Some of the wines I have going right now

[Travisty]

Here's some pics of a few of the wines I have fermenting right now. Sorry about the quality of the pics. All I have for a camera is my phone!

Orange-Pineapple-Apple:

Grape/Acai:

White Grape Vanilla:

And of course a Joe's Ancient Orange Mead about 1.5 months in:

I'm really curious how the Grape/Acai will turn out. My ex-girlfriend was really into this MLM thing called Mona Vie (for the record, I can't stand MLMs

) which is a nutritional beverage that has acai in it and is supposed to be the next best thing to a miracle cure for everything if you buy into what the MLM is selling. Since I got into winemaking, I've been wanting to make a wine using acai. Problem is they say theberry spoils within 24 hours of picking it and it only grows in the Amazon so you can't get fresh berries here. I guess the berries have to be freeze dried orsomething immediately after picking in order for the berry to keep. I have had a hard time finding a straight acai juice locally too. I'm sure there's places I can order it from online, but I just haven't wanted to do that yet. I was at Whole Foods last week in the juice aisle and saw a bunch of Acai juice drinks there. They were all blends with other juices though. I decided to grab a gallon of the Grape/Acai blend sine I figured it was the closest I could find to make a more traditional wine with added acai. This stuff was $7/quart so I'm only making 1 gallon! I tasted it last night when I racked it to the secondary and I have to say it's pretty good so far!

 

[NorthernWinos]

The white grape vanilla sounds good...
What white grape juice did you use???? Will you oak it as well????


Last year I put a few more Vanilla Beans in a batch of Crabapple/Apple then usual...it was a little over powering at first, then turned out real nice as time passed. The last case of it is going to have a birthday soon, so will break out the rest of them and enjoy.

 

[Travisty]

I just used Welch's 100% white grape and 6 vanilla beans in a 5 gallon batch. I'm going to try and monitor the strength of the vanilla flavor and pull the beans out before it gets to be too much.


Hmmm, oak. I haven't even thought of oaking any of my wines besides the kits yet. But now that you mention it, I think I will oak this one. Now what kind of oak and how much should I use? I have very little experience with oaking.

 

[Cracked Cork]

Travisty, looks like you have got the wine bug, you going to top off those carboys soon? Crackedcork

 

[NorthernWinos]

I buy untoasted oak chips and roast then in a dry fry pan till they smell good...cool and add.

 

[Travisty]

Cracked, I certainly have caught the wine bug! I keep running out of airlocks! haha These are still fermenting (except the AOM). I'll top off after I degass.


Northern Winos, I don't have a deep fry pan. Total bachelor here.

Though maybe I should buy one. It's funny howall of the cooking tools I have purchased in the last few months have only been because of wine and beer making!
I was thinking of just ordering oak chips from George. Is there a standard oak to use. I see there are a few different types of oak with different toasting within those types. Would a medium toasted american oak work alright?

 

[grapeman]

You might consider the light toast American oak. American oaks impart tannins and theflavor of vanilla. The medium toast gives you a heavier barbeque flavor, so since you added vanilla anyways I would stick to the light toast to accentuate vanilla and not overpower it with the med toast.

 

[Travisty]

Cool, thanks appleman!