Dabbling in Beer

My wife got me the Coopers Brewery Micro-Brew kit for Christmas.  So I have been doing some dabbling into beer making.  Started with a simple Can kit the was supplied with the kit.  Then I made an Extract W/Specialty grains version of a Dunkelweizen. and than another Canned Kit but added some extra flavoring Hops. The first batch came out real well.  The Big battle in making beer in Florida is the Temperature.  Since most ales light to be fermented at 68F it does make it a little more difficult with temp control.  Nothing like a fermentation swamp cooler

(tub with water and a towel wrapped around the fermenter and frozen water bottles to help control the temp).  A little Ghetto, but it works.  I use the same thing when fermenting White Wines.

Spring in the Vineyard.

Looks like it is going to be good year in the Vineyard.  These are a couple of pics of my Black Spanish Grapes.  I have expanded my Vineyard as seen in some previous posts.  All my more mature vine have grapes, except for my largest Magnolia.  It is just now waking up.

Total of 18 vines 17 of which are for Wine Making:

7 Black Spanish, 3 new this year

5 Blanc du Bois, new this year

2 Muscadine Noble

2 Muscadine Magnolia

1 What was suppose to be Muscadine Carlos

And

1 for eating, Thompson Seedless, new this year

Been Busy

This past couple of Weeks I have been busy bottling some of my wines.
A List of what I have bottled:
1 gal- Blackberry/Concord
1 gal- Red Muscadine finished dry
3 gal- Red Muscadine back sweetened with 12 oz Concord Grape concentrate
5 gal- Elderberry/Concord blend. 48oz Concord Grape concentrate was added to help with body
6 gal- Pinot Chardonnay Kit

Still waiting to bottle is the Cranberry Juice blend I got from ALDI Market, 5 gal pure Apple and 1 gal dry mead.

The new grape vines that were added to my vineyard are already taking to their new home and starting to grow.

New additions to the Vineyard

I received my new Vines today.  5 Blanc Du Bois and 3 additional Black Spanish to give me a total of 8.  I added an additional row for the Blanc Du Bois and integrated the Black Spanish into the existing row to space them 5 feet apart.

Blanc Du Bois is a Hybrid that was developed by the University of Florida.  It is capable of producing a nice White Wine.  The Black Spanish has been around since the Spanish settle the New World.  Supposedly the Catholic Priest brought the from Spain and planted them in Texas.  They thrive in the southern Gulf climate.

Bottled the White Muscadine (Scuppernong) blend

After spending a couple weeks in cold stabilization, a large amount of tartaric acid crystals (wine diamonds) had fallen out.  I removed it from the fridge and let it come back up to cellar temp for a few days.  The wine is extremely clear, so I decided to bottle it.  The flavor is pretty good,  Still young tasting but with lots of promise to be good wine.

The cellar is filling back up

After a few bottlings, the cellar was getting a little bare of batches under-construction. I just added a couple of new batches. My 100% Apple from Fresh, but pasteurized Apple Cider. and a 3g batch from a juice concentrate Cranberry Blend.  I basically followed the same recipe for Welch's Concentrate since it is very similar.

Here is what I did

Cranberry From concentrate

7 cans (12 oz) Cranberry juice blend frozen concentrate
4 1/2lbs granulated sugar (starting SG was 1.094)
3 tsp acid blend
15 drops pectic enzyme
3 tsp yeast nutrient
water to make 3.25 gallon
wine yeast 71B-1122


The rest of what is in the Cellar is: Elderberry 5g (3g no-oak, 2g oak'd), Red Muscadine 4g, Blackberry/Concord 1g, Mead (dry) 1g, and in the Fridge: White Muscadine 1g ( Fridge, cold stabilizing)

Apple Wine update

After averting the near MESS.  I noticed on Thursday that the activity has seemed to have slowed down.  So I check the Specific Gravity and it was down to 1.005.  Time to rack,  put into a 1 gal and 5 gal with a little head space for foaming since it is still fermenting.