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.

Fresh Picked Strawberry Wine June 2020

June 12, 2020

Mary B went strawberry picking and grabbed extra so I could make some more strawberry wine.  This will be my first batch using fresh.  I made some from a kit previously.  I checked some online recipes and got the basic gist of the proportions.

• 6 pounds fresh strawberries with the tops cut off
• 6-7 cups of sugar (dehydrated cane juice)
• Water
• Pectin

I used a wine bucket to make it easier to work with the berries.  I poured the berries in and added water to around 2 gallons.  I added some sugar to get things started and used a hand mixer to grind up the berries.  I didn't want to cook them for fear that some of the wonderful flavors and smells would go up in steam.  I had to hand mash some of the berries.  I checked the gravity and it was at about 20% sugar.  I like my wine a little stronger so I added 4 more cups of sugar.  2 cups is one pound so the additional sugar probably only raised the sugar a little.  I'll let it get started and will add some sugar later, maybe.

June 21 - Getting ready to travel to the beach so I didn't want the wine to sit on the mash too long and possibly get funky.  So I racked it.  Very tasty.  Has about 3-5% still to go.  It's still bubbling pretty well and the airlock was bubbling almost right away.  One thing that was fun was I took some of the mash, mixed it with sugar, and put it on my english muffins.  Tasty.

July 19 - Got back from the beach and it had cleared really nicely so I decided to bottle it.  I didn't want it getting funky or anything.  It came out beautiful and so tasty.  Very rich strawberry flavor.  Definitely another to try in the future.  I can't wait to enjoy it in the spring.

Cherry Strawberry Coronacation Wine April 2020

April 15 2020

We've been locked down for a month with the Coronavirus social distancing.  I'll put on the record here that I think it's an overstep on the part of the government.  But that's the end of my political rant.

Through the lockdown we've been trying to support local business as best we can.  My wine supplies supplier and a place I play music is Blue Mountain Wines in Funkstown.  I bought a gallon of cherry wine starter.  It's a ton of corn syrup with natural and artificial flavors.  It also helps them stay in business and it's a quick batch of wine.  I've never used a starter before.

The process couldn't be easier.  Pour in the juice, add water and yeast.  I wanted to add a little of my own flavor so I added a gallon of strawberries that we picked last year.  I let them defrost overnight with about 4 cups of sugar to pull the juice out.  When they were defrosted I used a hand beater to mash them up.  They turned very juicy and delicious.

After adding everything to the jug I was sure to leave some head space.  I checked the gravity and it was set to yield around 13% alcohol.  I did some math and guestimating and added another 8-10 cups of sugar.  2 cups is a pound.  this should bring the final ABV to 15-18 percent.  It tasted delicious when I was checking the gravity.

It's under the table with KV1116 yeast.  After 24 hours the airlock is bubbling and all looks happy.

June 4 - Bubbling has slowed considerably so I thought it was mostly finished.  Racked it to a new glass jug and of course tasted.  Good and strong and very very tasty.  Very tasty.  I'm concerned some of the sweetness will go away after it finishes.  The hydrometer says that it still has 5% to go.  Could have been a bad reading on the lees though.

July 26 - Came back from the beach and this was definitely finished.  It's so dark you can't see through it with a flashlight.  It made 2 cases and is very tasty.  A little on the sweet side.  To be honest I didn't feel that the flavor was as pronounced as batches I've made with fresh fruit.  However it is really very good and I'm sure will age nicely.  I bottled this the same week that Sara and Alex had their little boy Patrick James.  I'm going to save a bottle for them to open in the future for a celebration.  This was a nice experiment to help out the local wine store, it turned out very nicely.

Welches and Wood Chips Feb 2020

I'd heard of using wood chips to flavor wine and heard that it works best with red wine.  So I made a simple batch of welches wine.  I used 3 cans of concentrate to make a gallon of wine.  After the fermentation mostly stopped I boiled some hickory chips (only ones I had) to make sure any natural weird yeasts were gone.  I actually didn't like doing this step because I could see a lot of flavor going down the drain when I poured off the water.

I racked the wine off of the lees and it tastes pretty good as is.  I put three small handfuls of chips.  I'm checking every 2 days for taste.  This morning after 2 days It tastes great.  I didn't taste wood but I do taste something different.  Kind of exciting and interesting.

2/28 - So then I got the flu and it sat a few more days.  I guess it's been 6 days.  I'm tasting something, it tastes good but I wouldn't define it as woody.  It does have a more mellow taste, quite good actually.  Still waiting until I taste hickory or it starts to go south before I end the experiment.

3/4/2020 - Ended the experiment last night.  Put the wine in a half gallon bottle and shared the remaining with Mary B.  Very tasty.  I think the wood mellowed the wine some.  I don't really taste any wood flavor.  the chips were very red so they absorbed something.  I felt like the alcohol content was pretty weak, weaker than when I started.  Can't prove it but there it is.

I think next time I'll make it stronger and will be sure to take some readings.  I'm putting the half gallon away for a while to see how it changes.

May 20 - Cleaned up the wine storage area and found this.  Decided to have some and ended up "sharing" the remaining half gallon with Mary B.  It aged really nicely and wow, what a kick.  Almost too strong (said no one ever).

Pumpkin Feb 2020

February 17, 2020

Looking back through my blog I see that this is the 4th time I've made this wine.  I wanted to go bigger so I took a 6 gallon ale bucket that my friend Dave Fraticelli gave me and made a batch in there.  I reviewed all of my old notes and pretty much went the same rout with a couple notable differences.

Ingredients:

• 6 lbs canned pumpkin
• 10 cups sugar
• 4 lbs honey
• pectin enzyme
• yeast nutrient
• same spices as the original recipe

The last time I made this I noted that I didn't boil the pumpkin.  I changed that this time for no special reason.  The last batch tasted fine but something told me that boiling would be better.  So I took 2 big pots and filled 2/3 full with pumpkin and water.  I boiled for about 20 mins.  After it cooled a little (probably not enough but I get impatient) I poured them into the bucket and added water to top it up.  This is probably a mistake because if it foams up I'll probably have a mess to deal with :-).  I added the sugar, honey, pectin, and yeast nutrient and mixed it well.  It was still too hot to add the yeast so I waited overnight to do that.

We'll wait until I rack it the first time before we add the spices.  This will have the benefit of tasting the spices with the wine but will make it so the spices are not in the pulp.  So it's a trade off but that's what experimentation is for.

BTW - love the little digital scale I got for Christmas.  It made measuring out the honey very easy.

2/28/2020 - My ale pail doesn't have a good seal so I can't watch the bubbles but I popped the top yesterday and it looks like it is still bubbling.  I might give it a stir just to be sure in a few days.  No need to rush to the first racking.

4/8/2020 - A lot has happened in the past few months.  The COVID virus happened so everyone is on home lockdown.  Schools closed, I'm teleworking, getting tons done around the house.  Fiona will graduate early but possibly without a ceremony.  On the wine tip I racked the wine and squeezed out the mash.  It's kind of incredible how dry you can get it!  It's in the freezer to make pumpkin bread.  Also, I put a couple of pints in a small jug and noticed the spent yeast at the bottom and got an idea.  I siphoned the yeast and fed it some sugar and yeast nutrient and it came back to life, bubbles!  Then Mary B made bread from it.  We've made 2 loaves and the second was better than the first.  We're keeping the barm in the frigde and it seems very happy.  Making another loaf today for Easter.

So, after racking the wine I let it sit to clear out.  Some more pulp sank to the bottom and got some weird white stuff in it.  I think I remember this happening before.  Last night I racked it again.  I think the white stuff was just spent yeast.  Everything tasted fine.  So we spiced it and now it's sitting to clarify some more before I bottle it.  We went heavy on the spices this time and I really liked it.  For some reason I feel like the alcohol content is lower.  Not bad and still very tasty. 

Spices:

• Ginger - 3" root
• Nutmeg - 1 nut
• Clove - 1 tbsp
• Cinnamon - 2 tbsp
• Allspice - 5 berries

This is what it looks like today 4/8/2020.

Vanilla Lavender Bochet Jan 2020

I saw a bochet on a facebook post and looked up what it mean.  Bochet (Boh shett) is a mead where you boil the honey first to caramelize it and deepen the flavor.  I wanted to try some of my new Christmas toys and I had some honey so I thought, why not!  I asked Mary B for suggestions for flavor and she decided vanilla lavender would be nice.  And so it began...

I measured exactly 3 lbs of honey and put it on the stove and heated it slowly.  Since we have an electric stove I had to be really careful to not let it burn.  I used an infrared thermometer to monitor the progress as I stirred; I stirred a lot!  At over 240º it was boiling.  I turned the heat back to where it would boil but not super rapidly and boiled it for about 20 minutes.  Then took it off and let it cool.

I used a clean 12lb (1 gallon) honey jar and poured the warm honey in and filed the rest with water.  I wanted to try a math experiment that I thought up.  A gallon of liquid sugar weighs 11 lbs.  A gallon of alcohol weighs 6.6 lbs.  Water weighs 8 lbs per gallon.  Alcohol weighs 60% of the weight of sugar.  So I thought that maybe I could use the weight difference between starting and ending to determine how much sugar was converted into alcohol.  I made an assumption that no water will evaporate.  I know that strictly-speaking that's not true but I'm working with rough estimates for fun.  A true experiment would have a non-fermenting control but what fun would that be?

So here are the starting numbers:
3 lb Honey
8 tbsp Vanilla
1 tsp lavender
Water

Jan 7 2020
SG 1.100  25% sugar
Total weight  10lb  7.2oz

Jan 15
9lb  13oz
1.042 7% sugar

So here's my math experiment.  Convert weight to decimal:
10.45 lb
9.8125 lb

Difference:  0.6375  More than half a pound.  That's impressive.  So, if I didn't know the starting amount of sugar and I just wanted to know how much alcohol has been created I should be able to determine that by the amount of weight lost.

I started with 3lb of honey.  If it all converted to alcohol the final weight should be 60% of that or 1.8 lbs.  that's a difference of 1.2 lbs.  Does the math work out?  A difference of 4.4 lbs is one gallon of alcohol.  1.2lbs is .27 gallons of alcohol.  That's close to the original sugar reading.  When the conversion happens you end up with 60% less volume as well.  So you have to take that into consideration so you get 16.2% alcohol.

So, using what I learned above I should have converted 0.1448 gallons of alcohol which reduced for volume is 8.5% alcohol.  That's seems about right.  So this means I can use a difference in weight to determine the ABV.  Fun stuff.

So after all of that, all I really care about is the taste.  I swapped out jars to take it off of the old yeast and had a taste.  It's very tasty.  It has a sweet front with a bitter after taste that I like.  I think the bitter is the lavender, Mary B thinks it's the caramelization.  I took some new numbers when I racked it (listed above).  Since I used KV1116 yeast which maxes out at 18% alcohol this will probably finish dry but we can either drink it before that time or see how it tastes when dry.  Either way I think it will be very good.

Drank it, loved it.  Had a half quart left over that I let sit for a month to see how clear it would get.  It cleared nicely and was oh so tasty. And, alas, it is gone.  I'll have to make this again sometime.

Skål!

Jalepeno Mead January 2020

Jan 2 2020

Since this is such a favorite and has few ingredients I'm making a large batch this time.  My first ever 6 gallon batch.  3.3 lbs of honey per gallon and a few big jalepenos.

I put about 4 gallons of water in the jug and added 7 lbs of honey.  I used my new scale to measure it.  I started with this amount because I didn't want to overwhelm the yeast.  The full amount of honey comes out to about 27% honey.

I poured out about a half gallon of the mixture into a warm bath and pitched the yeast so that it would have a nice warm start.  This also gave the 4 gallons of water a little time to warm up from 60º tap temps.  Once the yeast was bubbling I put it in the jug.  As of this morning it's bubbling.  I'll watch the gravity and when it gets low I'll put in the remaining 13 pounds of honey and water.  I'll also put in the sliced peppers once I'm sure the yeast is going nicely.

2 Weeks Later or so (I forgot to write it down) I added the remaining honey and peppers.

February 22 - While Mary B and Fiona were away and dance camp NYC I racked the mead off of the lees.  It tastes wonderful already!  Most of the fermentation has stopped.  I put  cling wrap over the top and a rubber band.  It's sitting quietly and settling.

New Year 2020 Orange Spice Mead

December 27 2019 - I wanted to make something to drink to ring in the new year so I threw this together.

7 lbs honey
2 large oranges sliced
Cinnamon sticks
Cloves
Nutmeg
Star Anise

Boiled the water, oranges, and spices to soften and release flavors.  Poured into my 2 gallon jug, waited for it to cool a little, and added the honey and yeast (116).  It started off a little slow so I added some yeast nutrient.  That seemed to do the trick.

My hope is that by New Year's Eve it will be slightly fermented, bubbly, and tasty.  It smells delicious.

Happy New Year 2020!
Drank this on new year's.  Boy, what a kick.  I don't know if it's the amount of honey or the bubbles or the yeast but it almost knocked me over.  It was very smooth so I did drink a lot of it.  There was a gallon left over that Mary B and I had with dinner the next day.  We'll probably finish it off over the weekend.

Skall!

Sweet Potato Wine Fall 2019

Mary B and I recently cracked open a bottle of the potato wine that I made last year.  We had it with a meal and it was very, very good.  Beautiful color and the taste was great.  You could taste the earthy quality from the potatoes and a hint of the bananas.

After looking up some recipes on the web and finding some really weird ones (like 50 lbs of potatoes?) I decided to just wing it based on what I've learned so far on this adventure.  Mary B picked up a basket of sweet potatoes.  I have no idea how many pounds.  I'd estimate 20 potatoes or more.  I peeled them like most of the recipes said to do.  Sweet potato skins aren't poison or anything but I figured those who came before might know more than I.

After peeling I chopped them into small cubes.  Sweet potatoes are hard!  I had to wrap a towel around my hand by the end of the chopping.  I recall thinking that if this doesn't turn out to be amazing the work will not be worth it.

After chopping I put them into 2 large pots of water to boil... and boil they did.  I don't recall the actual cooking time.  I think I used the method of checking to see if the potatoes were soft.  I boiled and simmered for at least 3 hours though, maybe more.  I turned them off and let them sit covered in the water until the next morning, November 9, 2019.

I put the water into my 3 gallon jug and checked the gravity.  The gravity could have been put off by the sediment but it showed around 7%.  This is pretty weak so I added 4 lbs of sugar.  I figured this would bring it up to around 18% ish resulting in a 9% wine.  I chopped 2 very-ripe  bananas and threw them and the skins into the jug with the yeast.  As seen in the image below I put a cloth over the top.  It was bubbling pretty well after 24 hours.

A note about the remaining mash, I put the leavings in a gallon zip lock bag and put it in the fridge.  We'll probably make bread using it.

I kept it with just the cloth for more than a week.  November 19 thhe fermenting was slowing down a bit.  I took the skins out and put an airlock on.  I also added about 2 lbs more sugar.  As of this morning it is very active again so I guess the yeast are happy.  Now to let it finish bubbling and transfer to get it off of the old yeast and bananas.

About the second week of December i took it off the Lee's and everything. It cleared very quickly and the fermentation stopped.  After Christmas i bottled it and had a taste.  Heavenly.  I think the alcohol content is lower than other wines I've made by Mary B says no. It turned out to be very pretty. Can't wait to see how some aging treats it.

Cantaloupe Wine September 2019

I love summer cantaloupe so I gave this a shot.  I didn't look up anything, I just wanted to see how it would turn out.  I scraped and mashed 2 big cantaloupes.  I wanted to try wild yeast so I added a couple grapes and raisins and kept it in a wide bowl for a few days stirring at least once a day.  I saw bubbles so I put it into a 2 gallon jug after a few days.  I tested the gravity and it was a little weak so I added about 3 cups of sugar.

It bubbled very weakly in the jug.  After 2 weeks total time I noticed some mold on the top of the mash so I racked it to a gallon jug.  I checked after an overnight and there wasn't much happening.  The juice itself has a bit of a vinegar taste which has me a little worried but that may change with time.  I added some wine yeast and yeast nutrient to kick start the batch.  Maybe it will overpower the vinegar taste.

I drank a glass that wouldn't fit into the gallon jug.  No bad effects.  A little like drinking cantaloupe kombucha.  I added a splash of yeast since the wild yeast wasn't doing anything.  It's bubbling away now with an airlock.  It will be an interesting experiment.

October 9 2019 - It's still bubbling but a bit more slowly and is completely opaque.  I'm being patient but I'm interested to know what's happening in there.  The color has changed too.  Hopefully I'm not making a biological weapon :-)

The final thought:  This turned out badly.  I don't know if it got some weird yeast in it or if cantaloupe is just no good to make wine from.  Thus far it's the only batch that I've poured down the drain.  It had a rancid-vinegar taste to it.  No bueno.  :-)

Watermelon Wine Aug 2019

August 5, 2019

I've never made watermelon wine before so this is my first attempt.  Like most of my wines I wanted to try to stick as close to the "old way" as possible, even though I don't know what that means :-).  So, we'll start as always with the ingredients:

3 seeded watermelons

That's it.  I chose seeded because I thought they would be closest to what farmers had a couple hundred years ago.  No extra ingredients other than the yeast.  I used 116 which has been my go-to.  I should really experiment with others.

I halved the melons and scooped out the good stuff into a pot.  Then I used a potato masher to extract the juice.  I need to buy a big colander/funnel to improve this process because getting the juice into the jug was difficult.  Live and keep learning.  I hoped to put some pulp in there but I actually had too much juice so I just went with the juice.

When the jug was full I tested it and it was at 7% sugar which will yield around 3.5% alcohol.  Not very good so I will be adding sugar.  I also tasted a cup of the juice.  Nice and sweet and tastes like summer.  I hope the wine does the same.  The taste was light and... common.  I think I'll be adding acid blend when it finishes.  I want to taste it first though.  I put the yeast in and gave it a swirl and put it under the table.

The next day it was bubbling as expected.  I bought 8 lbs of white sugar.  I've been using the evaporated cane juice that we have at the house but I wanted to do an experiment.  All of my wines are tasty but I've noticed a similar taste in all of them.  I wondered if it's from the cane juice adding a flavor.  Maybe that's a good thing.  Who knows.  But, I used white sugar.  When I poured it in the whole concoction bubbled up like crazy.  I poured some into a gallon jug and added some leftover pulp.  I put sugar in both containers.  It's not an exact science but I think I've added about 6 lbs overall which should be about 20% sugar.  So I'm hoping for 13% alcohol when all is said and done.

One interesting fact is that the bubbling mixture stained my plastic stirring spoon.  I was surprised that the watermelon had that much color.  So, note to self, I may want to be careful when bottling.

As of a couple of days everything is bubbling away as expected with cloth on the tops.  I'll stir it a few more times and then pop an airlock on.  Then, on to the next project.

October 1 2019 - The brew stopped bubbling about a month ago.  I took it off of the lees and I've been letting it sit.  It hasn't really cleared but smells very nice.  I wanted to try my hand at back sweetening so Mary B made up some simple sugar water by mixing 4 cups of sugar to 2 cups of water.  Heated until the sugar dissolved and then I let it cool.  I siphoned out a half gallon and added a few tablespoons of the sugar until the taste was right.  Everyone had a sip and said they liked it.  I tried adding some acid but no one said it made it better.  In fact they said it made it worse.  I will say that I liked it but I like acidy things.  Based on my tests I added about 5 cups of sugar-water to the 3 gallons of wine.  I poured some out of the final product and Mary B said it was very tasty.

The watermelon is not at the front of the taste but has a nice linger after the sip.  There is an odd "brown" taste.  Mary B said that was an accurate description.  It's not a bad taste, maybe it's from the rind or the lees.  It will be interesting to see how this ages.

I added potassium sorbate to prevent a re-start.  If everything looks good I'll bottle it this weekend or sooner.

October 8, 2019 - I bottled the wine last night while shuffling songs from Joe Cocker.  He did a version of many rivers to cross which made me remember when Deb Dollar played at Mary Pat Hughs' memorial.  Turns out it was 20 years ago this year on June 8 (a date I should remember).  I sent a note to deb to let her know I'm thinking of her.  As for the wine it is delicious!  I of course had a glass left over that didn't fit in a bottle.  It looks very nice.  I bottled it dirty because I wanted to free up some jugs and I'm just impatient.  I don't care if there is sediment in my wine.  It's mine and I like it that way.  I can't wait to see how this mellows.  It's already more mellow than when I last racked it.

August 10, 2020 - Had a bottle of this recently.  It aged very well, absolutely delicious and like most of my wines, a tad on the potent side.  Good!

Potato Wine Feb 2019

I saw this on a you tube video while searching for how to extract sugar from the starch in potatoes. That process was too involved and time consuming so I decided to try wine instead.  According to the video it's supposed to have an earthy taste reminiscent of scotch whiskey.  I decided to make 2 gallons.

• Bag of potatoes
• 4 lbs brown sugar
• One banana
• Golden raisins

I boiled the chopped potatoes in a large pot for about 40 minutes until very soft. We had them for dinner that night 😀. I pulled the potatoes out with a slotted spoon. There were a few small leavings in the water.  I put the brown sugar in the same water which was good since it melted the sugar quickly. I cut the banana into pieces about an inch long and peeled after cutting. I put the pieces in my gallon jugs along with the peels and poured the sugar water in. I put a healthy unmeasured amount of raisins in. After the water cooled enough I put the proofed yeast in. By the next day it was bubbling like crazy. 

A note on the amount of sugar. I figured that since the starch water didn't have much free sugar I needed to account for all of the free sugar with the brown sugar.  A gallon is eight pounds so two pounds is 25%. That should make the final product around 17-20%. It's not a science yet to me.  I just like stronger wine.

Feb 9 - After two weeks it is still bubbling pretty well but I don't like the looks of the bananas so I decided to take it off of the fruit.  After doing so I found that the banana actually wasn't so bad so a lesson learned for next time. I put it into my new two gallon jug. I need a new airlock that fits better. I had a taste and it has a slightly fruity taste thanks to the raisins and banana. It's fairly strong and does have an earthy flavor. I'm thinking this will be tasty when it's done.

April 17 - Bottled this today .It stopped bubbling a month ago but I let it sit to settle. It's very tasty even now while it's raw.  The color in the glass is similar to whiskey. Can't wait to see how it  ages. I put some in 4 standard bottles and the rest in grolsh style bottles.  Should be good with winter root stews.

September 21 2019 - Had a bottle of this this weekend.  I really like it.  Great flavor.  Kind of a dark flavor.  Lyric said it tastes masculine, I agree and I like it.  I'm going to expand on this and add more banana next time to improve the sweetness.  Fun, good times.

Cherry Cranberry Jan 2019

This is one of the first wines I dreamed up two years ago and it was delicious. So I took the original and tripled it to make three gallons.

• 2 bags of cherries
• 3 cans of cherry pie filling
• 9 cups of sugar
• 4 cups cranberries

I cooked the frozen cherries lightly to get the juice out while mashing them with a potato masher. I took the juice off a few times to try to get more juice out. Then I put some water in the pan with the cranberries. I cooked and mashed them lightly too.  I poured that juice in. Then I cooked the sugar to melt it. This isn't necessary because the yeast will eat it without it being dissolved but I wanted to be able to check the gravity.

I topped it off with the yeast and the water and checked the sugar. It's at 23%. Same as the first time. I also put the cranberries in to float around. Now to wait to see if the yeast starts. I used 116 yeast which is what I've typically used.

Early Feb - took this off of the fruit. Gravity was almost zero. Tastes very nice. Still bubbling and settling. Should be a delicious winter wine this Christmas.

March - Stopped bubbling.  Just been too busy to bottle it.  Hopefully in the next week or so.  Posting this so that I can remember the "bottled" date.

May 26 2019 - Bottled on Sunday.  Absolutely beautiful and so tasty even though its only a couple months old.  Can't wait to have it next year.  I only got 9 bottles out of the batch plus a half bottle of dreggy stuff, still very tasty.  I enjoyed it in the back yard with Mary B and a nice Davidoff cigar to relax and celebrate a good day of working together before firing up the grill for brats at the in-law's.

December 27 2019  Had a bottle while watching  It's a Wonderful Life with the family .So so very good.  I kept thinking I smelled hints of  cinnamon .  Mary B smelled it too .Made me wonder if this might be a neat thing to try next time.

Bottled May 26 2019

Apple Cider Experiment Oct 2018 - Not so Good

I was talking with the owner of Blue Mountain Wine Supplies who mentioned that you can purchase unpasteurized apple cider. So I decided that I would give it a try. I bought 5 gallons of cider from Cronise market and did a little research.  The natural yeasts that hang around orchards are supposed to give cider a more natural flavor but they are unfortunately weak. Using just the natural yeasts you run the risk of other bad guys getting in.  So I split the batch and am making half au-natural and the other half using special cider yeast.

I started on Oct 12.  It was chilly so I wanted to warm things up a little. I put the natural batch in the jug and simply covered it up.  The enhanced batch I used the recommended amount of yeast nutrient, 1 tbsp per gallon.  I put the cider in a warm bath until the temp got to 65. I proofed the yeast in 90 degree water. It didn't get as bubbly as the wine yeast so I hope that it is ok.  I covered the natural batch with plastic to be sure no more yeasts get in. The enhanced batch I did the usual, stirring it vigorously and covering with a cloth. I'll stir it occasionally once it gets going. I'm not sure if I'll stir the natural batch for fear of introducing bad stuff. As always, time will tell. I do love this stuff though ☺

10/16/2018 - I was surprised to see that after only two days both the natural and enhanced were bubbling like crazy.  After a day or so of the bubbling the enhanced version seems to have slowed.  the natural version slowed too but maybe not as much.

10/22/2018 - Both batches are bubbling slowly.  The natural batch looks "dirty". There is a lot of sediment sticking to the side of the jug.  The color looks similar to how it started.  The yeast version color is very pa;e and the bubbling seems slower than the other version.  I have plastic on top of both and I'm not opening it or tasting anything.  Should be an interesting experiment.  Can't wait to taste.

12/26/2018 - So this has been sitting under my table all of this time while I decided what to do with it.  Both batches are very pale.  They both taste a little like vinegar but I read that it's only vinegar if it smells like vinegar.  I did an experiment today and mixed about 50/50 hard and regular cider.  The result was very tasty.  I thought it was weak but after a glass I could feel it so that's actually a plus; it doesn't taste too hard but has a little punch to it.  I will mix some to find the best taste and then I'll bottle a batch in plastic in case the yeast re-activates.  I'll probably drink it all this winter though.  this might be fun to try again next year.

Decided it wasn't worth drinking.  Bland, low alcohol, no taste, possibly even became vinegar.  I may try again next year with a smaller batch and mixing with cider and drinking while still bubbly.