March 2015 Wine of the Month Club

BernardSmith said:

As the philosopher Wittgenstein wrote "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."

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Ergo, I must remain mum regarding Wittgenstein!

I've done a grapefruit & raisin wine before as per a Jack Keller recipe. It tasted just like grapefruits - and very acidic.

I wanted to try again but with a variation. I'm thinking a gallon of grapefruit juice, 2lbs of blueberries, and 2lbs of bananas. I'm hoping to reduce some of the acid edge with bananas.

Any thoughts before I kick this off?

Ok...here we go!

This is going to be both a flavor experiment and an experiment in using less ingredients.
I've been on Reddit and some of the other mead sites, as well as blogs and quite a few people are making mead without a lot of additives. This may end up being an epic bomb but I wanted to try it on for size.
This will be a 2 gallon batch


Juniper Grapefruit Mead

2 Star Anise
40 juniper berries
6 lbs honey
40 raisins
1 gallon water (plus 1 quart to take care of racking shortage)
1 gallon ruby red grapefruit juice
D47 yeast


Crush juniper berries. Add star anise and juniper to one gallon of water, bring to a boil. Remove from heat and let steep for one hour.
Strain solids.
Add honey and raisins, return to heat. Heat just enough to mix well. Add to carboy along with grapefruit juice.
When cool enough, pitch yeast.

Starting gravity is at 1.09.

I started my batch of apple cyser - 3 gallons with yellow and dark raisons, clove, nutmeg and cinnamon. Hope the yeast take off soon

X_diver I like the flavor profile you are thinking about. If you do decide to make it I will follow along

February got away from me too, so I finally decided it was time to make some time for this experiment! I'm making 6 one gallon batches. I caught the close-out for cranberries after the holidays and began looking at recipes. Then I began reading about different yeasts and was unsure which one I wanted to use. Thus this experiment. For each one gallon batch I added:
3 1/2 lbs cranberries (swirled in food processor)
7 3/4 oz golden raisins (chopped)
1 banana, peeled and cut up
The above ingredients I put into a mesh bag
1 quart Knudsen unsweetened cranberry juice
4 oz orange juice concentrate
2 1/2 quarts water
1/2 tsp nutrient
1/2 tsp energizer
1 tsp pectic enzyme
1/2 campden tablet
1/4 tsp liquid tannin

The above was mixed together, then to each was added 22 oz sugar. (At this time I really thought I got a reading of 1.088) I let this sit for 36 hours, squishing the bags a few times. Then prepared my yeasts. To separate bowls I added 1/3 cup tepid water and sprinkled 4 oz of yeast. The 6 that made the final cut are: RC212, 58W3, BM4x4, Rhone, W15, and RHST. I was as careful as I could be to open one bag and sprinkle into one of the bowls, then bring it to another place in the kitchen so to avoid any cross-contamination. However no sealed rooms were in place! Uncovering the first bucket, I found the sg reading to be only 1.070, so added 5 more oz of sugar to bring the sg up to 1.086. Much to my surprise and relief the other 5 buckets read about the same and 5 more oz of sugar was added to each bucket. Then I pitched the softened yeast into the separate buckets. My plan is to add another 1/2 tsp nutrient in a few days depending on how fermentation is going. As it is winter my work space for the wine is about 68 so I do not expect a fast ferment. I just hope after going through all this, in a years time my pallet will be refined enough to really taste subtle differences! I have taken pictures and if I can figure out how to post them I'll do that!

Got mine started today too!

Blackberry-Apricot Melomel
- 6.75 Lbs Canola Honey
- Water to 10L
- 2 tsp Go-Ferm
- BA 11 Yeast

I got the Go-Ferm/Yeast mixture going, then put the honey into the pail. Added really hot water to about 7L, then mixed to dissolve. Added cold water to 10L.

Added the must to the Go-Ferm/Yeast mixture as indicated in the Go-Ferm instructions. Then pitched the yeast. I've put it into a cool room and will try and get my nutrient additions right.

Pictures to come

Kicked off mine yesterday.

1 gallon of pink grapefruit juice
2lbs of blueberries
1lb of very ripe bananas with skins
1 Camden tablet

Let sit overnight. Added 1/2 tsp of pectic enzyme this morning.

Going to test acidity tonight. If it's too high, I was going to add a bit of calcium carbonate. Never used it before so any suggestions are welcome.

Will test sugar tonight too and adjust to SG 1.085. Then pitch yeast - EC-1118.

Hey @x_diver, not sure if you have done much with calcium carbonate before? Just in case, here's a little excerpt from morewinemaking.com :

"Potassium Carbonate or Calcium?
Note: Using potassium carbonate requires that the fermenter be stored cold (below 40 F) for several weeks after the application. During the period of cold stabilization the tartaric acid drops out as potassium bitartarate. Calcium carbonate can be used in a similar manner and does not require cold stabilization. However it can adversely affects flavor if you are trying to make an adjustment of more than 0.3 pH units, and takes a month to precipitate out of solution."

Not sure how much it will affect the flavour, but I just wanted to mention

Jericurl said:

Ok...here we go!

This is going to be both a flavor experiment and an experiment in using less ingredients.
I've been on Reddit and some of the other mead sites, as well as blogs and quite a few people are making mead without a lot of additives. This may end up being an epic bomb but I wanted to try it on for size.
This will be a 2 gallon batch


Juniper Grapefruit Mead

2 Star Anise
40 juniper berries
6 lbs honey
40 raisins
1 gallon water (plus 1 quart to take care of racking shortage)
1 gallon ruby red grapefruit juice
D47 yeast


Crush juniper berries. Add star anise and juniper to one gallon of water, bring to a boil. Remove from heat and let steep for one hour.
Strain solids.
Add honey and raisins, return to heat. Heat just enough to mix well. Add to carboy along with grapefruit juice.
When cool enough, pitch yeast.

Starting gravity is at 1.09.

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Dang Jeri, you and that anise. You have me using it now. Waiting to see how it tastes in my "Jeri's Christmas Cheer". One bottle, I left one of the anise seeds in there.
Do you leave your stars whole? I ended up breaking them up to get the seeds out, thinking that would impart more flavor. Not sure though.

the_rayway said:

Got mine started today too!

Blackberry-Apricot Melomel
- 6.75 Lbs Canola Honey
- Water to 10L
- 2 tsp Go-Ferm
- BA 11 Yeast

I got the Go-Ferm/Yeast mixture going, then put the honey into the pail. Added really hot water to about 7L, then mixed to dissolve. Added cold water to 10L.

Added the must to the Go-Ferm/Yeast mixture as indicated in the Go-Ferm instructions. Then pitched the yeast. I've put it into a cool room and will try and get my nutrient additions right.

Pictures to come

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Really interested in this one Rae. Are you waiting to add your fruit or is it already bagged and in primary?

wineforfun said:

Really interested in this one Rae. Are you waiting to add your fruit or is it already bagged and in primary?

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Hey D.J.!
I'm planning to put the fruit into secondary, as I really want to keep that fresh flavour and not have it blown out the airlock per se.

Also, the darn fruit is still with my parents, so I need to plan a drive to their place to pick it up, then thaw it.

Dang Jeri, you and that anise. You have me using it now.

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Lol....er...sorry about that. I think 2015 might be the year of the anise.

I usually just leave them whole and toss them in. I figure the alcohol will do a good job of extracting what needs to come out.
With this batch, I didn't want it to end up as a predominant flavor, so I boiled the juniper berries and whole anise, let it steep for an hour, then strained and used the water only.
I'm probably going to cover some anise pods in a half pint jar and cover with vodka for a few weeks as well. If the anise doesn't come through in the mead, I'd add a little of the vodka until I get the taste I'm looking for.

the_rayway said:

Hey @x_diver, not sure if you have done much with calcium carbonate before? Just in case, here's a little excerpt from morewinemaking.com :

"Potassium Carbonate or Calcium?
Note: Using potassium carbonate requires that the fermenter be stored cold (below 40 F) for several weeks after the application. During the period of cold stabilization the tartaric acid drops out as potassium bitartarate. Calcium carbonate can be used in a similar manner and does not require cold stabilization. However it can adversely affects flavor if you are trying to make an adjustment of more than 0.3 pH units, and takes a month to precipitate out of solution."

Not sure how much it will affect the flavour, but I just wanted to mention

Click to expand...

Didn't need to adjust acid at all. PH is 3.47. Interesting. Only had to adjust sugar and pitch yeast.

Didn't need to adjust acid at all. pH was 3.47. Only added sugar and pitched yeast.

I had pitched the yeast on all 6 buckets on Monday, and as of Thursday morning there was no activity in 3 of the buckets. So I added another 1/2 tsp of GoFerm to all 6 buckets and finally by last night the 3 stragglers got going! I'll post a chart of the progress, but the fastest fermenter so far is the BM4x4 with an sg this morning of 1.024. The slowest is the 58W3 at only 1.081, but the Rhone and W15 are the other straggles! But at least I "see" activity! I ended up leaving them in my kitchen as my work room plunges to about 55 overnight and I wanted a little better control of the ambient temperature. This is really the first time my husband has seen the wine in progress! He didn't realize I mess with the buckets twice a day. He thought I just started the wine and let it go! I'm loving the smell in my house, especially when I've been out and come back into a house smelling of ferment.

I'm loving the smell in my house, especially when I've been out and come back into a house smelling of ferment.[/QUOTE]

lol, makes you wonder if someone has been in there mixing up a big batch of bread. Arne.

Its been a week and my cyser has come along nicely! It is at 1.012 right now and the cup of raisons added have fermented down to a few tablespoons. I took out the cloves (hubby is not the biggest fan of cloves) and am planning on racking to secondary sometime this week.

How is everyone else's March batch coming along?

Mine is fermenting very slowly. Which is what I was hoping for! It's only down to 1.080 after 5 days of fermentation. Trying to nail these additions!

Smells wonderful. This BA11 has one of the nicest fermenting smells I've come across yet.

How is everyone else's March batch coming along?

S.G. at 1.01 so I racked today.

I've got two gallons. So far, so good. Definitely have the puckering grapefruit taste. Neither the anise or juniper is coming through, but I'm not concerned. If there has to be another addition at tertiary then so be it.