Growing grapes and making wine in Bellevue
Posted in gardening, tomato wine on Sep 7th, 2007
I began harvesting my Gold Nugget tomatoes a month ago. I hope to get at least 15 lb (almost 7 kg) to make a white tomato wine. The 6.5 oz (175 g) that I harvested on 8/9/07 has become 9 lb 12.5 oz (about 4.4 kg) and counting, so I’m about 2/3 of the way [...]
Posted in mead on Sep 6th, 2007
As you can see in the photo above, I racked my cherry mead into two 1-gallon jugs, a magnum (1.5 liter) bottle, and an ordinary wine bottle. The 1-gallon jug on the left, that isn’t full and has a lighter more opaque color to it, is filled with slurry from the fermenter. I’ll let it [...]
Posted in enology, herb wine, winemaking on Sep 5th, 2007
I’ve never been happier with a specific gravity measurement than this one: 0.993 on 8/31/07. After the pH crash and the stuck fermentation, after the potassium bicarbonate addition and the yeast starter, and after all that waiting my Oregano Wine has finally fermented out! I racked on 9/3/07 to a 1-gallon jug and a half-bottle. [...]
Posted in winemaking on Sep 4th, 2007
I measured the specific gravity on 8/31/07, and at 0.991 it had fermented out and was ready to rack. So yesterday I siphoned the young wine into a 1-gallon jug and a beer bottle. There was some thick slurry left in the fermenter, and I poured that into another beer bottle to settle. I should [...]
Posted in bonsai vineyard, viticulture on Sep 3rd, 2007
I love watching my grape vines change over the course of a season. First they break bud, then they leaf out, later they flower, after that they set fruit. Each of these stages is exciting, and I’ve written about all of them. When the grapes change color from green black (or red or yellow), it’s [...]