June 2015 Wine of the Month Club

[Jericurl]

This is open for anyone to join, at any time in June, by making a 1 gallon (or larger, for example, mine last month was 3 gallons) experimental batch. If you have never made it and want to call it an experiment, have at it. No hard and fast rules here!

Post your recipe, and all the steps you do. We love pictures, so any you take will be greatly appreciated. We hope that at the end of the month you will give us a breakdown on what you learned, what you could have done better, and what you did right.
I will post a summary of who participated and wine type in the beginning post.
Then we move on to the next month's club.

In June 2016, we will all take our June 2015 experiment out for a spin and post our results in this thread. Of course, you don't have to wait until June of next year, but we like to give all of these wines a chance to grow up a bit. If yours turns out great, post it in the recipes section.
If not, feel free to open up and discuss what happened.

Remember, we are all learning and this is just one way to do it and have a little fun at the same time.

 

[aryoung1980]

I started a rhubarb wine today. I'm not sure on my complete plan yet but I will post it once I do know.

Today I pulled 4 lbs of frozen and chopped rhubarb out of the freezer to thaw. It's in a mesh bag inside a lidded kettle. Once it's thawed I'll add sugar (or sugar water) and let it sit a few days to extract the juices. I've heard it's better to ferment the juice without the pulp for rhubarb.

This will be a one gallon batch and I am thinking of adding one can of white grape juice concentrate. That seems to be common practice from my brief internet research.

 

[BernardSmith]

Making a t'ej - an Ethiopian honey wine (mead). - One gallon.
White Sage honey (2 lbs) plus 1/4 lb of orange blossom honey
4 oz of inchet (gesho twigs)
DAP (nutrient)
energizer (nutrient)
Water to make one gallon
(starting gravity: 1.090)
71B yeast
Ambient temperature is around 65

Will rack the t'ej off the inchet after about 7 days (possibly 10)
and will allow the mead to age about 6 - 8 weeks and if clear will bottle.

 

[Jericurl]

I'll be making pear wine this month, using pear wine concentrate and a large can of Vintner's Harvest Pear. I need to clear some space in the living room. The kitchen just seems to be too warm right now for fermenting.

 

[aryoung1980]

Here is my plan for the rhubarb. Currently on DAY 2.


4 lbs rhubarb, chopped, frozen & thawed
2.25 lbs. white sugar
7 pts. water
1 tsp. pectic enzyme
1/2 g. potassium metabisulphite
1 can Concord grape juice concentrate
1/4 tsp. liquid tannin
1 tsp. yeast nutrient
1 g EC-1118 yeast

DAY 1: Put frozen rhubarb in a mesh bag and placed in fermenter to thaw.

DAY 2: Added 1/2 tsp. of pectic enzyme and k-meta to rhubarb. Brought sugar and 7 pts. of water to a boil. Poured sugar water over rhubarb. Stir and cover.

DAY 3: Remove the bag of rhubarb and squeeze out the juices. Add wine tannin, 1/2 tsp. of pectic enzyme, yeast nutrient, and grape juice concentrate. Mix into rhubarb solution. Check SG (aim for 1.090). Stir, rehydrate, and pitch yeast. Ferment at 68F. Stir once or twice daily. Airlock around 1.020. Rack to carboy once finished fermenting.

 

[heatfire]

I will be making strawberry/elderflower wine with a dab of honey and vanilla.
hopefully it will turn out nice. will update in this thread if it turns out to be drinkable.
pretty much fermenting the way i like it as a juice/fruit drink (non-alcoholic), but with less water.

 

[BernardSmith]

I make elderflower frequently. Not sure that you want to use less water. you may simply want to use more sugar or honey. I generally make my elderflower to be bottled at about 12 % ABV and so pitch the yeast into a must with a gravity of about 1.090.

 

[heatfire]

I make elderflower frequently. Not sure that you want to use less water. you may simply want to use more sugar or honey. I generally make my elderflower to be bottled at about 12 % ABV and so pitch the yeast into a must with a gravity of about 1.090.

Do you feel 12% is the highest ABV without overpowering the taste.
got the OG at 1.095-1.100 so thats about 13-14%.

got a logg written up for the thread but for some reason i wrote it in swedish..

edit: the fermentation started 6 hours after i put the yeast in the must. got a nice stable 71-72 room temp night and day.

 

[BernardSmith]

Hi Heatfire and welcome to this forum.
Good question. I generally feel that 12% ABV is strong enough. A higher ABV will require far longer aging, I think, and a stronger wine seems to be out of balance with the flavor. I am just about ready to bottle a mead I made with elderflowers and the gravity here is also 12% but the flavor is not as defined and sharp as it is with wines I make with sugar. My plan here is to bottle this version as a sparkling mead.

 

[the_rayway]

Picked and chopped just shy of 14 Lbs of rhubarb and tossed it into a 5 gal bucket in the freezer. I'm hoping to get at least 20Lbs so I can do a pure rhubarb...I'll just keep collecting till I get there!

 

[aryoung1980]

Picked and chopped just shy of 14 Lbs of rhubarb and tossed it into a 5 gal bucket in the freezer. I'm hoping to get at least 20Lbs so I can do a pure rhubarb...I'll just keep collecting till I get there!

How many gallons will 20lbs of pure rhubarb make?

A few days into fermentation and I'm not happy with my choice to use a Concord concentrate. It's the overpowering aroma right now and I'm worried it'll cover up the rhubarb in the final product.

I have 6 more pounds frozen and can likely get more. I was thinking about doing a second gallon but with the white grape juice concentrate. Unfortunately it's been hard to come by.

I'm going to research how to use bananas for body. That may be my other option.

 

[the_rayway]

I'm hoping for 1 gallon of pure juice. The amount I have right now fills the 5 gal bucket almost half way with fruit, so I'm betting on about 2/3 a gallon of juice from all of that.

Too bad about the concord juice - I likely would have chosen maybe a mellow apple juice or other mild white type for rhubarb. It has a fairly delicate taste, so you don't want to overpower it. IMHO, of course.

 

[pgentile]

Started this pineapple batch on 6/4.

16 lbs Trader Joe's Frozen Pineapple Chunks(thawed and squeezed)
48 oz White Grape Concentrate
Water to 5.0 gls
6lbs sugar (1.090)
5 tsp Yeast Nutrient
3 tsp Tannin
5 tsp Acid Blend
1 tsp Pectic Enzyme

The fruit went from 16lbs at start to 8lbs when I pulled it and I couldn't squeeze any more via nylon mesh bag. Should I have use more pectic enzyme up front in this case? Or does that seem about right?

 

[aryoung1980]

Decided to pull an SG sample on day 3 of fermentation. Only down to 1.050-ish but fermenting away happily at 68F. The overpowering concord aroma has now given away to a banana-esque aroma. Not sure if that's normal with EC-1118 or if I need to add some nutrient. I'm thinking I'll be able to airlock this in the next day or two and begin my waiting.

 

[the_rayway]

Scored another 15 Lbs of rhubarb in a fruit share pick this morning. After putting aside what I need for other projects I ended up with a total of 24 Lbs in the bucket in the freezer. Next step: thawing and juicing to freeze again.