Growing grapes and making wine in Bellevue
Posted in enology, mead, measurement & testing, storage and aging, tasting, winemaking on Feb 7th, 2008
I looked in on five meads yesterday to see if they were ready to bottle. I was looking for clarity, I tasted them to see if they were pleasant to drink, and I measured the specific gravity (SG), pH, and titratable acidity (TA). Name SG pH TA (g/L) 2004 Plain Mead 1.001 3.05 5 2005 [...]
Posted in tasting on Feb 1st, 2008
Which wines are right for Valentine’s Day? The ones you sip with chocolate, of course! I have some ideas about that, but it might be better to consult an expert. There’s none better than wine writer Natalie MacLean, who describes wine as, liquid sensuality: Its heady bouquet stimulates the appetite and its velvet caress soothes [...]
Ok, it hasn’t got a lot to do with making wine, but I’ve been waiting a long time for tonight’s episode of Lost. I made a wine from Old Orchard Concord grape concentrate, yep the kind you buy in the grocery store, and labeled it in honor of the show. This sort of wine will [...]
Posted in commercial wine, competitions and events, tasting on Jan 29th, 2008
Red wine and pizza! Ok, it’s not often you go to a football game and hear one of the vendors bellowing, “Ice cold Chenin Blanc here!” Beer is the beverage of choice for tailgate parties, but wine definitely has it’s place in your Superbowl festivities. What could better with pizza than a full bodied red? [...]
Posted in winemaking on Jan 28th, 2008
Crushing and pressing is a great way to get juice from most berries, but this isn’t a one size fits all approach. Sugar extraction is a good way to “juice” hard fruits and vegetables. To do this, cut up the fruit/vegetables into 0.5 inch (1.25 centimeter) pieces and cover with sugar. In the photo, I’ve [...]
Posted in Recipes, rhubarb wine on Jan 23rd, 2008
I grow the rhubarb in my garden, harvest several times (freezing each harvest), and make a gallon or two of wine every year. Here’s how I do it.
Posted in tomato wine on Dec 21st, 2007
I started with about 18 lb (8.2 kg) of frozen cherry tomatoes that came up to the 4-gallon (15 liter) mark of the bucket. After they thawed, I lightly crushed them with a long spoon. That left me with about 2.25 gallons of must, which I loaded into my three-bucket press. A few hours later, [...]
Posted in tomato wine on Dec 19th, 2007
I finally pulled the 18 lb (8+ kg) of tomatoes out of the freezer. I’ll be making a white wine from them, so once they defrost I’ll press them into juice. Then I can see what I’ve got in terms of sugar and acid, make adjustments, and start fermenting! I say this every season, but [...]
Posted in misc on Dec 17th, 2007
I’ve been trying show my wine and mead in a better light. The above photo shows two of my meads and one of my wines. Wildflower mead, from A Simple Mead Recipe, stands in the center with raspberry mead in the 1-gallon jug on the left. Those meads almost glow, while my raspberry wine is [...]
Posted in enology, equipment, maintenance & cleaning on Nov 14th, 2007
I racked and measured four batches the other day, and it gave me the opportunity to size up my new buffer solution. I recorded TA values for three of those batches while I was still using my old buffer solution to calibrate my pH meter, and they shouldn’t have changed much. Here are the data: [...]