann67 will have time this year with his campaign in full swing...here comes the judge, here comes the judge...(glad I live in a different County, he might throw the book at me otherwise).

 

[jgmann67]

Mann cites his wide range of life experience, in addition to his legal skills, as equipping him for the job of judge.



I don't see a reference to making wine as a life experience....

Hopefully when they get more depth to their stories that will come out.

 

[ceeaton]

Hopefully when they get more depth to their stories that will come out.

We'll use that as our measuring stick as to whether they are doing a good job of digging or not.

 

[ceeaton]

I'm a big fan of Dogfishead, if that gives you any guidance. .

Is that the Dogfish Head 90 minute IPA? I see a real recipe for that one that I can follow...

 

[Boatboy24]

Is that the Dogfish Head 90 minute IPA? I see a real recipe for that one that I can follow...

That is one of theirs that I like.

 

[dcbrown73]

* Watch how the government change in power unfolds with great trepidation considering the current level of hysteria.
* Make my first wine from grapes.
* Make my first port style wine.
* I thought about sending bottles into a competition, but that might be better next year once I have a fully 2 year aged red.
* Make more wine of varietals I haven't made yet.
* Try my hand at my first blended wine.

 

[jswordy]

Ever thought of making a California Commnon (Anchor Steam) type beer? I believe it uses a lager yeast fermented at higher temperatures (the WLP810 - San Francisco Lager yeast can give good results up to 65*F). Tends to be heavily hopped, but that usually isn't a problem around here.

I have reached my main goal by making three all grain batches since the new year started. Feels like my technique got better with each successive batch (Pale Ale/Premium bitter, Oktoberfest, Robust Porter).

I primarily got into it in the first place because all I heard was about how anyone could make wine but oh it was soooooo hard to brew. Not hard for me at all. I could make tasty malty ales like I like them forever, no worries.

Beer just doesn't agree with me health-wise, way too many aches and pains after even just two that are low gluten. Making it just means there is more of it around to tempt me. So, did that, glad I did not spring for tons of equipment, phasing out. Going back to wine.

I'll still have made a few hundred bottles of beer by the time I am done using up my remaining supplies. Still 5-6 batches worth left.

 

[JohnT]

I primarily got into it in the first place because all I heard was about how anyone could make wine but oh it was soooooo hard to brew. Not hard for me at all. I could make tasty malty ales like I like them forever, no worries.

Beer just doesn't agree with me health-wise, way too many aches and pains after even just two that are low gluten. Making it just means there is more of it around to tempt me. So, did that, glad I did not spring for tons of equipment, phasing out. Going back to wine.

I'll still have made a few hundred bottles of beer by the time I am done using up my remaining supplies. Still 5-6 batches worth left.

I think beer is much easier than wine. Beer uses a recipe and can be replicated over and over and over again every 3 to 6 weeks. Not so with wine.

 

[Stressbaby]

My goals:
* Establish the vineyard - 120 vines have been ordered; trellises are up, 7 x 144' rows; the irrigation system is ready to install, just waiting for spring.
* Pick the brains of a couple of local guys who between them have 14 acres of grapes - talk them into teaching me to prune and learn their spray schedule.
* Medal at KCCM Wine Classic - entered 6 wines, we'll see.
* Get a good, drinkable Chambourcin from grapes picked last fall - so far so good on this one, bulk aging; I like this grape

 

[ceeaton]

I think beer is much easier than wine. Beer uses a recipe and can be replicated over and over and over again every 3 to 6 weeks. Not so with wine.

Good luck getting your strike temperature (water temperature if you do an infusion mash) the same every time. Small changes in sparge water (pH, hardness, temperature) can affect the extract you get from a pound of malt. Then there is the variability of the malt itself, each malting has a spec sheet you rarely get to see. Hops degrade over time and have different bittering values from year to year. The rate of your boil can greatly effect the IBU's you extract from the hops. Sanitation is multiple times more important with a finished product in the 4 - 6% ABV range on average. I feel there are many more variables to all grain beer brewing, with one added consideration. Any one small miscalculation in beer brewing is less likely to make a batch undrinkable verses a small miscalculation in wine making. Plus you can turn a batch from scatch in as little as two weeks (I've done it in 8 days when kegging). So it is much easier to make up for any mistakes in the next batch, where with wine that mistake may have occupied a carboy for two years or more. Just my three cents (inflation).

 

[JohnT]

Good luck getting your strike temperature (water temperature if you do an infusion mash) the same every time. Small changes in sparge water (pH, hardness, temperature) can affect the extract you get from a pound of malt. Then there is the variability of the malt itself, each malting has a spec sheet you rarely get to see. Hops degrade over time and have different bittering values from year to year. The rate of your boil can greatly effect the IBU's you extract from the hops. Sanitation is multiple times more important with a finished product in the 4 - 6% ABV range on average. I feel there are many more variables to all grain beer brewing, with one added consideration. Any one small miscalculation in beer brewing is less likely to make a batch undrinkable verses a small miscalculation in wine making. Plus you can turn a batch from scatch in as little as two weeks (I've done it in 8 days when kegging). So it is much easier to make up for any mistakes in the next batch, where with wine that mistake may have occupied a carboy for two years or more. Just my three cents (inflation).

So what to the pros do? Why does, say, a Sam Adams taste exactly the same year after year? (Not attempting to criticize. Just really curious).