Absolute newbie – SP DB style

[jelleybean]

Hello to all my fellow winos out there. I am a new member here and have never attempted to make wine before, but am quite accomplished in drinking it. A bit about myself, I am a male, mid 40s, happily married (for now, she is not too keen on my new hobby) and live in the great state of Alabama. I recently visited a friend of mine in Atlanta and he showed me 10 gallons of wine in two carboys clearing nicely. I asked him how he got started, and he said just look it up on the internet and you will find plenty of information. I did this and obsessively read through several forums, blogs, YouTube videos and finally ended up here. Seems like a nice place, so I decided to kick my feet up and stay a while.

First let me say special thanks in advance first to Lon for creating the original recipe for “skeeter pee” and sharing it with the world on this board and www.skeeterpee.com. Second special thanks in advance to DangerDave for adapting the original recipe (daring to be creative) into the “Dragon Blood” style, and listing his process in such a simple and straightforward way that even a complete newbie can make it (hopefully). Thanks as well to all of the other members of this forum who post here and share knowledge. What little knowledge I have learned about winemaking to date, has primarily come from your posts, pictures, advice, answers to questions, etc. Thanks again.

So this thread will document my first attempt and perhaps help other newbies just getting started. Contrary to the legal status of homebrewing in Alabama, HB equipment and supplies are locally available in the Birmingham area. I ventured down to my local HB store and purchased a simple winemaking equipment kit which consists of a 7.8 gallon fermenting bucket with drilled and grommeted lid, 6 gallon better bottle, 2 airlocks, drilled stopper, 24" curved racking cane with tip, 5 feet of 3/8" tubing, spring tip bottle filler, 2 handle easy corker, 25 first quality corks, sanitizer, triple scale beer and wine hydrometer. I added to this the yeast and all the chemicals in DB recipe (enough for 1 batch) and a large nylon fine mesh bag for the fruit pack. All of this stuff cost me about $135.00

A few days later, I ventured down to my local Wal-Mart and purchased 2 three pound bags of Dole frozen mixed berries (strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and blackberries), 1 pound bag of frozen raspberries (just for good measure), 3 15oz bottles of real lemon juice (only size they carried), 10 pounds of sugar, and six gallons of spring water. I also picked up a 32oz bottle of blueberry juice (no additives or preservatives), which I plan to use for back sweetening with some sugar. All of this stuff cost me about $50.00. I am planning to shop around next time (sams club, publix, and other stores) and can hopefully get better pricing and selection on these supplies.

The weekend is here and I am excited to get started on my new hobby this evening, despite the wife’s objections. I plan to continue this thread and post plenty of pics along the way. I will post pics of my first must later tonight if I get a chance. Thanks again.

 

[Pumpkinman]

Welcome Aboard! You will have a ton of fun making Dragon Blood, and drinking it!
It is a good wine to start off with, you will learn the basics that you will use when making other wine, ciders, and meads.
I would bet that your wife won't mind your new found hobby in a month or so when she tastes your creation.

Wine Making Talk is a great community, very friendly, knowledgeable folks willing to give tips, tricks and advice, they don't take long to provide the answers that you need to make things very logical!
Keep us posted!
Tom

 

[NashChic]

Welcome, Jelleybean! I started my first wine in October & just racked my second batch of Dragon Blood to a carboy yesterday. Very rewarding hobby (I'm enjoying a delicious glass of DB right now)!! Thanks for documenting your first run. I look forward to following your thread!

 

[jelleybean]

Thanks for the responses and the views! I know it was a long first post.

A couple of corrections to my first post (already). The frozen fruit bags I used were slightly incorrect. The two 3lb bags were Sunrise Growers brand (blueberries, strawberries, raspberries) and the 1lb bag was Dole brand (cranberries, blackberries, blueberries, raspberries).

I mixed the must according to the recipe for Dragon Blood except used an additional 1/2 tsp of pectin (to account for the additional 1lb of fruit). The berries were still frozen when I put them in the bag. I could only get about 5 1/4 gallons of water in and my primary is filled to 2 inches from the top. First pics are below.

The first is my equipment kit and the ingredients on the table. The second is the must in the bucket right after I tossed in the fruit pack. The last is the must sitting in the primary in my 1/2 bath where it is 75 degrees when the heat is on.

I expect to pitch the yeast sometime Sunday afternoon. That bucket is damn heavy!

I kept the 6 gal better bottle carboy in the box because I have decided to take it back the the HB store tomorrow and exchange it for a glass one and pay the difference. This is because I plan to eventually use vacuum to degas and rack.

 

[Arne]

If you want to save yourself a bit off grief, set your primary in a tray, pan, or even a large garbage bag just pulled up a bit from the bottom of the bucket. With no more room that you have if the ferment really gets rockin and rollin, it mite come over the top. If you have it in something to catch the mess, the cleanup is much much easier. Give ya one guess how I know, lol, Arne.

 

[Boatboy24]

Welcome aboard Jellybean. I'm still pretty new to this hobby as well, having just started back in April. I'm officially obsessed and just started my 11th batch last night - a 3 gallon batch of Dragon Blood. So, our timing for this is almost identical. I've also done several red kits, as well as a batch of peach wine from fresh fruit and a batch of Easy Peasy (Dragon Blood's predecessor).

This is a great community and I've learned a tremendous amount from everyone. I think you're gonna like it here. Don't hesitate to ask any question: no question is too basic.

 

[dangerdave]

Good luck, Jellybean! I'm watching, too!

We have a great bunch of DB converts, here. If you run into any snags, let us know, someone will come to the rescue. If you find something in your experience not covered in the recipe, let me know and I will modify it accordingly. The detailed process involed in the DB recipe was the result of all of the excellent questions and suggestions given by the wonderful folks here. My hope was to make it precise and comprehensive enough for anyone new to wine making to have as little trouble as possible in grasping the wine making method.

I have to say, I am very proud of how successful this recipe has been for everyone. Easy, cheap, and quick! That's how we like it!...sometimes.

 

[jelleybean]

Thanks guys. I feel at home already with all the support. Good call on the tray Arne. I took your suggestion and am glad I did as there have been a few drips on the tray already.

24 hours after mixing the must, the color had changed to a dark blood red. I did not taste it, but it smelled awesome. The temp was 70 degrees and SG was 1.071. I think this is because I added too much water (more on that later). I added 3.5 cups of sugar and that bumped it up to 1.083. I was pretty happy with that (and I was out of sugar), so I proceeded to pitch the yeast according to the DB recipe. Added a pic below of must before I pitched the yeast. Note the dark red color, yummy.

I was a bit anxious about the yeast starting because the must is cooler than I expected. I mean, that room stays at almost a constant 74 degrees (I have a digital thermometer in there monitoring air temp) so I really thought the must would be a little warmer. I checked it every couple of hours, but no real action. Then the last time I checked it before I went to bed, noticed just a few foamy tiny bits of fruit floating to the top.

This morning I woke up to the below picture. I am not expert, but I think fermentation has started! I could tell right when I opened the door to the room because it had a fruity yeasty smell already. I am excited!

Thanks for the reply dangerdave! I guess the only part of the recipe so far that I did not fully understand was the amount of water. Looking back now, the fill to 6 gallons probably meant fill the bucket with water to the 6 gallon line. I was bound and determined to get all 6 one gallon jugs of water in my primary, and I almost did. I guess I never really considered that the 1.5 quarts of lemon juice and 10 lbs of sugar might actually take up some volume too. Anyway, all is good as long as I can keep it in the bucket for the next week or so.LOL.

Enjoy the pic guys, I am gonna go squeeze and stir now.

 

[dangerdave]

Absolutely beautiful! I'm very excited for you. Just as a note. The must would stay a little warmer if it was rasied up off the floor, but I wouldn't try that now. No. It's going good, and the fermentation process itself will bring the temp up a bit, too.

One final note: It's ok to lick your fingers after squeezing your bag.

 

[jelleybean]

Sorry to have neglected this thread for the past week or so, but I have been busy. I was out of town for a couple of days this past weekend and took an SG reading Thursday night before I left. It was about 1.025 and I could tell that the fermentation process had started slowing down, so I took the fruit bag out and put it under airlock (still in the primary bucket).

When I got back, the SG was right at 1.000, so I went ahead and racked to the carboy.

Pics below are: the last day of the fruit bag in the primary bucket, racking to the carboy, the gross lees from the primary, pic of the carboy all filled up and under air lock.

I was up in TN this past weekend and visited an old friend who lives in an old farmhouse up there. While we were talking, he mentioned that he had some old wine making stuff down in the cellar from the previous owner of the house and had no need for the stuff. We went down there and found tons of wine bottles, new corks in the bag, and two 5 gallon glass carboys! He gave me one carboy, about 100 corks, as many wine bottles as I wanted (20), and two bottles of wine. The wine had no label on it so there is no way to know how old it is or what kind of wine it is. Some of the bottles I brought home had labels from 1986 and 1987 on them, so I could be very old. I drank the quart bottle last night with my family and I think it was peach by the color of it. Anyway, merry Christmas to me!

 

[rezod11]

Nice score jellybean! How was the wine? You didn't say...

Has your wife come around yet?

I'm looking forward to my first Dragon Blood, have to pay off the little debt that I have before I can move forward in good conscience.

Keep us posted on how it goes: )

 

[geek]

That was a nice score right there.....how's clearing of the DB coming after a couple days?

 

[jelleybean]

I'm Back!

I know it has been a while (18 Months) since I updated this thread (my one and only on this site) but I wanted to share what became of this batch of wine. After my last update, I kept the batch in the 6G carboy under airlock and did not rack it for the past year and a half. I also did not add any chemicals (Kmeta, superklear, etc) during either of my racking.

I guess the reason I neglected it so long was because when I last racked the wine and tasted of it, I was less than impressed with the taste. I remember it tasted and smelled like rotten fruit. I thought I had done something wrong and screwed it up. I was almost scared to try it again and so I just kinda forgot about it except for checking on the airlock every once in a while and refilling it with water when needed. Add to this the fact that I have developed back problems and you can probably see why I was content to ignore it for so long.

This past Friday evening (after a few drinks) I decided it was time to find out if it was still worth keeping. So I got out the 5G carboy and proceeded to transfer the wine. It was very clear (except for the lees at the bottom) with a deep red color and a fruity wine smell. I took a little sip from the tube (expecting the worst) and was pleasantly surprised that it did not suck. In fact, it was pretty good. So I filled up the carboy and racked the overflow into some half gallon bottles.

I then proceeded to experiment (meaning drink heavily) with the overflow wine. I back sweetened a bit and let my wife and daughter help me decide which one tasted best. When I got the mix just right, I sweetened the overflow bottle (there was only 1 full one left by that point because I drank the other partially filled one) and put it in the fridge. It was around this time that I realized I was pretty drunk. I did not take a hydrometer reading from it when I racked it, but it is damn strong.

The next day I grabbed the bottle out of the fridge and took a swig (hair of the dog). And it was even better than I remembered from the night before. So the rest of the weekend, I drank from the overflow bottle steadily. I found that because it is so strong, I like to drink it over a little bit of ice.

Tomorrow we leave for a week on family vacation at the beach. So I plan to back sweeten the rest tonight and bottle about 4 gallons in gallon jugs to take to the beach. The other gallon I plan to bottle in 750ml bottles to give to a couple of friends to whom I long ago promised a bottle. I plan to take a hydrometer reading so I can calculate the ABV.

Thanks to all who share info on this site and initially posted in my thread. My limited success with this batch has now gotten me excited again about this hobby and I plan to start another batch once I return from vacation. I promise Pics of bottling soon.

 

[NorCal]

Wow, the longest DB bulk aging on record?

 

[bkisel]

Thankfully both my batches of DB have been good to go - ready to bottle and tasty - in just under 30 days. That's only about 2 weeks of "bulk aging".

 

[dangerdave]

Thanks for the follow-up, Jellybean, and I'm glad it came out drinkable. If this recipe gives you the confidence to continue to make wine, then all my effort has been worth it.

 

[jelleybean]

OP delivers pics as promised...

Taste great! Drank 3 gallons last week at beach. ABV is about 13.5%

Thanks for all the support!

 

[bkisel]

You say it taste great and to me it also looks great... So, that's great! [I must also admit that I find it great that DB is so relatively inexpensive to make and, has been for me, ready to drink in such a short time.]