October 2008 Blog Archives
Adam's Apple
Posted by: Greg on October 6th, 2008
Last month, right after Hurricane Ike passed by my state's coast on his way to Texas, I fermented a 5 gallon batch of spiced apple wine. If you have been reading my blog, you should remember reading about what happened to my last batch of apple wine when Hurricane Gustav affected my area and knocked out the power for several days. This time I waited until I knew for certain that no hurricane was going to affect my area and when Hurricane Ike headed for Texas, I knew the coast was clear for winemaking. My wife and I named this batch of wine, "Adam's Apple".
I'm assuming that you have heard the story of Adam and Eve or read about the couple in the Bible. If not, a quick search using Google should provide many resources on the story. Many people assume that the forbidden fruit that Eve ate was an apple, but, the bible refers to it as "fruit". To be more specific, "fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil". Anyway, Eve ate of the fruit and passed it to her henpecked partner, Adam and the moment he bite into the fruit, their fate was sealed! If I was in Adam's shoes (shoes wasn't invented yet, just a figure of speech), the outcome probably would have been the same, except I would have sampled the fruit for the sole purpose of making wine from it and if it was good, I would have harvested the rest of the fruit from the tree and made wine out of it! I can hear myself telling God, "give me just a minute to rack it to the secondary before you kick us out of the garden". At least, we would have a good batch of wine to enjoy in the months after our eviction. 
For this batch of wine, we followed the recipe below (makes one gallon):
Enough water to make gallon
3 - 11.5 oz can of Apple Concentrate
1½ lbs sugar
1 tsp Acid Blend
1 tsp Yeast Nutrient
1 tsp Pectic Enzyme
¼ tsp Tannin
2 Cinnamon Sticks
4 Whole Allspice
¼ tsp of Ginger Root in one chunk
1 packet of Lalvin EC-1118 Yeast
1 Campden Tablet (optional)
We made a 5 gallon batch of this wine, but we set aside 3 gallons of it just for this recipe. After the wine clears, add 2 cinnamon sticks, 4 whole allspice, ¼ tsp of Ginger Root in one chunk to a 3 gallon carboy and rack into the carboy. Let it sit for a month on the spices and rack the wine off the spices into another sanitized carboy. At this point we usually let the wine age on top of Stavin Hungarian Oak cubes for a month or two and rack again. The oak cubes give it a nice round flavor with a hint of oak. We let the wine bulk age in a carboy for 4 - 6 months before bottling.
Blueberry Wine
Posted by: Greg on October 14th, 2008
I found my thrill on Blueberry Hill
On Blueberry Hill where I found you
The moon stood still on Blueberry Hill
And lingered till my dreams came true
For reasons I can't explain, every time I think about blueberry wine, I hear Fats Domino singing that oldie but goody hit song, "Blueberry Hill". I'm not sure what inspired the songwriters (Vincent Rose, Al Lewis and Larry Stock) to write that song, but if I was to take a shot in the dark and guess, maybe one of them got buzzed off of blueberry wine with a date on Blueberry Hill and found his thrill, if you know what I mean.
Anyway, this batch of wine is probably our last batch for the 2008 season, because we are running out of space to store our wines. We really don't want to start giving away some of our bottled wines until they are probably aged. Below is the recipe that we followed for this batch of wine (Recipe makes one gallon of full-bodied wine):
Enough water to make gallon
3lbs frozen or fresh blueberries
2 lbs sugar
2 tsp Acid Blend
½ tsp Yeast Energizer
1 tsp Pectic Enzyme
¼ tsp Tannin
1 pack of Lalvin EC-1111
1 campden tablet
» Starting SG: 1.092
In large pot, bring a quart of water to a boil and disolve sugar. Set aside. Place blueberries in nylon straing bag, tie bag at top, place in primary and crush with clean hands or a sanitized potato masher. Pour hot sugar water over straining bag. Wait until the must is around 70 degrees Fahrenheit before you add the rest of the ingredients, except the yeast. Twelve hours after you add the pectic enzyme, add rehydrated yeast, cover primary and fit with airlock. When the must begins fermentation, the straining bag will rise to the surface of the must. Make sure you sink the bag twice daily into the must to keep it moist and prohibit any bad things from growing on the floating blueberries. When the must reaches an SG of 1.020, slightly squeeze the straining bag to extract as much juice from berries and discard. Rack off the sediment into a clean glass carboy and allow wine to ferment dry (about 3 weeks). Rack off of sediment into another clean carboy and allow wine clear completely. Rack again and top up. Bulk age for a year before bottling.
Blueberries lack the proper nutrients for the yeast to start fermentation, so that's why it is important to use a yeast energizer before you add yeast. You can also toss in crushed banana pulp to give the yeast something good to get them jump started.
