More Strawberry, Peach and Pinot!

On Saturday, before a long bike ride, my friend Tim and I along with my wife went to the local farmers market on the lookout for some fresh fruit - we found some nice Georgia peaches at one of the stands and purchased 3 pounds of them, enough for a gallon. We didn't have time Saturday, and I wanted to get some more ingredients and items before we started, so Id have enough for the coming wines I wanted to make.

So this past Monday I picked him up on our lunch break and we went to the local wine store, L and M and made some purchases. I bought some Pastuer Red yeast, a new 23 liter primary fermenter, and a 6 gallon carboy, along with some new air locks, stoppers, and some course-nylon mesh bags.

Monday night he came over and we made some awesome chicken spedies on the grill, popped open a magnum of Fisheye Pinot Grigio, and got to work cutting the peaches up. we gave them a good mashing and added the sugar water, tannin, yeast nutirent, acid blend and pectic enzyme and acid blend, and yesterday after the must cooled down I added the yeast, so thats starting!

After we cleaned up and finished with the wine, we started on the juice kit of pinot noir I got a while back. I cleaned the primary fermenter and sterilzed everything, added bentonite (Im not sure what that is, have to read about it) and water to the juice and added the oak chips and the yeast, and by yesterday, it was already bubbling and fermenting. Cant wait to sample that. I have to say, it was a lot of fun making wine with a friend!

After really loving the smell of the strawberry wine I made a gallon of and wrote about previously, I decided to make a whole lot more, about 5 gallons worth. I must have looked a little nutty driving home from work yesterday carrying 20 lbs of fresh strawberries in plastic bags on my scooter.

Man, cutting the tops off 20lbs of strawberries takes a while! The most fun part was after I put them in the nylon bag I beat the crap of them with my fists, making a nice frothy strawberry juice. I added 5 lbs of sugar I boiled in water and put the lid on it. The must was still really warm this morning, so I will add the yeast nutirent, acid blend and pectic enzyme tonight when I get home, then add the yeast tomorrow. I should have a lot of Strawberry wine to drink in a few months.


I will be racking a lot of this wine in the next two weeks, and I will upload pics at that time to finally show what my setup looks like.

Secondary Fermentation

Well All Right! Now Im on my way to making some wine! This past weekend I finally got the two wines I started a couple weeks ago into secondary fermenters. I removed the fruit from the strawberry after one week, after the PA (potential alcohol) was about 3-4, using my hydrometer. I then cleaned and sterilized with ammonia two 1 gallon jugs, and stoppers and airlocks, as well as much racking tube. After 2 weeks I did the same with the Blueberry. I let it sit overnight to let it precipitate out and then racked both of them into the clean 1 gallon jugs.

When moving wine with the racking tube, they recommended putting the fermenter three feet above the other while moving wine from one to the other using gravity. Here is a pic of that it looks like. to the right (note, this is NOT my wine setup, however, I WILL ADD some pics of that at some point soon, I promise!)

I had a bit more luck at 4 1/2 feet, and I put the tube to the side of the gallon jug to eliminate a lot of air getting into the mix, so it ran down the side instead of shooting into the middle of the jug, making bubbes and adding air, which IS NOW MY ENEMY. I filled the jugs to just about where the stopper fits, and labeled the outside of them with the date that I racked them. Within hours the sediment was precipitating and I was seeing bubbles, indicating some secondary fermentation was beginning. They will sit for at least a couple months before I rack them again to fine them and remove sediment. I am also looking into getting some marbles to add to the bottom of the fermenter to add volume to bring the level to the top again after I rack it again. This was recommended by my good friend Mike Sears, and I think its a great idea.

We had very warm weather here in Syracuse over the last few weeks, and with no air conditioning in my house, it provided an excellent environmentfor fermenting!

The strawberry smells awesome! Not like the blueberry, which smells very yeasty still. Im not sure if thats something I should be worried about, but man, it smelled good enough to drink already!

Next Stop: Peach, More Strawberry and Pinot Noir! My first real grape wine, which should be an interesting experience, of which I will write all about! My good friend Tim Wheeler requested when asked that he would like to see a peach wine, so Im going to bring him over one day soon and show him how to make one. Also, strawberries are cheap and in season now, so I am thinking about getting about 20lbs and trying to make an even larger batch of 5 gallons.

Blueberry and Strawberry Goodness - two new wines a'comin!

For my first two, I created the must in a 6 gallon primary fermenter for each fruit instead of of the way-too-small 1 gallon fermenter, to much better effect.  I used 4lbs of strawberries and 4 pints of blueberry for each, and about 3 quarts of water and 2 lbs of sugar for each. I cooked the water and sugar together, cut up the fruit, removing any nasty bits or stems and put them in a straining bag - I then added the pectic enzyme, tannin and yeast nutrient and let it sit for 24 hours.  I didn't use a campden tablet, decided not to, cause I would like to try to make wine without sulfites.  I also used ammonia to sterilize all my tools, instead of potassium metabisulfite (pot meta), since thats another source of sulfites in wine.  I've read much that sterilizing with ammonia, and cleaning it very well with hot water can of course be a very good sterilizing agent, as long as you make sure "every last molecule" of ammonia is washed away.  Yesterday I added my yeast after the must had cooled.  I chose Pasteur instead of montrachet, since I wanted to try something new.  I will see how it turns out in a few months!!!  

Stay tuned! As soon as my 6 gallon fermenters are free again, I am going to start a pinot noir from a juice kit I got.

I will let you know how the racking into the secondary fermenter and the hydrometer tests work out for me.