Sunday, February 20, 2011

Wine making - cleared and complete


So, my wine has been sitting in it's gallon jar for quite a while now, doing it's magic.  It is finally done!
But, I need to back up a second here.  This photograph was shot a couple of weeks ago.  What you are seeing here is a layer of sediment that has settled to the bottom of the jar.  The wine has to be syphoned off into a clean jar and the sediment gets left behind.
I've syphoned it a couple of times since this photo, and the wine is nice and clear now.  Potassium sorbate (also available at the brewing supply store or on-line) can be used to make sure that fermentation is stopped.  After that, you can sweeten the wine by adding sugar.  Mine is sweet enough for me -- and I usually prefer semi-sweet wines.  I'd like to have some of my wine loving friends taste it and see what they think.
I really enjoyed trying my hand at wine making.  I have about $100 invested into the whole thing and I have 4 bottles of wine and enough supplies left over to make many more batches.   Hmm... what kind of wine should I make next?

4 comments:

Emily said...

awesome! i was just reading an old recipe for huckleberry wine, i bet that would be delicious. also i recently thrifted a copy of "wine from the wilds"--it has recipes for absolutely every fruit, wild food and edible flower you can imagine. i'd be happy to send you a list and scan some recipes if you're interested.

Shari said...

Thanks for the offer, Emily. I actually just found it on Amazon for 80 cents (used). I'll probably just get my own copy if you think it would be worthwhile (and really, for that price - it would have to be pretty bad in order for me to be disappointed).

Thanks for the recommendation!

Emily said...

oh yeah go for it! i haven't studied it that closely but from what i can tell it's a cool old book, even if you don't use the recipes it's probably full of good inspiration.

Emily said...

Just found your blog- It's very cute! Over the past 10 months or so I've been experimenting with making honey mead, which is made in a very similar fashion. Experimenting with different fruits/spices is so fun- I'll have to try making wine one of these days :)