What are you making and what have you made ???

[sour_grapes]

OK then, GF. I'm pretty new to this. Explain to me why you need temps to fall? I'm in Jackson WY and using my master bathroom to make sure the temp is high enough for fermentation. Where are you in Montana that it's too hot in April to start a wine? or am I just completely confused here (not the first time )

He JOINED in April. He posted that message in September....

 

[TemperanceOwl]

I just started a Black Raspberry Merlot pyment (mead) using the WE Island Mist BRM kit.
I've got WE Eclipse Italian Nebbiolo (Borolo) and WE Selection International Italian Brunello on FedEx trucks on their way right now, to be started as soon as the pyment is in secondary.
Oh, and fresh strawberry from fruit ready to be bottled in the next week or two, to free up a carboy.

 

[gratus_fermentatio]

OK then, GF. I'm pretty new to this. Explain to me why you need temps to fall? I'm in Jackson WY and using my master bathroom to make sure the temp is high enough for fermentation. Where are you in Montana that it's too hot in April to start a wine? or am I just completely confused here (not the first time )

I posted that September 3rd, 2015; 7 days ago. Temps are forecast to be in the mid 80's here in the Missoula area this weekend. I don't have much temp control for my fermentations, so I wait till the ambient temps are more suitable & easier to control before starting any.

I usually start fermenting/brewing in early autumn & will go thru late spring. High fermentation temps will often cause yeast to produce fusel alcohols & other off flavors (depending on the strain of course), and the process of fermentation generates heat, as much as 10 degrees F. So an ambient temp of 60*F often makes for an actual fermentation temp of 70*F. I try to keep all my fermentation temps at the low end of the recommended range. Makes for a much cleaner fermentation & better product, often reduces aging time too.
Regards, GF.

 

[PierreR]

So today I racked a Valpolicella from primary to secondary.

I have a crabapple in secondary carboy three weeks now.

I have a Saskatoon berry wine, getting close to to finishing up secondary ferment, still the odd bubble!

And a peach from last year, left to clear in bulk. Just finished fining it for a little extra polish. Will bottle on next days off.

All 5 gallon (23 liter) batches.

 

[heatherd]

My husband bought me the equipment kit and a cranberry malbec wine kit in for my birthday in December 2012. The rest is history, I guess! I have included the start dates, not the bottling dates, below.

Here's my list:

Kits 6g
-12/28/12 Island Mist Cranberry Malbec
-2/2/13 Grand Cru International California Muscat
-3/15/13 Mosti Mondiale Montepulciano
-3/21/13 Mosti Mondiale Chardasia
-5/22/13 Meglioni Moscato Italiano
-6/16/2013 RJS Grand Cru California Moscato
-7/18/13 Tangerine Lemon Sauvignon Blanc
-9/11/13 RJS Cru Select Chilean Malbec
-10/11/13 Meglioli Marzemino
-1/2/14 Winexpert Eclipse Italian Barolo
-1/4/14 RJS Cellar Classic Winery Series Italian Super Tuscan
-2/16/14 Mezza Luna White
-2/23/14 Grand Cru International British Columbian Pinot Noir
-3/23/14 Kenridge LE2014 Italy Primitivo Showcase Collection - WMT AWARD WINNING!
-4/13/14 Winexpert Selection International South African Chenin Blanc
-7/4/14 Winexpert LE2013 Willamette Valley Oregon Pinot Noir
-7/4/14 Orchard Breezin' Seville Orange Sangria
-8/13/14 Vineco Cellar Craft Sterling California Sauvignon Blanc
-8/13/14 Winexpert LE2014 Selection International Grenache Rose
-1/6/15 RQ14 Spanish Monastrell Petit Verdot
-1/16/15 Selection California Chardonnay
-1/16/15 RQ14 Italian Nero D'Avola
-6/7/15 Mosti Meglioli Masters Edition Amarone w/grapes and raisins
-7/25/15 RJS RQ2015 Italian Aglianico
-7/25/15 Selection Italian Pinot Grigio

Kits 3g
-9/18/13 RJS Coffee port
-11/19/13 RJS Black Forest port
-9/1/14 RJS Toasted Caramel port
-9/1/14 RJS Coffee port

Grapes/juice
-5/10/14 Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon; 12g; pail + frozen must
-9/13/14 California Old Vine Zinfandel; 6g; pail + lug of grapes
-9/11/14 California Cab Franc; 7g; pail + lug of grapes
-9/11/14 California Chenin Blanc; 6g; pail
-9/11/14 California Cab Franc/Zin/Cabernet Sauvignon blend; 7g pail + grapes, cofermented
-10/19/14 Italian Pinot Bianco; 6g pail - DUMPED due to incurable stinkyness
-3/28/15 All grape South African Pinotage; 6g
-5/12/15 Chilean Carmenere; 7g; pail + lug of grapes
-9/12/15 California Chardonnay; 6g; pail
-9/12/15 California Viognier; 6g; pail
-9/12/15 California Old Vine Zinfandel; 7g; pail + lug of grapes
-9/12/15 Maryland Seyval; 3g; all grapes

Cider
-12/1/14; 6 gallons
-3/8/15; 6 gallons

On deck
-WE GSM
-Raspberry mocha dessert wine
-Coffee port
-WE Forza
-Italian Barbera
-Italian Nebbiolo

Wish list
-Petit verdot from pail+grapes
-Oregon pinot noir from pail+grapes
-Traminette and other wines from Maryland grapes
-More BIG reds!

Heather

 

[sour_grapes]

Well, it is a modest start, but ya gotta start somewhere!

Bottled:
CC Sterling Merlot
WE Mezza Luna Red
CC Showcase Amarone
CC Showcase Lodi Old Vines Zinfandel
CC Showcase Red Mountain Cabernet
Dragon Blood
WE Selection International Argentine Malbec
CC Showcase Yakima Valley Syrah
CC Showcase Rosso Fortissimo
CC Showcase Yakima Valley Cabernet Shiraz
WE LE Oregon Pinot Noir
CC Showcase Walla Walla Cabernet Merlot
WE LE Washington Cab/Merlot
WE Selection Viognier
CC Showcase Argentinian Malbec
Amarone di Beppe tweakfest -- WE SI Amarone, and tweaked the hell out of it a la Joeswine!
CC Showcase Amarone
WE Selection International Australian Petit Verdot
WE Eclipse Napa Valley Stag's Leap Merlot
WE Eclipse Lodi Zinfandel
WE LE2014 Super Tuscan
WE Selection Original Luna Bianca

Bulk aging:
WE Eclipse Nebbiolo
CC Showcase Red Mountain Cabernet

Clearing:
WE Eclipse Yakima Pinot Gris

Secondary:
N/A

Primary:
Dry and lonely!

On Deck:
CC Showcase Rosso Fortissimo

 

[Boatboy24]

Hey, wasn't this a sticky at one time? Doesn't seem to be now.

 

[JohnT]

BB,

I changed this thread to be a sticky (hope this is ok).

 

[TropicalMike]

Frangipani Wine

I live in Bali - there are frangipani trees everywhere. Last eyar I decided to research the flowers, and found that the stem is not good for humans to use but nothing wrong with the petals - so I made wine from them. No recipe so everything was by trial an Yesterday I collected as many flowers as i could find, and ended up starting 30 lts of wine, using a GP white yeast. The wine smells of frangipani - lady visitors say they don't know whether to drink it or dab it behind their ears.

 

[JohnT]

Welcome to the Forum!!!!

glad to hear that your wine turned out well TM..

I know it was trial and error, but is there any chance that you could post the final recipe? Any chance at some pictures??

 

[wyogal]

OK, so I'm still a beginner

Apologies to Sour Grapes and Heatherd, but I'm still new to both winemaking and the forum. I'm trying to learn. The thing is that I feel the need to look at the General Forum for some questions, because those issues are not on the Beginners' forum.

So I have made:
Wyoming Chokecherry, aged in an oak barrel last fall (not too bad!)
A couple of kits: Chardonnay, Mezza Luna, and a Sauvignon Blanc that is sitting in secondary and needs to be bottled.
In the freezer: Many pounds of chokecherries, rhubarb, peaches and raspberries that I need to get going. I'm sure I'm going to do a rhubarb/raspberry, and a plain chokecherry with changes based on the last batch, but I'm also thinking about a mixed fruit wine that will free up all of that freezer space.

It's not much, I know, compared to some of you. But when was this a competition?

 

[TropicalMike]

Frangipani wine

FRANGIPANI WINE
Bali has many Frangipani trees, with flowers either yellow or red. My neighbours and I all have the yellow variety and so that is what I use for the wine. There are no published recipes for it, so it has been a matter of trial and error over the last three years. Friends and neighbours like the current version and this recipe is below – although I continue my “research”.
It is important to use fresh flowers as then the petals have not yet started to oxidize (turn brown) . Only use the petals, so snip off the stem on each flower as that is toxic. Initially, I measured quantities by the cup-full but, latterly, count the number of flowers – easy to do whilst one is removing the toxic stems.

Stems off – petals only!
To make 5 lts:
150 flowers – remove the stems
6 lt water
1.5 lts sugar syrup
0.5 lts grape juice
Acids – 1 tspn citric, 1 tspn tartaric, 0.5 tspn malic
2 tspns yeast nutrient
Yeast – General Purpose White. I make a yeast starter solution with apple juice.
1. Start the yeast starter – continue it for 24 hours. Pour ½ cup of apple juice into a cup, add ½ tspn sugar solution and a large pinch of yeast nutrient. Mix well so that the nutrient has dissolved, and pour into a large jar. Add he yeast on top of the solution – do not stir. After 20 minutes check that the yeast is changing in consistency. Assuming it is ok, every 2 hours add the same mixture of juice, yeast nutrient and sugar solution.
2. Put the flower petals in a muslin bag (I put a heavy china mug as well in to weigh it down) and boil in the water.
3. Leave it to cool, with the muslin bag still inside.
4. Keep the yeast starter solution going, adding more every 2 hours.
5. When it is cool (usually, I leave it overnight), remove the muslin bag and discard the flower petals.
6. Pour the liquid into the primary fermentation vessel, add the other ingredients, with the yeast starter solution last. Stir BEFORE adding the yeast starter but DO NOT stir after adding this.
7. That’s it – the rest is as normal. I hope that you enjoy it


That’s what I call a really fierce primary fermentation!

8. This makes slightly more than 5 lts but by the time one has removed the flower petals and racked it into the secondary, I find that it works out well to be 5 lts.
I don’t have much room and so all fermentation is done outside. Daytime temperatures are around 32C and night-time about 23C (brrrr…cold!). The containers, from the left, are 20 lts of Frangipani waiting to be bottled, 10 lts of another part of my experimenting with Frangipani, 20 lts of date wine (add ½ bottle of cheap brandy and it is very similar to port), 20 lts of a second run on the same dates (comes out like ) and the last one is 20 lts of snake fruit – a new one, but initial tasting promises to be very good.

 

[TropicalMike]

Frangipani wine

The photos didn't come out!

 

[shadowr434]

Presently making the WE Eclipse Washington Riesling.

 

[Julie]

Apologies to Sour Grapes and Heatherd, but I'm still new to both winemaking and the forum. I'm trying to learn. The thing is that I feel the need to look at the General Forum for some questions, because those issues are not on the Beginners' forum.

So I have made:
Wyoming Chokecherry, aged in an oak barrel last fall (not too bad!)
A couple of kits: Chardonnay, Mezza Luna, and a Sauvignon Blanc that is sitting in secondary and needs to be bottled.
In the freezer: Many pounds of chokecherries, rhubarb, peaches and raspberries that I need to get going. I'm sure I'm going to do a rhubarb/raspberry, and a plain chokecherry with changes based on the last batch, but I'm also thinking about a mixed fruit wine that will free up all of that freezer space.

It's not much, I know, compared to some of you. But when was this a competition?

There is no need to apologize, and you are so right! This is not a competition! I am very interested in the chokecherry in the oak barrel . What was that like?

 

[wyogal]

chokecherry wine

Thanks for your support, Julie! I decided to try winemaking when we had a huge crop of chokecherries in 2014, and got a lot of help on the beginners' forum from a number of members.

The backstory is that my brother knows the owners of Wyoming Whiskey, the first distillery in Wyoming (making bourbon). He got the idea to age some whiskey in a chokecherry flavored cask, since chokecherries are ubiquitous here. He bought a 5 litre cask, and we filled it with the chokecherry wine, with quite a bit left over. It sat for 8 weeks in the cask last summer, then we bottled it in Jan 15.

I tried the first bottle about a month ago--there were some surprises. The oaked was much smoother of course, but it had this amazing fragrance like roses. Of course there are so many variables that I have no idea where that came from.

My biggest rookie mistake was that it needed clearing agents (big time!). But it is a big bodied and flavorful red table wine.

 

[StevenD55]

My first attempt at winemaking was a batch of Shyraz from a kit. It turned
out well.

After that I started experimenting with grapes from my Valiants. That has been hit and miss. I think I'm getting better at it though. People still think it tastes a little like grape juice or Concord though.

This year I have been busy with my Valiants but it was a banner year on pears and apples for that matter. So I am also trying pear and apple batches.

Finally, I have 15 gallons of Pinot Grigio that seems to be coming along ok. It's a bit pink maybe from too much skin contact. I might add a bit
of red to it and see how it looks as a blush/rose.

 

[Stressbaby]

FRANGIPANI WINE
Bali has many Frangipani trees, with flowers either yellow or red. My neighbours and I all have the yellow variety and so that is what I use for the wine. There are no published recipes for it, so it has been a matter of trial and error over the last three years. Friends and neighbours like the current version and this recipe is below – although I continue my “research”.

Hi Mike,

There are published recipes for plumeria wine. I have made it a couple of times. I used Jack Keller's recipe here. Here is a thread from the forum describing my experience.

You are absolutely right about oxidation - it is really easy to give this wine a snotty tea color if your flowers have oxidized. You can keep them in the freezer for a while but you have to use small baggies, because if you use larger gallon bags, opening and resealing them several times will oxidize the petals faster.

I honestly don't think it takes that many flowers. This wine can be overpowering with too many flowers. Bottle this one dry.

In prior batches I used D47 but with the next batch I'm going to try QA23.

Another thought for next time is to cut in half the number of flowers in the primary and then do a secondary infusion with fresh flowers.

 

[TropicalMike]

Frangipani wine

Thanks for the info and I will certainly check those recipes. I have been experimenting with it since July, 2016 and have made 115 liters in that time - all drunk, mainly by enthusiastic friends. My quantity of flowers has been determined during this time - I have used less, used more, even tried using some oxidised flowers but now I have the quantity to make wine to the collective taste of my friends. I aim to stop it around 994 and 13.5%.

I like your idea of a secondary infusion,and will try that soon.

My snakeskin wine is doing well - a preliminary taste is promising!

Thanks again.

 

[Thig]

At the moment I have a peach, pear, Scuppernong, pomegranate, and chocolate salted Caramel Port in the carboy. I probably have made more muscadine than anything else.