Growing grapes and making wine in Bellevue
Posted in winemaking on Nov 12th, 2007
One constant in the din of conflicting advice about winemaking is the importance of sanitizing your equipment. It’s so thoroughly agreed upon and so often mentioned, “sanitize all your equipment then …” that its rarely discussed. If you’re just starting out, how do you know what to use? Homebrewers transitioning to winemaking might be tempted [...]
Posted in winemaking on Nov 9th, 2007
When I rack a wine or mead, I try to have empty containers of various sizes ready. The idea is to end up with the smallest number of full containers and the least amount of waste. I use 1-gallon jugs, half-gallon jugs, wine bottles (half, standard, and magnum), beer bottles, and even 8 oz (240 [...]
Posted in apple wine, Recipes, winemaking on Nov 5th, 2007
Apple wine is great as a dry white. I make it every year from apples, store-bought juice, or a combination. Here’s how I do it:
Posted in enology, equipment, winemaking on Oct 22nd, 2007
When to press red wine When making red wine from grapes, you crush the grapes then ferment them. You leave the skins and pulp in the fermenting wine, for a time, then you press it and leave the solids behind. The amount of time will vary according to the style of wine you’re making. Three [...]
Posted in winemaking on Oct 20th, 2007
The Chardonnay is fermenting in two carboys, pictured below. The one on the left contains the press juice and the one on the right contains free run. The free run juice contained a lot more sediment than the press juice, and the yeast had a quicker start in the free run. I’ll leave the wine [...]
Posted in enology, winemaking on Oct 19th, 2007
When making red wine from grapes, you will be fermenting crushed fruit. So the skins, seeds, pulp, probably some stems and other debris are all mixed into your fermenting wine. When the yeast are active, all the carbon dioxide (CO2) they produce is rising to the surface pushing those solids up with it. They collect [...]
Posted in enology, winemaking on Oct 17th, 2007
Grapes in the crusher and burgers on the grill The grapes I ordered arrived on Sunday (10/14/07). I brought home a 24-gallon fermenter with 100 lb (45.4 kg) of crushed Merlot grapes and two 5-gallon (19 liter) carboys, each with about three gallons (11+ liters) of Chardonnay juice. The boxed grapes arrived in a truck, [...]
Posted in bonsai vineyard, viticulture on Sep 27th, 2007
I was on the fence about harvesting the Leon Millot. They were ripe or nearly ripe, but I wondered if they could benefit from a little more time. That was before I saw the weather forecast. It calls for a lot of rain, starting tomorrow, so I pulled in the Leon today. 9/21/07 : 3 [...]
Posted in viticulture on Sep 21st, 2007
The incursion into my bonsai vineyard on Wednesday knocked some grapes to the ground. I gathered these up, ate some, discarded some, and froze the rest. This was the official, if unintentional, start to my grape harvest and it totaled 3 oz (100 g) of Leon Millot. At that point, I decided to bring in [...]
Posted in bonsai vineyard, viticulture on Sep 20th, 2007
Bird netting saved most of the grapes Marsha was frantic and ran to wake me up this morning. I was still groggy, so it took me a while to figure out that all the grape vines had been knocked down. We didn’t see what happened. Nobody and nothing was about. I think it was an [...]