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  1. Chris Gibbs

    Watermelon Muscadine wine

    Yeah, you could say that.A little more bitter and less pleasant than a cucumber.
  2. Chris Gibbs

    First season with Mustang grapes

    I live in East Texas, between Houston and Galveston. Fence lines and trees near water sources almost always have vines on them. Vitis Mustangensis is the scientific name.
  3. Chris Gibbs

    Hello all. New here with a fruit wine ?

    I've only been making wine for a little over a year now, and like you, I was very eager to make watermelon wine as one of my first wines. I used about 15 lbs of my own muscadines and a couple of store bought melons to make a 3 gallon batch. I had no trouble during fermentation, but there was a...
  4. Chris Gibbs

    First season with Mustang grapes

    Thanks for the help M38A1! So going off my juice yields, for your 50 lbs per 11 gallons you were at about a 1:1 ratio of juice to water for the batch with potassium bicarbonate? Please let us know how yours turns out, as I would like to know the upper limit of the juice to water ratio. I like...
  5. Chris Gibbs

    Watermelon Muscadine wine

    Agreed! I'm glad I didn't use home grown melons then, that would have been extra disappointing. I'm sorry to hear that.
  6. Chris Gibbs

    First season with Mustang grapes

    I made some jelly with the other gallon. Regular mustang grape jelly and habanero mustang grape jelly. I highly recommend mustang grape jelly!! It is sweet-tart, with a very good grape-cranberry like flavor. I decided to use a Jack Keller recipe for mustang grape wine from juice, at the ratio...
  7. Chris Gibbs

    First season with Mustang grapes

    I went out and collected about 50 pounds of mustang grapes in mid June this summer. There was a great fruit set this year! So I put them all in the freezer until I got my new steam juicer... At this point, I hadn't committed to a particular recipe to make mustang grape wine because most...
  8. Chris Gibbs

    Steam Juiced Grapes, what to do now?

    I'm in the same boat kind of. I just purchased a steam juicer this year and used it for the first time to juice mustang grapes. I've read as much as I can about steam juicing for wine, and I've noticed a lot of statements like "be sure to add pectic enzyme," and "the acidity doesn't carry over...
  9. Chris Gibbs

    Watermelon Muscadine wine

    Update/closure to this story... This wine seemed to ferment ok, no visible signs of going bad anyway. There was a bit of a funky smell toward the end of fermentation that lingered for a few months. I've racked it a couple of times, and back sweetened to try and get the fruit forward. I needed...
  10. Chris Gibbs

    What's Your Winemaking Story?

    I grew up in the country in Georgia, and both of my grandparents had farms. Everyone I knew grew muscadines and scuppernongs, but everyone I knew was also southern Baptist. So we ate a lot of fresh grapes and muscadine jelly. I moved to the suburbs of Houston and once I bought a house, I planted...
  11. Chris Gibbs

    Watermelon Muscadine wine

    So I had about 15lbs of muscadines sitting in the freezer from last season. I thought I would use them in Jack Keller's recipe for mustang watermelon wine and see. I'm going into week 2 of secondary fermentation and everything looks ok so far. Maybe this will help someone or spark some ideas...
  12. Chris Gibbs

    My first Dragons blood

    Thanks Arne! I used Jack Keller's recipe for watermelon mustang wine and just substituted black Ison muscadines. The muscadines were washed and frozen from last season. In order to get the fermentation going I skipped the k-meta dose and separated the must into two smaller batches around 2...
  13. Chris Gibbs

    My first Dragons blood

    The local brewery shop had isenglass sp? So I hit it with that. Didn't do much for the haze. I've since purchased some super kleer to have on hand. I enjoy making wines from fresh fruit, so there may be a filtration system in my future!? Any thoughts on the ending taste? Thanks!
  14. Chris Gibbs

    My first Dragons blood

    So, I'm new here. I've always been a whiskey/Bourbon guy myself, but I had an excess amount of muscadines last year with which I made my first wine. Now I'm hooked! I made my first dragons blood a couple of months ago using lemon, lime, and pineapple juices as the base. I messed up and...
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