Wine by the month

[reefman]

Love this thread, "Wine of the Month" should be a "stickie." You folks are really thinking outside the box.
You can take the Folgers coffee one step further and use single origin coffee.
I roast my own coffee, and have found so many different flavors from all over the world, would probably make unique wines as well.

 

[LoneStarLori]

LonestarLori: I've been eyeballing that recipe for a little while as well. It just seems too good to be true! Then again, the Orange Chocolate Port I did is pretty amazing. I find I want more chocolate taste though.

Which chocolate orange kit did you do? I'm 2 weeks into the WE Selection kit. I ordered some dutch chocolate off Amazon today for the strawberry wine. I'm wondering it I should add a little extra chocolate to the port I'm doing.

 

[wineforfun]

This is how I have been doing things since I started a year ago. I make only 1 gal. and 2 gal. batches. I have a couple of recipes I really like and continue to experiment. When I get enough of them, then I will look at making bigger batches.

Mine is a twofold issue right now. A. I don't have room for numerous 6 gal. carboys and B. I like to always have something fermenting.
Plus, with making a bunch of 6 gal. batches, I can't consume them as fast as I make them.

 

[the_rayway]

I also did the WE Selection Port, when it first came out last year. At bottling, it was ok, but I haven't tasted it since then - that was last January. Looks like it's time to get another bottle out to test!

Reefman - I'm not sure how this would become a 'stickie', but welcome aboard! Will you be joining us?

 

[Jericurl]

Reefman, you should join us!
As far as the coffee goes, how would you get around the bitterness of the coffee? Also, I wonder if the caffeine translates over into the wine.

Wineforfun, I'm exactly where you are.
I'm new, don't have a lot of room, and still learning.
I really wish I could find 2 gallon carboys.

 

[Jericurl]

Rayway,

Oh man, that hot pepper wine sounds fantastic.
I'm interested to see how hot it turns out with four peppers.
We go through hot chili oil like mad in this house. I'd love to have some pepper wine to use as a marinade or as a base for spicy dipping sauce.
I'm already thinking it would go great mixed with some yogurt, maybe a little ghee, and some mint.
This may be my January wine contribution.
I'm also seriously considering the onion wine that Lori is doing.
That poured over a pot roast or coq au vin.....yeah, I'll definitely be doing the onion wine at some point.





ok. For the thread in general, I'm throwing a suggestion out based on what I'm going to do.
When I am training at work, at the end of the day we sit down and I have the trainee tell me one thing that they did well/went well (there's always something, even if it's just "I showed up on time and my shoes match."). Then I have them pick something that could have gone better and how they could have facilitated it going better (in 911 training, there are usually several things to choose from). Then I have them tell me one thing they learned today.

I think I'm going to approach Wine of the Month the same way. Something I could have done better on a particular batch and how. Something that went very well. And something that I learned. Hopefully I will have something to say each and every time.
I've been documenting the recipes, etc in GoogleDocs, but I think I want to get an actual notebook to start recording my information.

eta:
I got the general idea for wine of the month by reading Ben Hardy's Adventures in winemaking book/blog. He does smaller batches, keeps records of everything, then records his thoughts/impressions with each bottle that he drinks after letting them age a year or more. He's got some interesting wines (like celery). Some of them turn out surprisingly good and others tank pretty spectacularly. Anyway, I just thought it was a wonderful exercise for me since I'm brand new to this.

 

[Winenoob66]

I like the idea of stating what we could of done better, and what we were glad we done to make it as come out as good as it was, and also what we think we could do to improve it more. Even if it is just tossing it out the window lol

 

[Winenoob66]

I am thinking strongly on doing Jack Kellar's Garlic Cooking Wine for my Dec. project. I cook a lot of pasta dishes and believe this might be right in that alley of flavors.

 

[LoneStarLori]

Jericurl, as long as there won't be a math quiz, that sounds like a good idea.

Rayway, it IS time to taste it again. It's almost a year and should be ripe about now. Let me know what you think about the chocolate content.

 

[Jericurl]

Lori,

No quizzes! It's just about sharing, learning, and realizing how much you have learned as you go!

 

[the_rayway]

Hey folks, this all sounds great to me! I keep a hardcopy notebook with all the batches I make in it, and my weird notes along the way, so I'm hoping this will better distill my thoughts as I type everything out.

Winenoob - I've been eyeing that recipe over the last week. If you do it, make sure to post and give updates! Are you thinking of roasting any of the garlic? I had wondered if that might make it just a bit more intense with the sweetness roasting brings.

Jericurl - your post about the different uses was totally making me drool As my Mom said today when she visited: "there is so much imagination that these people have, so many good ideas!"

LoneStarLori - As soon as I'm off my pain meds - I'm going to crack a bottle and let you know. I promised as few others I would let them know how it went 'by the book' as I didn't do any tweaks to the kit. I'm a sucker for a Terry's Chocolate Orange.

 

[Jericurl]

I'm really interested in hearing from you guys that make/made/making port.

I've only had port once.
It tasted like dry syrup with some gasoline mixed in it.
And it was expensive!
I haven't tried it since then and I hear so much about it that I think I might be missing something.

 

[Winenoob66]

Mmm dry syrup with gasoline mixed in lmao

 

[Winenoob66]

I was informed today that I have got to start a Apfelwein batch for Xmas 2014. It probably would be extremely good to by then.

Oh to be honest I hadn't thought about roasting the garlic first but that does sound like a wonderful idea. I was actually thinking on a double batch.(2 1gal mixes) one of them being straight garlic and one being garlic and onion. lol That will be a lot of cooking wine.

 

[Jericurl]

Oh, I don't know.

I'm betting if it turns out it will disappear a lot quicker than you would like it to....

 

[Jericurl]

SG on the Cranberry chocolate is slowly going down. It's been cooler here this last week and I am loathe to start turning on the heater regularly. The house temperature is hoovering around 65 pretty regularly. (I know, I know...I'll get a thermometer for the wine)
Right now SG is sitting at around 1.09. Still smells pretty good, but looks pretty gross. I've been stirring it twice a day and everytime I open it, there is a big foamy top to stir down.

 

[wineforfun]

Reefman, you should join us!
As far as the coffee goes, how would you get around the bitterness of the coffee? Also, I wonder if the caffeine translates over into the wine.

Wineforfun, I'm exactly where you are.
I'm new, don't have a lot of room, and still learning.
I really wish I could find 2 gallon carboys.

Jeri,
I just use a 3 gallon'ish primary and then rack into 2 - 1 gallon carboys. I usually stay on course with whatever recipe I am using in one of the carboys and then do some "tweaking" to the second one for some experimentation.

 

[BernardSmith]

Coffee wine

Love this thread, "Wine of the Month" should be a "stickie." You folks are really thinking outside the box.
You can take the Folgers coffee one step further and use single origin coffee.
I roast my own coffee, and have found so many different flavors from all over the world, would probably make unique wines as well.

I made a coffee wine using a local coffee shop's ground coffee (cocamochanut - a mix of coconut, cocoa and coffee). After a year the bitterness is subsiding and the flavors are coalescing. I think it may take another 6 months to a year to peak. The fellow who runs our LHBS asked me what food I would pair this with and I had to think for a bit.. but it strikes me that it would go very nicely with ice cream on a warm summer day...

 

[wineforfun]

I too, keep a notebook with every little detail concerning a batch. I also leave room to make notes about how a bottle tastes at 1 mo., 3 mos., 6 mos., 12 mos., etc.

 

[reefman]

I made a coffee wine using a local coffee shop's ground coffee (cocamochanut - a mix of coconut, cocoa and coffee). After a year the bitterness is subsiding and the flavors are coalescing. I think it may take another 6 months to a year to peak. The fellow who runs our LHBS asked me what food I would pair this with and I had to think for a bit.. but it strikes me that it would go very nicely with ice cream on a warm summer day...

Hmmm, maybe Scrambled eggs and bacon would pair well too!