Watermelon With Pulp August 2021

 When I was making my 5 gallon batch of watermelon wine Mary B asked why I didn't keep the pulp in the wine.  I said that I got enough juice out so I didn't need to.  But it gave me an idea for a small batch test.  When I added extra juice to the 5 gallon batch I had a melon left over so I followed all of the same prep steps.  But instead of squeezing the juice I did something different.

In my stock pot I added sugar.  I know this brings the juice out of things.  I also added pectin enzyme.  I think adding the sugar drew more of the juice right away because as I was mashing etc it seemed there was more juice to be had.  I put the whole creation into 2 gallon jars.  It was really pretty.  The red color comes from lycopene which is the same ingredient which makes tomatoes red.  I added the approximate amount of sugar needed to get me to 22%, all estimation since it's hard to test the sugar with the pulp floating around.

Once everything quieted down a little I racked it all to a single gallon jug.  It's still bubbling slowly.  Now just to wait until it clears so I can try some and compare it to the other batch.

Mid August Watermelon 2021

 A couple of years ago I made some watermelon wine, my first batch ever.  It turned out really tasty and everyone liked it.  Now I have only a couple bottles left.  In that batch I added potassium sorbate and back sweetened a little.  

So this time I wanted to go bigger.  I found that you get about 1 gallon of juice from a single watermelon.  So my ingredient list is very simple.

• 5 watermelons
• yeast KV1116
• sugar
• nutrient

The prep is actually a lot of work.  You have to slice and scoop the watermelons to get all of the juice from them.  I used a potato masher to mash them up, a hand mixer to further pulverize them, and then poured the juice into my ferment plastic bucket.  I only started with four gallons at first.  I tested the juice and it was about 7% sugar.  I added sugar to get to around 22% since I like my wine strong.  I put the lid on it and let it go.  It was almost dry in a week.  Some online friends said that this is not unusual with KV1116 and it has been hot which will speed things up too.  

On September 22 I decided to move everything to the glass jugs.  Only problem was I only had 3 gallon glass but I do have a 2 gallon plastic bottle that I bought and have used once or twice.  So I swapped it out.  I only had a tiny sip and it tastes good.  It's still fermenting very slowly.

Blackberry Mead August 2021

July 31, 2021

 Last year we had a surprise bush of blackberries so I picked and froze them and made them into mead and it was very tasty.  Two downfalls were it was a little light on the berry taste due to limited berries ans of cuorse, there just wasn't enough.  There never is enough.  So this year we went to Cronise market and bouoght 5 pounds of berries and went to twon with it.

• 5 pounds blackberries
• 12 pounds honey
• 5 gallons water
• pectin
• yeast nutrient
• KV1116 yeast

I put the berries in a 6 gallon bucket and added enough water to get me to two gallons.  I mashed and mixed by hand to destroy the berries as much as possible then added pectin enzyme.  I let this sit overnight so that the pectin cuold do its thing.  In the morning I was a little surprised to see some initial fermenting happening.  Not sure I liked that since you never know where the natural yeast came from but I'm hoping the kv1116 will overpower it.

I added water and honeyy to get me to 5 gallons.  I should note that there was almost no natural sugar in the berries.   Adding bits of water and honey and checking the hydrometer I was surprised to see that it took 12 pounds (1 gallon) of honey to get ti around 13% potential alcohol.  I put in the yeast and nutrient and put it under the table.  I may add some sugar in the secondary ferment to spike it a little, I like it strong.

September 22, 2021

OK, So I didn't keep great notes.  Probably about a month ago or three weeks I decided that the main fermentation was finished so I racked it to a 5 gallon glass jar.  It was very pretty and tasty.  Lots more berry flavor than the last batch.  It didn't quite make it to the top of the jug so I got some more berries and juiced them.  I added sugar to get to the same approximate value that the main batch started with and topped off the whole thing.  It bubbled a little and is now sitting quietly under the table waiting to be settled enough to bottle.

Eastern Redbud Mead April 2021

 OK, this one may be a little odd but here's what happened.

I have a batch of never-ending mead going.  Mary B read that redbud flowers are edible in salads and such.  So we took some flowers and put them in a glass for a week with some of the raw mead and viola!  It had a very nice slightly floral taste.  Very summer tasting.  So I decided a 3 gallon batch would be a good thing to try.

• A half gallon of petals
• Around 2 gallons of water
• 4 lbs of honey
• Yeast nutrient since there's no fruit for the yeast
• KV1116 yeas (as usual)

Mix it all up and it's bubbling in a day.  Not sure how to get the petals immersed, tried a little stirring which didn't help.  After a while I'll see if they get saturated and start churning with the rest of the mixture.

May 5 - It stopped bubbling pretty quickly, probably because of the high temps this early spring.  Tasted it a few times to see what was going on, to see if the flower flavor increased.  when it stopped increasing I racked. It has a very light floral taste and the flowers seem to have mellowed the raw mead flavor.  Nice experiment so far.