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.

Sweet Potato November 2020

November 1 (ish) 2020

To be honest there was just not enough batches brewing so I checked the cellar and saw that I am low on sweet potato.  Since I'm loving the 6 gallon bucket approach I decided to make a big batch this time based on my prior recipe.  Bonus... some of the sweet potatoes came from our garden.

• About 10-12 lbs sweet potatoes
• 3 bananas
• water
• 7 lbs sugar
• yeast
• yeast nutrient

I finely chopped the sweet potatoes and boiled them in 2 large pots for about 3 hours.  A couple hours in I used a masher and wisk to mash it up and boil some more.  The next morning I poured it into the bucket, chopped up the bananas, added the yeast and nutrient.  I checked after 24 hours and it was bubbling and happy.  Doing some math based on the starting sugar I added 7 lbs of sugar.  This should bring the whole thing to about 10-12 percent alcohol when all is done.  After a few days it's bubbling away and very happy.

December 27 - I had previously transferred it to 2 3 gallon carboys and added some bananas and chai tea.  I racked my jalapeno today which freed up my 5 gallon jug.  So I transferred to the 5 gallon and removed all of the lees and mash.  Now it's settling.  Very tasty as always.

April 21 - Will bottle this weekend.  It hasn't cleared so I've been letting it sit.  Haven't tasted it but I can't wait.  Bottling day is always so much fun.

May 2 - OK, didn't get it bottled until today.  This batch will be interesting to see how it ages. found that the seal had broken and it's been open to the air for who knows how long.  Doesn't taste bad, not great either. I think I taste banana. Still, I won't throw it out of the glass so to speak.  We'll see what happens with time.

Rose Hips and Hawthorn Berry Mead

August 14, 2020

 We have a lot of stuff growing right now including rose hips.  We have a ton so I looked up what I can do with them and found an herbalist who makes a "tonic" using rose hips, hawthorn berries, and cinnamon sticks.  Her site says that rose hips are heart healthy and hawthorn is a mild heart and mind stimulant.  She makes this for the holidays.  So, I gave it a shot.

• Hawthorn berries
• Rose hips
• Pectin
• Honey
• Chai tea
• Water

I ordered hawthorn berries from Amazon.  A 1 pound bag was around 12 dollars.  They arrived quickly and were dried.  I measured out a half pound with my cool little scale that Mary B got me.  I also measured out a half pound of rose hips and quartered them.  I put them all in a pot of water and simmered them.  Not too hard because I didn't want to steam away the taste.  I thought it smelled a little Christmas-y.  I added pectin to help it leach out flavors and let it sit overnight in a honey jar.

The next day I took about 4 1/2 pounds of honey and mixed it all together with some yeast.  I split it into 2 jars figuring when I take the high quantity of stuff out of it I should have about a solid gallon plus of mead.  The plan is to add more rose hips to the secondary fermentation.  I'll also taste at that time to decide if I want more honey, add cinnamon, and possibly other winter spices like allspice.

Loving experimentation!

August 25, 2020.

After this bubbled away for a bit it was looking weird.  Very milky but the fermentation had definitely slowed.  I racked it to a gallon and a half although the half had a lot of head space  While I was looking for the recipe approved cinnamon sticks (which I never found) I came across some chai tea bags.  This sounded appealing to me so I dropped them in.  After 2 days I noticed that the fermentation had completely stopped.  The headspace worried me so I took the half gallon and poured it into a quart jar.  Now the gallon and quart are settling and looking nice.  I kept the leftover for tasting and wow, super delicious.  Very spicy with the chai and the hawthorn adds a nice winter type spice as well.  Mary B says she tastes the citrus in it.  I'm not sure I do but in general it's really great.  I can see sipping this in the winter for sure.

September 7

Surprisingly, after sitting a short time on the refrigerator the fermentation stopped and it started to clear.  It looked beautiful and cleared very quickly so I bottled it up.  I didn't want to put it in 750ml bottles as it would be drunk to quickly.  I also didn't want to spend 35 bucks on small bottles so I tried something new.  I used small 12oz ball jars for some of the bottling and booze bottles for some other.  It came out very pretty and is very tasty.  Can't wait to try it in a couple months.

December 1

We were looking for something different and decided to open this a wee bit early and taste.  Wow, very smooth, very tasty.  I tasted caramel, Mary B tasted citrus.  Delicious, it will be hard to let it age and I only made a small batch :).

July 18, 2021 - Had some for an evening tipple

Blackberry Mead August 2020

 August 10, 2020

The yard has some really pretty blackberries that I wanted to take advantage of and I've heard of making blackberry mead so I figured I'd give it a try.  It should be simple.  I picked the berries whenever I saw them ripe and put them in the freezer.  When I had 2 ziplock bags full, about 1.5 pounds I got started.

• Blackberries - 1.5 pounds
• Honey - 9 ish pounds
• Water
• Pectin

Unfortunately I didn't have much pectin.  I took the berries and warmed them in a pot of water to thaw them.  Then I tossed them in the bucket with a little less than 2 gallons of water and about 7 pounds of honey.  I used a hand beater to mash them and tossed in the yeast.  All total it looks like there is about 2 1/2 gallons.  The next day there were lots of bubbles.  I took a gravity test and it came to about 10-11 ABV.  I like it a little stronger so I added another 2 pounds of honey.  It looks a little on the light side too.

Taking the advice of some online friends I will keep picking and storing the berries.  Once the initial fermentation is finished I will add more mashed berries to the secondary ferment to up the flavor and maybe even the hoochness :-)

August 20, 2020

Racked for the first time.  Hydrometer says it still had 4% to go but I was excited to get it into a clear jug so I could watch it.  I added 2 cups of sugar just to pep up the yeast.  I siphoned it to keep as many bits out as possible.  I had frozen about 2 cups of berries, so I warmed them in the microwave with some water and poured them into a bag in the jug.  The original mead was very light in color but had a slight berry taste.  The berries in the secondary should increase the berry flavor.  There was about a quart or more that didn't fit so me and Mary B drank it while watching a Pink Floyd documentary.  Tasty and potent stuff as usual.  This will be really nice when it finishes.

September 28

I bottled it yesterday and of course saved a small bottle to have while watching some TV.  Then I had a great idea for a Sunday afternoon.  Mary B and I watched the Viking show Last Kingdom (Utrid son of Uthrid) while drinking my mead from the new horns that I got from Fridi on Facebook.  Very good time.

June 1 2021 - In celebration of Memorial Day we had Mrs. Mack's meat, a family favorite of Mary B's family.  Mrs. Mack's husband was killed by a sniper in Viet Nam.  We had a bottle of this mead, very very good.  The berry flavor increased with age.  Will definitely make another batch this summer when the berries are ripe.