February Wine of the Month Club

This is open to anyone who wants to join in.
All participants make a 1 gallon batch of wine.

Post your recipes, any updates and/or photos, and at the end of the month we will all post a summary of what we could have done better on a particular batch (and how), something that went very well, and something that was learned.
Posting the experience gained is not a requirement, but I think it will help a lot since most of us that are participating are beginners. It is also a way to keep positive and look back and see how much we have learned.

In one year, February 2015, we will begin drinking our wine and post our findings/impressions, etc, for each bottle consumed.

This month's participants:

1. Stressbaby.....Calamondin-Passionfruit Wine

2. Ckvchestnut.....Blueberry/Peach Port

3. The Rayway.....Pink Lady Tea Wine

4. Jericurl.....Bray's One Month Mead variation

5. Wineforfun.....Spiced Apple Wine

6. Jericurl.....Ars Amatoria Wine

7. LoneStarLori.....Reisling kit (with a berry twist)

8. The Rayway.....Jasmine Tea Mead

This month I plan on doing a flavored mead.

I've got cheap honey from Sam's club and I'm thinking of doing a BOMM.
I'll need to order some different yeast to use and decide if I'm going to do any flavoring at all. I'll probably go with ginger and vanilla.

I'd love to join in but have no idea what to make... It seems you all have made so many so far! I'd have to think about what to make lol

How many months has this been going on and I would have to go through all the threads to make sure I don't duplicate anything... Has anyone done any ports? I'd be interested in trying some kind of port maybe....

Hey... I have an idea - I'm about to start. 6gal blueberry/quad berry wine. I could split off 1 or 3 gals to make a port out of it... Has that been done on these threads? I think I saw that Rayway did something with blueberries but not sure if that was part of the wine of the month club. I'm thinking along the lines of blueberry/banana or blueberry/peach! What do you al think??

Carolyn, we just do whatever seems interesting to us. We started in November and it certainly isn't too late. You can do whatever kind you want and it doesn't matter if it has been done. That's part of the beauty of this. If it was a total flop, you get to learn from someone else's problems.
Most of us do a 1 gal since they are "experiments",but you can do as much as you want. A blueberry port sounds awesome!
I think I'm going to do a carrot ginger for this month but I want to look at a few other things first.

Here are the links to the other months. As you will see, this is very casual. Welcome aboard!


November 2013 WOTM

December 2013 WOTM

January 2104 WOTM

LoneStarLori said:

Carolyn, we just do whatever seems interesting to us. We started in November and it certainly isn't too late. You can do whatever kind you want and it doesn't matter if it has been done. That's part of the beauty of this. If it was a total flop, you get to learn from someone else's problems.

Most of us do a 1 gal since they are "experiments",but you can do as much as you want. A blueberry port sounds awesome!

I think I'm going to do a carrot ginger for this month but I want to look at a few other things first.



Here are the links to the other months. As you will see, this is very casual. Welcome aboard!





November 2013 WOTM



December 2013 WOTM



January 2104 WOTM

Click to expand...

Thanks so much Lori! I appreciate the warm welcome! So I spoke to my daughter about this and she voted for blueberry/peach so I think I'll take a stab at trying that in a port!

Carrot and ginger sounds good! I can picture a carrot cake wine lol! Love this forum

Carrot cake. Hmm didn't think of it that way. I can serve it with cream cheese frosting on the rim. Lol


Sent from my iPhone 5s

I want my carrot cake and eat it too....not drink it...lol
you guys come up with some dandys

Hi all

I enjoyed last month, and hope to join again this month. But since right now I have to focus all my attention on getting my greenhouse sterile and functional to start next years seeds I don't know if I'll have time. If I do, I have some kiwi apple strawberry waiting in the wings to be my next batch.

I've been using juice concentrates as fpaks and now I'm finding that the wine are a bit too sweet for my taste. They were perfect when I finished, but as others have warned they pick up a bit more sweetness with time. So I've called a halt to fpaks, and will focus more on blending wines.

Pam in cinti

I'm pondering a Pink Lady Tea wine or mead, it'a a white tea with citrus and rose buds. More to come!

Rosebuds!!! awesome. Where on earth are you going to get rosebuds now when you live in Canada?

Pam in cinti

Those wines sound good Ray and Pam! So I have my ingredients to start a blueberry/peach port... This is going to be fun!

Rae,
I'm thinking I may do something similar and just do two batches for February.
I've got several cans of white grape juice, some dried rosebuds and dried rosehips. I think it would make a nice "dozen" roses to give out for Valentines Day 2015. I've been reading here that D47 yeast makes a nice white wine out of the welch's concentrate.

Tee-Hee, I'm such a noob that pretty much anything I make is still an "experiment". I have stuff to make a couple of oddballs already purchased, i.e. coffee, skittles, blueberry, candy canes, werthers... I suppose I could throw one of those in. Was gonna start 'em soon anyway.

Sadly. I'm taking a pass this month. No ability to brew right now. I'm with you in spirit.


Jim

The wife and I are doing a blueberry dessert wine. This is only our third wine so I'm sure we're going to learn a lot. And by that I mean...we're going to screw some stuff up.::

Lol! Sound like it's going to be an interesting month! Jim - I'm sorry you won't be able to join us, but there's always next month

Pam - the rosebuds are already in there! The tea I'm thinking of using is a blend from a girl who does those home show things. It's really good stuff, so I think it will make a very decent wine.

Jeri - I've heard the same thing about D47. I just have to comment that the BA11 I used on my traditional mead is totally the best smelling fermenting yeast I've encountered yet. Diesel was totally on with that one. I'm thinking I will use it with the Pink Lady as well just to see what happens.

I just placed an order for Wyeast 1388 for my mead. I have planned on doing a BOMM style mead and all my reading shows it works best for this type. Also, despite being an ale yeast, it tops out at 12% so I can tinker around with how much alcohol I actually want in my finished mead.

I'm kicking myself though....for some odd reason I thought I already had a packet of the D47.
All I have left is EC-1118, Lalvin K1V-1116, and Redstar Montrachet.
Off to do more research I guess. I'm not about to put in another order and pay shipping on one lousy packet of yeast.

Jim,
We will miss you this month!
But as you said, you will be with us in spirit. Also, you can point and laugh at any mistakes we make.

Question - what counts as WotM?
I have a calamondin wine to make. My goal is to make it exactly like the last one which turned out great. It isn't really experimental though.
My other choice would be Cranberry Pomegranate from William Sonoma concentrate. Not exactly "home grown" though...

It's all good stress baby. Join in. Post your recipe and let us know how it proceeds, tastes, any tweaks etc. this is a great group and we've found some good, bad, and ugly recipes. Lol.


Jim