Blueberry Begins 06-22-08
Our first wine! Maybe a little bold because we begin with the full processes. We plan our next wine to be a kit that takes out a lot of difficult work out. This wine we crushed the blueberries and followed a recipe in a wine book.
Our notes:
- Use large pot with sanitizer in it to be able to dip tools in over next couple of days
- Fill up 5 gallons bucket with water night before to declorinate water for use
- Remember: Cover with cheese cloth first 4-6 days to maximize yeast growth also makes it easier to push down mash
- Remember: to sanitize all equipment all the time
- Prep the yeast early in the day so you don’t have to wake up at 2am to do it
- Make up a schedule & write it down in the calendar at the beginning
- Check recipe for any typos before beginning
- Have all ingredients before starting
- Wash the fruit before mashing
- Get screw on top fermentation
- Put air lock on periodically so you can see if your yeast is doing anything
- We didn’t have blueberry juice for starting the yeast, so we just crushed up a pint of blueberries. It seemed to work well.
- Find out the ins & outs of sterilizing
- Lateef believes the wine/must, he inadvertently ingested during first racking coused him to hallucinate
