Cooper Jackson

We are completing some steps that we should have done a few days ago, but the wine started fermenting again.  On 08/05/08 we added ‘packet number 3′, potassium metabisulphite, into the wine & mixed.  This seemed to stop any kind of air/fermentation that could have been happening.  Now there was NO pressure on the fermentation lock.  We stirred the wine 4 times a day as instructed .  Well, lateef stirred the wine 4 times a day.

Now, on 08/09/08 we moved on to the next step, which we did 2 days later than we should have. We dissolved a little potassium sorbate into water and added to the wine.  This supposedly is an anti-microbial agent and prevents re-fermentation.  We were thinking of skipping this step, since it is basically a preservative, but since this is our first time, we followed the instructions.  Then we added packet number 5, a fining agent.  It is supposed to remove proteins, resulting in a clear & stable wine.  I have heard fining agents also help to mellow harsh tastes and improve the general flavor. I will note that the blueberry wine calls for none of this extra stuff. All it needed was yeast and a campden tablet at the beginning.

We also took a taste of the wine, hesitantly, because last week when it did, well it basically sucked.  The smell has improved, although it still has that underdeveloped fruity aroma to it.  However, we were happy to find that it tasted much more like a ‘real’ wine.  It is progressing for sure.  We are re-looking forward to next week.
Now we leave our wine to sit for 6 days to clear, and the next step is bottling!

From Wine Making S..

According to the instructions, we should have done this step today two days ago but we were out of town.  We cleaned everything then racked the wine from the carboy to the fermentation bin.  Since fermentation was complete, we decided to do a taste test with another red wine.  Alexis gave us a bottle of pretty awesome wine last week, and so we used this one as the comparison.  That was mistake #1.

It was a blind taste test, and they looked exactly the same in the glass, but just one sniff and you knew which was which.  Ours smelled very fruity and underdeveloped compared to the ‘real wine’.

Our ‘blind taste test’ of our wine produced the following notes: Smells raw, smells scary, taste is underdeveloped.  On the positive side, we have paid for and drank wines that tasted like this before.  The other wine smells more like what we think wine should smell like, and less like ripening fruit.  The ‘real wine’ also had a much more complex flavor.

After drinking a 1/2 glass of the wine, Melissa made a visit to the toilet. Or, as they say in the Bordeaux region of France ‘le toilette’

We had a hard time siphoning the wine from the carboy to the fermentation bin, and we think its because:

1. Our hose wa 2 ft shorter than it needs to be

2. The height difference between the two bins was too small at first, so we moved it, then the difference was too large.

3. Hose may have been pinching at the top of the carboy.

After racking, the fermentation restarted, so we will not finish the other steps as listed on the instructions until yeast completes its activity.

Hydrometer reading: 0.99 (target less than 0.995)

We started by cleaning the equipment early in the morning, because last time it took 5 hours to dry.  Today it still wasn’t dry by 8pm!  We would prefer to clean the equipment the day before to allow for dry time, especially the big carboy and the hose.  The primary fermentation bin was leaking through the nozzle part a little at the bottom, so there was a ring of wine on our floor that had been developing for the last week.  Lateef tightened the nozzle up.

We drained the wine to the huge carboy through the nozzle.  Very easy, very fast.  Should we siphon instead in the future for less oxygen exposure?  It sure did splash around alot.  The nozzle is set slightly above the bottom of the fermentation bin, so the sediment sucessfully stuck to the top of the bin and stayed at the bottom below the nozzle.  There was suprisingly alot of sediment.

Hint: Today, due to last week failing to take out the trash, we have lots of fruit flies in the house.  We have perfected killing them with magazines but it would have been nice to eliminate them before, as we spent an hour tracking them down (lured them with fruit and bread dough on the counter) and then killing them.

Hydrometer reading: 1..000 + temp adjustment .002 (it was 77 degrees inside) = 1.002.  Target on instructions 1.01.  SWEET.

% reading: 1%

Our last % reading was 13%, and so I believe that we now know the alcohol % of our wine is 12%.

We were a little disappointed upon reading the instructions on how to make blueberry wine that it could take 2-6 months before bottling the wine, then another 6 months before opening your first bottle.  We wanted instant gratification!!!!

So we bought some juice from a company called EC Kraus, which sells wine supplies and already juiced grapes online.  They promise drinkable wine in as little as 28 days.  Sweet! That’s about as instant gratification as you can get in wine-land.  We bought the European Select Red Bordailles, also known as Red Bordeaux.  The grapes were grown in France, and then juiced, packaged and sent to us in a big bladder.  We add the water, the yeast, the other miscellanous tablets  over time and take various measurements and this and that.  Then, 28 days later…poof…30 bottles of wine.  Total cost will come up to about $3 per bottle.

On 7/13/08, here was our notes:

Instructions say to pour the juice, water, & yeast in to the primary fermentation bin and then seal and put an air-lock on .  However in our vast experience and of course some online research, we hear it is better just to cover with a cheese cloth to let it breathe a little more and give the yeast a better chance to develop.  We decided to buck the first instructions on the list and use a cheese cloth.

Hydrometer reading: 1.095 + .002 due to the tempeture in our house (77 degrees), so total is 1.097.  Target on instructions was 1.080-1.095.

Hydrometer %: 13%
This process was extremely easy compared to the blueberry wine starting from scratch.

Our “total water/juice/yeast” mixture line was slightly higher than the anticipated 6 gallon mark.