Primary Fermentation

Along with the bentonite that came with the kit I added some acid blend, yeast nutrient, 6 campden tablets and pectic enzyme. The pectic enzyme and the campden tablets should ensure that there are no stray yeasts or bacterias in the must.

Once those items were well mixed in the initial half gallon of hot water I placed the nylon bag in the primary fermenter and dumped the blackberries in (I had rinsed and inspected prior). Once the I had the nylon bag tied off with some white string, I a sanitized hand to crush the blackberries. Once that was done I added the riesling juice and filled to the 6-gallon mark with filtered tap water.

I also added 6.5 cups of sugar to increase the initial specific gravity. I am assembling all of this in the evening and will pitch the yeast, the Red Star Premier Cuvée that came with the kit, in the morning.

Secondary Fermentation

Mental note: If you will be including elder flowers and you’re already using a nylon fruit sack, put the elder flowers in the sack with the fruit. As I just discovered, elder flowers don’t settle out like the wood chips included in other kits do. Not that it’s the end of the world, and they might settle out nicely as the wine proceeds. We’ll see.

Not a whole lot to report otherwise. Wringed out the fruit and racked the wine into a clean carboy. Judging by the specific gravity this next week will be more a clearing than a secondary fermentation. The fermentation went really fast, probably because rather than attaching the lid with the airlock right after pitching the yeast, I pitched the yeast and only covered it with a damp cloth for the first two or three days. This yeast was not oxygen-starved in any way! I’m always curious about these two different approaches and whether or not there’s any benefit in doing it either way. The kits all use the lid-n-airlock method, but most of the homemade recipes use the damp cloth method. I also wonder about some of the homemade recipes that state that their wine will ferment for a month or more. I’ve yet to see fermentation last longer than a month.

Clearing

After the first clearing was complete most of the elderberries had settled to the bottom, right on top of the lees. I picked a few more out by racking from the carboy to my primary fermenter bucket. Once I racked it back into the carboy only a few elderberries remained. So far, so good.

This batch was made from a 96 oz. can of Vintner’s Harvest Blueberry Fruit Wine Base ($40) and 16.5 pounds of Tennessee Honey ($65). I wanted to use local honey in order to get some kind of regional flavor. Some of the honey was ‘orange blossom’ and some of it was ‘wild flower’. I’m still wondering if the orange blossom honey was in fact harvested in Florida… oh well. The lady at the kiosk insisted that it was Tennessee honey. What’s important is that it isn’t some kind of blended grocery store honey.

I am using my own variation of a recipe called OMFG Blueberry Heaven by Dan Richardson. A bit of an experiment as usual. Dan’s instructions were a lot of fun and a huge help. I just made a few changes in quantity and used canned blueberries rather than fresh wild blueberries. I am also going to use the dry yeast packets that I am familiar with without doing any preparation. I have not spent much time dealing with the subtleties of yeast and yeast preparation, but that will come later after I’ve mastered all of the more basic practices of winemaking.

Primary Fermentation

I’m using the Lalvin K1-V1116 yeast that I used for the Gooseberry wine. The honey needed to be dissolved into two gallons of hot water. My largest pan allowed me to heat up one gallon with half of the total honey at one time. I stirred the mixture until the honey was dissolved and a good solution was made. Once the solution was calm a white foam appeared on top. I skimmed this off with a spoon as well as I could.

While that continued to heat, I sanitized my primary fermenter, fruit straining bag and stirring spoon. I then dumped the can of blueberries into the straining bag, inside of the primary fermenter and tied it off with some white string and poured the first honey solution over the blueberries. The second honey solution was no different, but I did steep a bag of chai tea in it for a few minutes while I slowly skimmed the foam off of the top. Dan used chamomile, but I improvised. I figure that this will end up being a very subtle addition to the overall flavor anyway.

The last detail is that I am following a bit of the Blueberry can’s instructions regarding Campden tablets and allowing the must to sit for several hours before adding the yeast. So this evening I’ll drop the yeast in and we’ll go from there.

Clearing

So the mead is looking good! In the large carboy it has a deep rosé color. In the glass it’s a bit lighter. The bouquet is nice and full, reflecting the honey and blueberry flavors. Very floral and lightly sweet. The taste follows the bouquet nicely. I’m wondering if it would benefit from some additional sugar. It might not need it.

I have collected a pitcher of the lees-saturated remains from the bottom of the carboy. I will leave this in the fridge so that it will clear quickly and I can collect this newly cleared bit into a new container and add it back into the main batch to avoid further diluting it by topping it up entirely with additional water.

Sweetening

Right after I racked the wine for the secondary clearing I added about 2.5 cups of sugar to the wine, stirred it up, topped it up with a bit of water and set it aside for more clearing. The wine appears to be quite clear of the bulk of lees, but it still has a slight cloudiness that I hope clears out in the next few weeks. I’m very optimistic about this one!

2010-06-06 update: From what I can tell, very little or no lees has settled out of the wine after three weeks in secondary clearing. The wine seems to be very clear but there is an unusual ‘fog’ on the sidewalls of the carboy. I haven’t seen this on previous wine batches, so perhaps it is a characteristic of the honey mead. Anyway, I was planning on bottling it this weekend, but my sister and her daughter (who is in junior high I think) will be visiting all the way from Nebraska in two weeks, so I thought they might enjoy helping me with the bottling. Maybe it’ll be an education for my niece. Whatever the case, a few additional days in the carboy can only be good for the wine!

Primary Fermentation

I’m using the Lalvin EC-1118 yeast that came with the Sauv. Blanc kit. Primary Fermentation Mixed all ingredients according to recipe on Gooseberry can and let sit overnight. Rather than using a damp cloth I am just covering the bucket with the lid and airlock but not snapping it tight. (My concern is that my cats will jump on top of the bucket and ruin the whole thing!) Added yeast the next morning. Leaving the primary fermenter upstairs this time to meet the 70 – 80°F instructions. Also, every morning I am gently stirring the must. The recipe on the G-berry can says to be careful not to disturb the settlement at the bottom. Doesn’t make any sense, if you ask me.

Secondary Fermentation

Pulled the fruit out of the wine and racked the wine into a carboy for secondary fermentation. Ended up pulling over a little more of the lees than I wanted to, but not too concerned. There wasn’t as much lees as I normally see with the red wines anyway.

Clearing

First, this wine already tastes very good! Everything seems to be going like clockwork.

Primary Fermentation

Wine base + Yeast (Lalvin K1-V1116) + Sugar were $49.84. Primary Fermentation Mixed all ingredients according to recipe on Gooseberry can and let sit overnight. Added yeast the next morning. Leaving the primary fermenter upstairs this time to meet the 70 – 80°F instructions. Also, every morning I am gently stirring the top portion of the must. Note that I wasn’t informed about needing a straining sack for the fruit-stuff, so the fruit is freely distributed in the must. I don’t think this will affect the wine, but it will be a pain to remove the fruit-stuff when the time comes.

Secondary Fermentation

I was mostly successful at straining the fruit skins & stuff from the wine using my new straining bag and a slotted spoon. During racking I watched the siphon hose, and particles didn’t really start flowing through the hose until the last half gallon. The wine in the carboy doesn’t seem too messy. Might have to clear the remaining cruft from the top of the carboy slowly over the next few days.  Fermentation appears to have started back up and lees has already begun to form toward the bottom of the carboy. . . spoke with Juanita’s dad and he recommend I poor it back into the primary fermenter through the filter bag to get the wine clean sooner rather than later. I did this by way of a colander suspended at the brim of the bucket with the straining bag draped over it. This worked very well. Then racked the wine back into the clean carboy. Not seeing as much initial fermentation activity, but will check in a few hours. Hopefully the additional filtering didn’t disrupt the fermentation process completely… Nope. Within a few hours fermentation was bubbling away. 2010-01-30: Still bubbling away, occasionally building up a half-inch of bubbles on the surface. 2010-02-06: Still bubbling away, though with a little less aggression. 2010-02-06: Still bubbling away, though with a little less aggression. 2010-02-13: There is STILL a very light bit of fermentation going on. Something unexpected happened yesterday: the wine, though still fermenting, has started to clear! Throughout the process the wine/must has been a cloudy, faint yellow. Now the cloudiness is diminishing throughout and even more so toward the bottom. 2010-02-25: STILL fermenting, though it continues to be of a lower and lower amount. Seems like wine continues to be clearing a little more. This weekend it will have been 5 weeks of secondary fermentation! 2010-03-06: Still a light bit of fermentation going on. I added some potassium sorbate in attempt to stop the fermentation and hopefully begin some serious clearing.

Clearing

So, I guess my Secondary Fermentation and my Primary Clearing kind of melded into one simultaneous event. There has been a large amount of lees at the bottom for several weeks now, but at the same time it has also continued to ferment very lightly. This morning it seemed to be a bit clearer but still cloudy and still lightly fermenting.

Two nights ago I used my wine thief to take a sample and it really tasted quite good. I wonder if all white wines will be as drinkable with little or no aging? It didn’t have any of the off-tastes like the young red wines I have made. It was just a slight bit cloudy. Not quite presentable yet.

For the sake of experimentation, I have changed my plans of using this entire batch for my white-port. I now plan to sweeten the whole batch just a little to taste and then bottle three bottles of straight gooseberry wine. Once those are bottled I will then mix in the brandy according to my port recipe. The only side effect of this should be a slightly higher alcohol content in the port.

Anyway, since it was looking pretty clear today I figured it was about time to rack the wine off of the initial lees. Since I have only one 3-gallon carboy (and a borrowed one at that) I first racked the wine into my primary fermenter. Then I washed and sanitized the carboy and racked the wine back into the carboy and topped-up with filtered water. I am curious to see if any additional fermentation will occur.

2010-03-26 The clearing finally started happening about two weeks ago. Looks really good now and am considering bottling this weekend. As clear as it is, it still looks like it has the faintest, really small particles suspended in it. But since the carboy is borrowed I’m probably going to go ahead with the bottling anyway.

Bottling

Decided to bottle 3 bottles of straight gooseberry wine. Ended up with 14 bottles of gooseberry wine mixed with brandy and sweetened (something like a port-style wine). For sweetening I added 2 3/4 cups of sugar. Unfortunately I kind of botched the initial racking of the gooseberry into the primary fermenter, so there will probably be some lees in each bottle. I tried to using a coffee filter to clean it up a bit when I finally racked the wine into the primary fermenter. Oh well. If Stanley Kubrick can leave a camera bump in his movie on a perfect take, I can leave a little lees in a wine as long as it tastes good.

Reception

Well, everyone that has tried it seems to like it. It’s definitely not what most people think of as “wine”. The gooseberry wine by itself is similar to a sauv-blanc. It’s quite dry. The gooseberry port-style has a strong brandy flavor. To me brandy is a bit overwhelming, so I enjoy this blend that makes it a bit less heavy even though it is a good deal higher in alcohol than a regular wine. I think I will experiment with port-style some more in the future, but with different kinds of wine.

Primary Fermentation

Not much to report.

Secondary Fermentation

Not much to report. Smells great so far.

Clearing

The wine, while stirring, produced a lot of foam. Very foamy. Topped-up with Leese Fitch Cabernet Sauvignon.

Secondary Clearing

Added some Campden tablets after racking into a clean carboy. Lots of foam was produced after the tablet powder was poured into the wine. Topped up with my own Shiraz from 2009.

Tertiary Clearing

Ryan’s not quite done with the label (some final tweaks) and I figured an extra week or two of clearing could only do it some good. I racked the wine again. It will probably make the bottling experience a bit more simple with very little or no lees on the bottom of the carboy. I guess that same characteristic might also mean that it will yield an additional bottle due to topping it up (with other wines) each time I pull it off of the lees.

Bottling

No surprises, but the little I tasted was excellent.

2010-04-12

Just got the final version of the label from my brother Ryan. Looks pretty awesome!

2010-06-05

Unfortunately this wine was bottled with the last of my apparently-not-very-good natural/composite corks. They start leaking at three months like clock work! It’s affecting two or three of these so far, so it could be worse. Since this wine will most likely do well with age, I might actually re-cork some of them with the superior Nomacorc synthetic corks that I use now (foam and rubber corks).

The upshot of the leaking corks is that I was FORCED to drink one of these bottles. And it tastes REALLY good. I think the Luna Rossa could be my go-to red wine kit. It has enough structure and complexity to be comparable to a decent $8 – $12 commercial wine. I have some experimenting to do with simulated oak-barrel aging by way of soaking oak cubes in the finished wine. Theoretically it sounds like a good-enough solution. I just don’t want to compromise on flavor!

2010-06-27

Three more corks had started leaking over the past week. This morning I inspected all of the bottles from this batch for leaking corks. I ended up re-corking six bottles. I’ll continue to monitor the rest of the corks and re-cork as needed. I hope to age this particular wine ’til at least Christmas. Even then I would like to set a few bottles aside for even longer aging.

Primary Fermentation

Primary Fermentation setup was the usual. Fermentation took a full two days to really get started. I’m sure this is due to the low temperatures currently present in the basement. At 52°F the fluid was much colder than I had realized, but fermentation seems to be happening so I’m curious how this will affect the resulting wine.

Secondary Fermentation

There were a lot of bubbles arriving at the surface throughout the secondary fermentation. A solid ring of bubbles along the glass and toward the end bubble clusters appeared in the center of the must as well.

Clearing

Nothing too unusual. I topped-up with Mirrasou Cabernet Sauvignon and added some crushed Campden tablets for preservation. Plan to store this one for at least 6 months, maybe longer.

Secondary Clearing

Wine looks quite clear, but much more dense than the two cheaper kits. Taste is also more complex even now. Transferred to new carboy successfully, topped up with my 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon.

Bottling

Wine is very clear but very dense and dark in color. Much darker than the previous two red wine kits. The taste had the usual ‘yeasty’ flavor of what I know to be young wines, but there seems to be more depth or structure present. I’m hoping to find that aging will produce a wine much more similar to a commercial dry red. The cheaper kits certainly didn’t accomplish that, though they were still drinkable. Produced 32 bottles.

Primary Fermentation

Primary fermentation was executed with bucket lid and air lock this time. 2009-11-04: Check SG, It has been cool weather with chilly nights since beginning the fermentation.

Secondary Fermentation

Not much to report.

Clearing

SG was two points higher than the instructions, but it hadn’t changed in three days. I think some plastic shavings came off of the handle and into the wine during the stirring process. Not concerned that it will affect taste, but hope the shavings will float to the top and be easy to skim out of the wine before bottling.

Secondary Clearing

A little bit early, but with the very cool basement and a firm quantity of lees at the bottom (again, about 1.25”) I went ahead and racked for the second clearing/bulk aging. Collected some of the near-lees wine into a pitcher to clear off most of lees by chilling. Will add cleared wine back to carboy and top-up carboy with filtered water later today. Wine seems to have a lot of character with a heavy fruit smell.

Bottling

.25” of lees on the bottom of the carboy. Followed same procedure as last time. Didn’t text specific gravity. Wine appeared to be very clear.

Primary Fermentation

Primary fermentation was executed with bucket only covered loosely by the lid and thin cloth. This may prove to be problematic for the end product. The specific gravity measurements show that within eight days all of the sugar had been converted to alcohol. According to the instructions the SG should have been just above 1.0 at the start of secondary fermentation. They also suggest that the clearing should happen with SG at 0.0995. So after the first seven days this batch is 10 days ahead of schedule. After speaking with Juanita’s dad about it there is some concern about the wine being over-oxidized.

Clearing

Didn’t check the SG, but simple instructions of aggressive stirring appeared to work fine. Shortly after the stirring and the addition of Potassium Sorbate, Potassium Metabisulfate and Chitosan the solids were certainly on their way to settling out.

Secondary Clearing

After 14 days of clearing per the instructions the carboy had about 1.25” of lees on the bottom. I was prepared for bottling, but the taste test had a ‘yeasty’ flavor. After some discussion with Tim I purchased a second carboy and racked the wine into it, leaving off all of the lees that I could see. Wine now appears to be very near completely clear. I plan on leaving it to clear another 14 days.

3 days after racking into second carboy there is more settled lees visible (.25” at least). I am optimistic that this additional lees settling is a sign that the taste of the wine is still improving.

Bottling

14 days after racking into second carboy. No tests. Tastes fine. Technically it’s been bulk aged for 2 weeks at this point. 6 gallon carboy yields 30 + 1.5 bottles. Placed plastic wrap over bottle tops after they were cleaned. This plastic also worked well to cover the wine-filled bottles, allowing for corking all bottles after filling was done.

Tasting 2009-11-27

The wine is very clear with a nice dark red color and no sediment. I’m quite happy with those attributes because I think they suggest that my methods are good. The wine seems to have quite a high amount of alcohol which can probably be attributed to the additional sugar Tim and I added at primary fermentation. Seems a bit strong. Probably won’t add sugar to future kits. The bouquet seems to still have a bit of the ‘yeasty’ smell, but it’s very faint. The flavor so far is light (thin) but pleasant and does not include the ‘yeasty’ characteristic. The flavor is so light that I can’t say it is distinctly Cabernet Sauvignon. Juanita found the wine pleasant enough to drink but not particularly memorable.

Tasting 2009-12-14

Flavor seems to be more pronounced. With a bit of decanting it tastes pretty good. I’m thinking spending a bit more on the juice kit would yield better flavor.

Tasting 2010-02-05

It’s actually tasting quite good at this point, but it’s still too thin and lacking in after taste to truly resemble a commercial cabernet. Still a bit of the ‘yeasty’ smell, though it’s quite faint. Some friends remarked a few weeks ago of it tasting ‘acid’. Not too familiar with that description, but am curious if bottle was stored properly on its side. Perhaps the wine had become ‘corked’? Or my wine tasting skills are just not that sophisticated.