Cove Cottage
Senior Member
- Joined
- Jul 5, 2005
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What a hobby!
This weekend I nervously started my first wine (VR Zinfandel). Preparing to start my wine, I read the instructions no less than 5 times.
In preperation, I scrubbbed the kitchen sinks,mixed my sanitizer, and sanitized everything in sight.After using the spoon to stir the must I washed it again and put it back in the sanitizing solution. When I retrieved the spoon to stir in the cool water, I noticed several cat hairs floating on top. Oh well, so much for sanitizing. Rinsed them off and will hope for the best.
When taking the temp of the must it was on the warm side ...80 degrees. I live in Florida, the AC was down to 70 degrees but I guess I had made the "hot" water too hot.Youwould have laughed if you could have seen what I did to cool things down. I took every cold bottle of beer, water, milk, salad dressing, mayonnaise etc. and placed them around the outside of the bucket to form a cool zone. It finally worked and I was able to add the yeast.
I covered thebucket with the lid and a napkinand when it had started to ferment the next day I added the airlock.I checked the bucket before I went to bed(yes, it's in my bedroom) thebucket was "domed" from the pressure. I gave it a little push and the airlock sounded like a perculator and popped the little red cap. Heck, I had to sleep with earplugs last night since the "burble... burble" was driving me crazy.
If my first day of winemaking was this exciting, I can barely wait until I try to bottle this stuff.
Hope this brought back some memories for those of you who are now acomplished wine makers. Keep your fingers crossed for me.
Margaret
This weekend I nervously started my first wine (VR Zinfandel). Preparing to start my wine, I read the instructions no less than 5 times.
In preperation, I scrubbbed the kitchen sinks,mixed my sanitizer, and sanitized everything in sight.After using the spoon to stir the must I washed it again and put it back in the sanitizing solution. When I retrieved the spoon to stir in the cool water, I noticed several cat hairs floating on top. Oh well, so much for sanitizing. Rinsed them off and will hope for the best.
When taking the temp of the must it was on the warm side ...80 degrees. I live in Florida, the AC was down to 70 degrees but I guess I had made the "hot" water too hot.Youwould have laughed if you could have seen what I did to cool things down. I took every cold bottle of beer, water, milk, salad dressing, mayonnaise etc. and placed them around the outside of the bucket to form a cool zone. It finally worked and I was able to add the yeast.
I covered thebucket with the lid and a napkinand when it had started to ferment the next day I added the airlock.I checked the bucket before I went to bed(yes, it's in my bedroom) thebucket was "domed" from the pressure. I gave it a little push and the airlock sounded like a perculator and popped the little red cap. Heck, I had to sleep with earplugs last night since the "burble... burble" was driving me crazy.
If my first day of winemaking was this exciting, I can barely wait until I try to bottle this stuff.
Hope this brought back some memories for those of you who are now acomplished wine makers. Keep your fingers crossed for me.
Margaret
