What R you doing today?

[StevenD55]

Waiting for Valiant must to reach temperature so I can pitch the yeast.

The clusters were stemmed and ithe berries frozen whole from what I harvested last fall. Now I am thawing them so that I can make a batch of about 10 gallons from these grapes.

 

[barbiek]

Started my black cherry Pinot Noir today, tweaked oooh it's gonna be gooood! Added grape concentrate, 2 cups of the f pack that came with the kit, banana and raisin sg 1.090 took it to 5 1/2 gal. Was only going to take it to 5 but I didn't want a higher Abv cuz I know adding the banana and raisins will take it up a notch

 

[CheerfulHeart]

Started a World Vineyard 1 gallon kit last night--Moscato. If it turns out as tasty as it sounds, I will buy the larger kit.

 

[Julie]

bottled the muscadine red, noble and Niagara blend. Thinking of calling it Northern Royalty. Bottled the Deleware as well.

 

[cmason1957]

Started chocolate covered cherry wine. A case and a half of the durn things. Glad they are $0.30 per box.

 

[Boatboy24]

Mixed up the WS Amarone. Surprisingly, SG of only 1.094. I usually let them sit a few hours before pitching so we'll see what kind of change in the SG occurs. Ive done the WS Super Tuscan twice now and those were both over 1.100. There was a little surprise at the bottom of the box: a 375g pouch of raisins. No mention of them in the instructions, but I'm going to use them in secondary.

 

[ffemt128]

Ran a new 50 amp 220 line to the rear patio. Will finish the remainder of the wiring tomorrow. I'll have to get some flexible conduit to finish the connection to the intended recipient.

 

[ibglowin]

One of these?

Ran a new 50 amp 220 line to the rear patio. Will finish the remainder of the wiring tomorrow. I'll have to get some flexible conduit to finish the connection to the intended recipient.

 

[ffemt128]

One of these?

Yes Sir... Now being delivered on Friday due to snow.

 

[barbiek]

@cmason1957 where did you score the chocolate covered cherries so cheap?

 

[Double Daylo]

Started chocolate covered cherry wine. A case and a half of the durn things. Glad they are $0.30 per box.

Now that looks interesting. Do you just boil them down? Do you have issues with the chocolate solidifying during the process or once in bottles?

 

[Hokapsig]

The chocolate drops out and you toss it. Eventually the wine comes out as a dark yellowish color.

 

[cmason1957]

@cmason1957 where did you score the chocolate covered cherries so cheap?

Wal Mart a few days after Christmas. You might have to go a few days in a row and decide when they are cheap enough for you. They start out at $0.75, then to $0.50 and finally $0.33 or 30. They always have a few cases left over.

The recipe comes from Jack Keller site. He has two versions with varying amounts called for. One calls for 1 lb / gallon, the other has slightly different ingredients and 8 boxes / gallon.

 

[Double Daylo]

Racked 30 gallons last night. Good lord every time I use our AllInOne pump I love it more. Made quick very easy work of racking 6 carboys. Also bottled our strawberry mango. Not going to be the best wine on the planet but time will tell. Should still be pretty tastey.

 

[jayhkr]

Going to continue degassing 6 - 1 gallon bottles of DB. Instead of doing one bottle at a time, I'm thinking of setting up a contraption to do 3-6 of them at a time. We'll see how that works!

 

[Boatboy24]

My oldest had a b-ball game this morning. Then the wife sent me to the grocery store while I was out. She should know better. The shopping center closest to the game also has Total Wine. As if it were divine intervention, I got an email during the game from TW with a coupon for 20% off "Old World" wine. Grabbed a few bottles of reserve Aglianico. Normally $19.99 and a steal at $15.99. Also got a few bottles of Amador Zinfandel. I want to try a few next to my 2014 to compare. After lunch, I think I'm going to do some blending trials and see how that Zin is with a little of my 2013 Petite Sirah mixed in. I just have this feeling that a little of that PS will make this a 'knock your socks off' Zin. We shall see. I'm going to try it with a little of the 2015 PS as well. It's a better wine and isn't in bottles yet. Also need to do an acid reduction test on 1 gallon of my 2015 Cab.

Edit: Well, that was fun! I started by doing a side by side compare of a 2013 commercial Amador Zin to mine from the barrel. Mine has better color and overall, the flavors are stronger. Both the spice and fruit. Tannin-wise, I think the commercial version had just a tad more. I did notice in looking at the two side by side that mine might have a slightly oxidized color - very, very slight, or it's just a normal difference between two wines. Then I did some blending experimentation adding a few different proportions of both my 2015 (obviously very young) and 2013 (already in the bottle) Petite Sirahs. Ultimately, I settled on using somewhere between 14-16% of my 2013. 10% was good, but bumping it up really made a difference. I'm excited about this, as it's my first real attempt at blending. I have about 9 gallons of the zin, so the resulting batch will be a little over ten gallons. 6 gallons of the Zin will be coming out of the barrel in a week or two. Then I'll blend and bottle sometime late this winter or in early spring.

 

[cmason1957]

I am doing one of the best things of being a parent. Well grandparent. My daughter and son in law had somewhere to be, so I am with the grandkids. We had great fun, age pizza and chocolate cookies, played hungry, hungry hippos, wrestled. Now they are in bed, they always go down so easy for me. Maybe I wear them or as much as they wear me out.

 

[Matty_Kay]

Racked a batch of dragons blood to secondary and getting ready to host a Steelers playoff party.

 

[Boatboy24]

32-ish and flurries the last several hours. I was informed on our way home from church that I'm making chili for dinner. Chicken set aside for tomorrow. I just got back from the store, settling to watch a little playoff football and start cooking soon.

 

[Johnd]

Just finished racking my Chard from the bucket to carboy, prepping my 23l Vadai for wine, and soaking some rabbits from my weekend hunt, will be making rabbit and sausage gumbo. Got some crawfish pies in the oven. Good Day!!