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.

The next morning I expected that, upon restarting the laptop, the trackpad would be functioning correctly. There are many bugs in the computer world that can be resolved with a system restart. But that didn’t work this time. The touchpad continued to have no influence over the cursor on the screen.

I then proceeded to search the web for more information about this touchpad-disabling bug either associated to the Lenovo G530, to the particular version of Ubuntu that I was running or to a combination of the two. I found several listings but they mostly had to do with the touchpad being completely unavailable after a recent operating system install or upgrade. My touchpad had worked perfectly including horizontal and vertical scrolling until this recent change.

Well, after an hour or so of casually poking around the internet I discovered an important, but rarely noticed touch-sensitive button next to some touch-sensitive volume controls that I almost never use:

Sure enough, touching that quasi-button re-enabled the touchpad. My wife had apparently touched it accidentally when trying to increase the volume. All I could do was laugh at my stupidity. And be a bit delighted that Linux so completely supports the hardware on my laptop.

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!

We Need People to Take Art Seriously

Sometimes “art” feels irrelevant in the same way that I struggle with organized religion. People just prefer to ignore it. I think that is sad, because both art and Christianity have the power to rise above the mediocrity of everything else. It is much easier to ignore the meaningful things in life and embrace the “safe” stuff. As a result the kitsch rises to the top and things with substance get attacked – or worse yet ignored – because these things are uncomfortable. The people who create and have passion for them seem absurd because they have the guts to be different. People don’t have time to wrestle with deep thoughts when there are simpler ways to entertain themselves. Why would anyone want to stifle an endless stream of gratification by confronting things that aren’t easy to understand or appreciate?

—Adrian Hanft
from his post “Invisible Artwork: If We Ignore It Maybe It Will Go Away”

I can relate to this perspective, but I also wonder about its validity. Sure, that’s the way things are right now, but was human culture ever any different?

I am quite sure that any time in the last 2010 years (at the very least) the ‘general public’ has had a consistently limited interest in any visual art that would not be considered ‘folk art’ or ‘kitsch’. Like public education, visual art as we know it has simply not been available to the general public for most of human history. There have always been objects and visual art in the home that fall under what we would call folk art. I think those items were focused on functionality and cultural meaning. Only the children had art objects that were purely for amusement. The act of selecting a painting or print to be hung on a wall in the home is something relatively new.

Only recently has the general public had the free time and money to attempt to emulate the rich by thoughtfully decorating their homes with the mass-produced copies of images that have already been defined as ‘good art’ by rich people in the past. Its as though they have a nostalgia for someone else’s past. They’ve replaced what was most likely their own relatively simple but rich folk art tradition with thoughtless, mass produced imagery.

Your culture is composed of your general understanding of how the world works, the things that you do every day and why you do what you do. Having any of those things put into question is unpleasant and potentially disastrous. It is a certain kind of educated, intelligent and intellectually hungry person that seeks out and enjoys encountering things and people that challenge their own culture. To have any hope that the general public would embrace this practice is foolish. Most people, especially in Tennessee, are uncomfortable negotiating a four-way stop at an intersection.

There are a lot of art enthusiasts that feign this difficult approach to art, but most of them are simply looking for art to reinforce their own culture and beliefs. To have something on their wall that reminds them that what they are doing is right and good.

As a person educated in the history of art (four, maybe five semesters of art history at college and I frequently napped in the art history section of the library) I have a difficult time choosing pieces to display in my home. I can’t look at a piece of art without considering its historical context or the context of its artistic influences. I am quite self conscious about why or what it means for me to hang this or that painting on my wall.

“Will having this in the living room make me look clever or make me look like I am trying to look clever?”

“Will having this in the living room be very clever or is it so clever that most visitors will just think it’s a ripe pile of poo?”

Adrian, your Jesus painting might be coming off as an insult to your visitors. Or at least as socially comfortable as saying, “You know, Jesus died a horribly painful death to save you” in the middle of a conversation about the stylish new shower curtain you bought at Target. Knowing you, that’s probably your intention. Hell, you’ve pretty much said as much in your post. If so, I would look at your visitors being uncomfortable as a success. If they had seen it and proceeded to discuss everything about the painting but the explicit subject matter, then I would consider it a failure. One that the organized church is all too familiar with in contemporary USA.

Sound Recording (Phonogram) Copyright Symbol

A friend was looking for the circle-P character to include on the jacket design for a musical recording. I was surprised to discover a glyph/character that I wasn’t aware of. We weren’t even sure what this symbol meant in relation to the copyright symbol. Turns out this symbol, the Phonogram Copyright Symbol or Sound Recording Copyright Symbol, protects the copyright of the sound recording itself as something separate from the written music and lyrics. Good things to know!

Regardless, this character can now be found in my ever-growing HTML Character Code tool. Enjoy!

It’s pretty nice being able to jump from my desktop to my laptop without missing a beat when working on various projects or to listen to my entire music collection from anywhere in my home. It’s also very satisfying to have a weekly automated backup to a secondary drive for all of my files. I don’t have an off-site backup solution yet, but at least I’m prepared for hardware failure.

Better late than never, but I finally got around to setting up BOINC on this server.BOINC is “Open-source software for volunteer computing and grid computing.” Basically, it turns lots of individual computers into one effective super computer. The main goal behind this software is to allow individuals to help under-budgeted research projects by allowing them to use their idle computers to process computations.

Since my PowerMac G4 spends most of its time twiddling its thumbs I thought it would be good to give it something constructive to do. In this case I have set it to help with the Rosetta@Home project:

Rosetta@home needs your help to determine the 3-dimensional shapes of proteins in research that may ultimately lead to finding cures for some major human diseases. By running the Rosetta program on your computer while you don’t need it you will help us speed up and extend our research in ways we couldn’t possibly attempt without your help. You will also be helping our efforts at designing new proteins to fight diseases such as HIV, Malaria, Cancer, and Alzheimer’s.

It sounds like a pretty good thing to provide assistance to. I’ll report back once my server has actually completed some work and registered on the project’s meters.

Topic 1: Art and Culture

Adrian: I loved going to the art museum as a kid. It was so exciting to see beautiful pictures by famous artists. But I remember when I walked into the modern art wing of the museum and saw a row of Campbell’s Soup cans for the first time. It was utterly shocking. This couldn’t be art! It can’t be! I have been a Warhol fan ever since. I can’t think of anything that has changed my perception of art as completely as that. You were passionate about Jackson Pollock like I was about Warhol. What is the lasting impact that your studies of Pollock have had on you?

Jason: I think the ‘all-over composition’ is the lasting lesson learned from studying Pollock. But that’s just technique. Nuts and bolts. There’s no ‘why’ in there.

A large misunderstanding about reality has made it so that I sincerely insist that real art is not something that should be made or chosen to match a couch. Why does that statement get anywhere near my lips?

Its a problem with what I see as fine art’s arrogance. I think its revisionist history. I think the long list of well known artists are obviously the artists that were commercial-savvy or there was somebody that found their work and saw the commercial potential. They were working artists that got paid to make things that others liked to look at. And the names that we celebrate from the past are those that were the most successful. No art expert would debate that but somehow they overlook what that says about what art is.

Maybe I sincerely believe that ‘real art’ shouldn’t be chosen because it matches a couch, but the reality is that that attitude is self-important and false. The reality is that artists should recognize the truth behind the nostalgia for art history: ARTISTS ARE MAKING ART TO ADORN HOME WALLS, SIT ON TABLES, MATCH COUCHES AND SIT NEXT TO BUSHES IN GARDENS. Art doesn’t exist anywhere else.

Seeing a painting on a large white wall in an art museum is no different than seeing a tiger in a cage at a zoo. Only an idiot would think that that is its natural habitat. That the zoo is its destiny. And yet that’s what ‘fine art’ teaches people. But that doesn’t mean it’s okay to put my beautiful painting next to an ugly couch.

Adrian: I never thought of it that way, but I like that analogy. But doesn’t it bother you to think of a Pollock hanging on a wall across the room from a screen that plays Dr. Phil all day? And given the choice between the two, Dr. Phil will get more eyeball time. I am not sure the home is the natural habitat for art, either.

Jason: No, it wouldn’t bother me to see a Pollock in a living room. I don’t think art should be treated like a sacred artifact. In this Dr. Phil-living-room case, the Pollock would be a decoration for the wall. A great decoration for that wall. Boy, I wish I had a Pollock to hang in my living room! My walls are bare right now because I don’t have any hand-made art to hang and I simply won’t hang some cheap mass-produced image there. Mass-produced furniture? Okay, well, I can’t afford/don’t have the time to make anything better. Mass-produced art? It’s not for me. Unless it’s a screen print. Or a lighograph. Wait, why isn’t mass-produced art good enough for my walls again? Well, however the art is produced (even, gasp, offset printing), if the image has been seen a million times or is not very good I have no interest in hanging it on my wall. There. Now it sounds like I know what I’m doing…

It’s no wonder contemporary ‘fine art’ is irrelevant in our culture. Graphic design/interior design/industrial design/architecture will be the most important artistic artifacts of society. Those are the things people pay for in our society.

Adrian: Society also pays for things like American Idol and liposuction. I sure hope that’s not what the history books are talking about when they write about our times. I completely agree, however, that our culture is shaped by the artists. Whether it is advertising, fashion, movies, music, architecture, the artists are the one’s that push the culture forward.

I just had a scary thought. I am almost certain that if Andy Warhol were still alive he would most likely be a judge on American Idol. Then he could actually hand out fame to people in almost exact 15 minute increments. And Jackson Pollock would make great reality television. What has this world come to?

Jason: In the words of the immortal Tupac Shakur: It’s strictly business, baby. Strictly business.

And I don’t find that offensive in relationship to all of art history as we know it. The fact that this is nothing new does leave a bad taste in my ideological mouth though. I do so want everybody in the world to get along and spend their time doing meaningful things.

This conversation will most likely continue on Adrian’s website. I’ll provide a link when that happens.

Topic 2: Talent in the Workplace

Adrian: My first job out of college was working at a Costco. At the time I desperately wanted to be a designer, and I hated that job. The funny thing is that sometimes I daydream about the days working in a warehouse. I worked with a guy named Paul who was as creative and interesting as anyone I have met in the design world. I remember you used to have a mentality that you could be as happy working as a janitor (actually I can’t remember the exact occupation you used, but you get the idea) as you would be as an artist. Do you still feel that way, and what (if any) is the relationship between a person’s creativity and their occupation?

Jason: Actually, my current job is at least 50% non-design. Some of what I do could be called ‘designing workflows’. EXAMPLE: We have a task to complete every issue, how do we do it efficiently and have documentation so that we can prove when and how it was done?

Other things that I do are copy editing (a necessary skill for any good designer), project management, production, write documentation, office technical support, web coding (HTML,CSS,Javascript,Server-Side Stuff) and video editing.

Anyway, I’m not sure I’d be happy as a janitor necessarily, but I could do a variety of jobs and BE HAPPY as long as it involved some sort of problem solving on a regular basis. Graphic design and studio art work are definitely things that I approach as problems/puzzles.

The more I get to know about my own capabilities the more apparent it is that my artistic abilities are secondary abilities. These secondary abilities are birthed from a more primary skill: compulsive problem solving or a compulsive necessity to make something that is incomplete complete or improved, better.

Adrian: It isn’t that hard to add some visual polish to a crappy concept. If that is the “art” part of being a designer I am not at all interested. People that think that is what I do don’t realize how insulting that is. The fun part (and the real value) of a designer is that they can improve the end product. If you want frosting, hire a baker. If you want me to help make your project successful, let’s talk about design.

Jason: I guess that could be a description of ‘artistic abilities’, but I find myself quite delighted in doing many things that are not at all ‘artistic’.

What really bothers me is the measure of importance of what I do. I’m not a snob, but it seems to me that I’ve been given a lot of capabilities that the majority of people don’t seem to have. I can be egotistic about it, but I really shouldn’t. The older I get, the more humble I am about my talents. The talents are not something I created. They are things that I’ve been given, gifts. Sometimes it bothers me that I’m not doing something more important with these gifts.

Adrian: I will confess to being a little snobbish in that regard. For example, I am amazed how often I write a quick “fake” headline for a web comp and those words end up on the finished website. I can’t believe someone who has known about a company for 20 minutes can burp up a better headline than the president of that company. But copywriting isn’t really one of my gifts. Design might be. And it is in the moments when I do produce something truly good for an irrelevant product or company that I ask myself, “am I wasting my talent?” Should I be working on things that are more important?

Jason: What ‘more important’ means is elusive though. It could mean better paying, something that makes you famous or something that helps people. I definitely lean towards helping people. A weekly magazine about country music stars doesn’t seem very important, but I think there’s a micro and a macro option here. In what I think follows a Lutheran approach to life I’ve focused on the micro. What can I do to help the people in my immediate vicinity?

Adrian: I think it’s interesting to think of that as a Lutheran characteristic. The work I do isn’t world-changing and the chances of fame knocking on my door based on the design I do for a local business is really slim. But if I work hard and have a positive impact on the people I work with makes the work feel a little more important. Is that what you mean by “micro?”

Jason: Well, it’s possible that calling that ‘Lutheran’ is a ridiculous. I have a tendency to be ridiculous and wrong.

Yes, that’s what I mean by ‘micro’. I like to think that a lot of ‘micro’ effort is the only way to produce ‘macro’ results. Maybe it’s a matter of improving the morale of your workplace. Maybe it’s a simple matter of providing assistance to those that need it.

But back to the main topic: it’s problem solving that’s important for having job satisfaction. At least for me. And problem solving in a design-y environment involves a lot more than putting polish on a crappy idea. I’m in agreement with you there. I don’t know if it’s insulting, but thinking that designers merely ‘make things pretty’ is certainly a misguided concept about what designers do. Okay, maybe that misguided concept IS insulting.

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.