Midwest Vintner
Wino
- Joined
- Aug 22, 2009
- Messages
- 1,146
- Reaction score
- 21
Pecan wine is in secondary and is getting to the "dry" state. we had 23 gallons, but we just racked it again and now it's only 20. pecan is alot of work and lots of racking. it's all worth it in the end. recipe is our own. it's pretty complex, but makes an excellent table wine. very easy to drink and drink and drink......how many bottles was that??? lol
we have started some new batches that i have not listed.
Basil: we have hordes of it. so, we are testing out which type that we have will make better wine, if good at all. First type is unknown to me. it's the normal generic we've grown in our garden for years, but there are many. very easy to make and smells ok. started with an sg of 1.090, pH 3.51 total batch 3 gal.
Thai Basal: lots of this too. stuff grows fast and it doesn't hurt to have a 80+ ft long x 30 ft wide garden. i'm thinking this is gonna be the better of the two. smells like lime somewhat. sg was 1.094, pH 3.54. total batch 3 gal.
both basils are actually now in secondaries.
concorde: this is a grape lesson for us. we've made merlot from a kit for blending, but not a single grape wine from juice. from reading (some here and some from articles), we knew the concorde is very acidic. turns out more than we though. we wanted a "full-bodied" concorde for mixing with fruit wines and a little experiment I'm doing (top secret
). anyhow, the first pH reading i get is 3.01. the tester is set to be accurate at 4.01 and i think the reading was closer to 2.8 or so because we added 2 gallons of water and it still was low (something like 3.11). we decided not to add anymore water and added some calcium chems. that got it up to 3.33 pH. so now we have a 7 gallon batch. guess we'll have alot to blend or just have concorde. it will probably take more work for just the concorde than to blend as it's still higher in acid. i think a good cold stabilization period might be enough? anyhow it smells great!
apple: 150 lbs of apples. lots of coring, cutting and juicing. thankfully, i was not there for that part. i did however rack it, whew that wasn't easy. j/k lol. not sure of the sg or acid as my father was too rushed and ended up just following our last recipe. i wasn't happy about that as we always tweak it to give a good sg and pH. that is now in secondaries, but not sure of abv and i think he used the ~17 abv lalvin stuff? anyhow, we have 14 gallons thus far after put into secondaries. it will be more like ~11 by the time we get all the sediment out.
black currant: this is a great wine. one of my favorites for sure. made from a kit as they are hard to find. made a 5 gallon batch with a sg of 1.088 and pH of 3.44. the black currant is similar in color to the concorde.
so we've been hard at work with more than 50 gallons to start but it will be something like ~45 gallons by the time it's all said and done. that's all we've made this year, but i figure it's pretty good considering it's all been started in september!
Next up: jalapeno, raspberry chipotle and there's another, but i can't remember right now.
we have started some new batches that i have not listed.
Basil: we have hordes of it. so, we are testing out which type that we have will make better wine, if good at all. First type is unknown to me. it's the normal generic we've grown in our garden for years, but there are many. very easy to make and smells ok. started with an sg of 1.090, pH 3.51 total batch 3 gal.
Thai Basal: lots of this too. stuff grows fast and it doesn't hurt to have a 80+ ft long x 30 ft wide garden. i'm thinking this is gonna be the better of the two. smells like lime somewhat. sg was 1.094, pH 3.54. total batch 3 gal.
both basils are actually now in secondaries.
concorde: this is a grape lesson for us. we've made merlot from a kit for blending, but not a single grape wine from juice. from reading (some here and some from articles), we knew the concorde is very acidic. turns out more than we though. we wanted a "full-bodied" concorde for mixing with fruit wines and a little experiment I'm doing (top secret
). anyhow, the first pH reading i get is 3.01. the tester is set to be accurate at 4.01 and i think the reading was closer to 2.8 or so because we added 2 gallons of water and it still was low (something like 3.11). we decided not to add anymore water and added some calcium chems. that got it up to 3.33 pH. so now we have a 7 gallon batch. guess we'll have alot to blend or just have concorde. it will probably take more work for just the concorde than to blend as it's still higher in acid. i think a good cold stabilization period might be enough? anyhow it smells great!apple: 150 lbs of apples. lots of coring, cutting and juicing. thankfully, i was not there for that part. i did however rack it, whew that wasn't easy. j/k lol. not sure of the sg or acid as my father was too rushed and ended up just following our last recipe. i wasn't happy about that as we always tweak it to give a good sg and pH. that is now in secondaries, but not sure of abv and i think he used the ~17 abv lalvin stuff? anyhow, we have 14 gallons thus far after put into secondaries. it will be more like ~11 by the time we get all the sediment out.
black currant: this is a great wine. one of my favorites for sure. made from a kit as they are hard to find. made a 5 gallon batch with a sg of 1.088 and pH of 3.44. the black currant is similar in color to the concorde.
so we've been hard at work with more than 50 gallons to start but it will be something like ~45 gallons by the time it's all said and done. that's all we've made this year, but i figure it's pretty good considering it's all been started in september!
Next up: jalapeno, raspberry chipotle and there's another, but i can't remember right now.
). as i referred to the merlot, it's the same base. i guess we've never really made a "kit." it's just so easy with these compared to real fruit.
