What's going on in your winery today..

[ms67]

and the delay continues cos yesterday the surf was great locally, so we blissed out with sun sea and sand, and grazed knuckles from riding the waves all the way onto the beach

busy weekday evenings of wine making are imminent.

[NorthernWiner]

Bottling today. I have 10 gallons of a Frontenac (my own grapes) and Petite Sirah blend to filter and bottle. I'm rather excited as it tastes quite good at this point and shouldn't require much bottle age.

[lockwood1956]

Sorted out Martinas bottles (polished, labelled, and cover ups) for Telford, she has a stash of wines here for comps

[goldseal]

Transferred my latest 2 gals of lychee into DJs, off the fruit (used a Mondego Chardonnay kit concentrate, added fruit late on).

[spritzer]

Not today...

But I have bottled the 70 half bottles, that I needed to do

Good job I didn't label them yet, as the prospective bride, has changed her mind again

Not to worry.... She knows whats happening now again... and the labels will be on with in the next week...

Before then, I need to get the shrink wrap tops on, and the bottles polished.....

But that will be done before this time next week

[goldseal]

I need to clear some stuff out of the cupboards, fridge and freezer, so I'm putting together a gallon of bits and pieces wine. I have the following:

1/2lb blackberries, frozen
1 to 2 lb frozen red grape skins, variety unknown
300g tin blackberries in syrup
1 litre Sour Cherry Nectar (min 50% fruit)
'Some' mulberries from the back garden (probably 1/2lb)
Most of a 500ml RGJ that has been in the fridge for a while
An out of date sachet of RC212

It sounds like a recipe for a disaster, but I thought I'd try to ferment it . A pulp fermentation, starting off at around 1.090, acid and tannin to taste, plenty of nutrient for the RC212, maybe a touch of oak later on, and I reckon I might get a drinkable light red out of it.

[goldseal]

Well, a partial success so far

The small amount of RGC I used for the starter went a lovely shade of brown in about 30 minutes. I'm already committed - blackberries and grape skins have defrosted, so I'm going to plough on regardless, replacing the RGC with sugar syrup and hoping that the grape skins will give it a bit of body and tannin.

[modofodo]

Degassing Elderflower wn1 and Elderberry mix. Testing gravity of lychee wn1 which should be ready for racking.

Tempted to start a wn1 ready for a gooseberry juice addition at 1030.....time will tell.

[granda]

started a blackcurrant and prune port style wine and 2 gall elderflower cordial wine racked and degassed a wine no1 and 2 gall wine no1 citrus

[koomber]

6 bottles of Elderflower Cordial prepared according to Bob's recipe.

Though my lunch breaks have been given over to:

Building a beer boiler out of the Lidl Jam maker. Upgraded teh tap to a 15mm hospipe style tap and built a custom hop strainer that goes round the outside of the boiler using 8mm pipe.

Building a Mash Tun from an Asda coolbox: Binned the polystyrene sheets and instead araldited the internal and external parts of the case together, popped a hole in it and filled the gap with vermiculite. Nearly finished the manifold and then it'll be time to brew!

*EDIT*

[ms67]

Bottled the first gallon of Blackberry & Elderberry Rosé. 2nd run on the fruits and lees. Helped along with a little Spanish Red concentrate and a little white concentrate. 12.8% ABV. 10 months old. Hard to anticipate how this will improve ... smooth, plenty of body, defo a big rosé, a little edge, a little softness, med/dry, plenty of fruit flavour.

Roll on August/September so I can make this, and the parent brew, all over again but this time in larger quantities.

[ms67]

Bottled 1 gallon of mint wine that got put on in November last year (2 gallon batch), made with mint from the garden. 13% ABV, medium, colour light golden/straw. Clear as a bell. The mint flavour, delicate, as is its cooling effect (unlike seeing Howard Marks on Stage Saturday night which was well cool!). I suspect this wine will be a great one for clammy summer evenings. We'll drink it chilled, maybe even with ice!

I'm pleased with it, and having plenty of mint in the garden this year means more to come.

[modofodo]

Not much doing, going to top up a medium dry red Mondego kit with cooled boiled water as per instructions.

Thinking about starting off the Luna Rossa.

[ms67]

Racked and stabilised 5 gallons of my quickie Elderflower Wine. All looks - and tastes and smells - good for drinking the first bottle in a couple of weeks, just a slight haze to clear (unaided hopefully) and it'll be perfect.

[ms67]

dropped some blackcurrents (straight from our bushes) into the Rumtopf, what a great smell when i lifted the lid and peeled back the clingfilm!