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Home brewing - wine - update: banananananana wine

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Update:
Apricot wine was racked a while ago - it went from 1.098 to below 1 sg quite quickly.

Tonight, finally started the blueberry wine. It pained me to freeze, then thaw the blueberries, but that's what they say to do, to break down the cells & get the most juice. 45-50 cups of blueberries (18 pounds) will be turned into 6 gallons of blueberry wine. 🙂

Picked the blackberries today - they're in the freezer & I'll start a 1 gallon batch later this week.

(Also have 3/4 gallon of blueberry jam on the stove - it was waiting for the jars to sanitize in the dishwasher, but now, it's going to wait until morning.)

Edit: this batch: starting sg 1.101
 
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I'm guessing this would be a total pain in the ass but has anybody made pomegranate wine? I tried some bottled stuff (from the store) a few years back and I liked it. But I'm guessing it wouldn't be worth doing on your own.
 
brandonb said:
I'm guessing this would be a total pain in the ass but has anybody made pomegranate wine? I tried some bottled stuff (from the store) a few years back and I liked it. But I'm guessing it wouldn't be worth doing on your own.
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Its not exactly hard. If you just want a bottle, buy it. If you're interested in giving it out to friends and family you may want to try making it. I mean a 5 gallon batch is like 25 bottles.
 
I just kegged 5GL of Kolsch and 5GL of a brown ale. Going to keg another 5GL of the Kolsch in a few days.
 
The only wine I ever made involved a trash bag, the center of some bread slices, and any fruit we could sneak out of chow.
 
DrPizza said:
Tonight, finally started the blueberry wine. It pained me to freeze, then thaw the blueberries, but that's what they say to do, to break down the cells & get the most juice. 45-50 cups of blueberries (18 pounds) will be turned into 6 gallons of blueberry wine. 🙂
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Sis in law has ~700 bushes on their farm. She made "wine" this year with the 1st berries of the season. Awesome and potent. Surely has medicinal properties.

Rained so much that they lost a lot of their harvest.
 
Well, a few days ago, I went out and picked blackberries. 2 1/2 pounds. Not quite enough for a gallon of blackberry wine. So, I went out the next day. 2 1/2 more pounds. Damn it! Now I'm just a pound shy of making 2 gallons. So, 2 days later, I went out again and tried an area that I remembered a lot of bushes with thorns late in hunting season a couple years ago - the area had been clear cut for logging 4 or 5 years ago. Holy shit, motherload of blackberries. Well, after a couple hours, I was convinced that it's time to get another 6 gallon carboy. Yet again, I came up just shy of what I needed. So yesterday, I took my wife & both of my inlaws to that area. The three of them filled up an 8 quart basket for my inlaws, and I also managed to come pretty close to the 2 gallon mark. My wife commented, "if we come back in another week, there's going to be a whole lot more ripe." I reminded her that she never went more than 25 feet from the road - the blackberry bushes extend back at least 100 yards from the road; if I had time, I could pick 100 pounds there. And, now that I have way more than enough blackberries for a 6 gallon batch of wine, I'm going to keep picking so I can make blackberry pies, blackberry cobbler, etc. And, so much more flavor than those bland things they sell in grocery stores (and cheaper. Free vs. 5.33/lb)
 
Update #3: I kept picking blackberries. A *lot* of them in the freezer. At some point, I said "f it" to the honey. Pain in the neck to spin out those frames. I still have about 150 pounds of honey in the kitchen, sitting in bee supers. (No bees.) Bottled more tonight. The apricot tastes pretty good - wife likes it. Ditto the blueberry, though it needs to age until the summer now.
 
I had made a few gallons of apple cider two years ago. It came out VERY dry. Made a second batch last year with lower alcohol % wine and added a bit of sugar in addition. Came out a bit sweeter, but still not as good as the WoodChuck cider.
 
Hacp said:
I had made a few gallons of apple cider two years ago. It came out VERY dry. Made a second batch last year with lower alcohol % wine and added a bit of sugar in addition. Came out a bit sweeter, but still not as good as the WoodChuck cider.
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If you watch your Sg closely and crash at the right time you maintain sweetness. I made some and let it ferment out this fall then backsweetened it. Stabilized with k meta and sorbate before bottling. Tasted okay, sweet enough. Had quite the kick though. Probably like 9% ABV from the calcs. I think next time I want carbonated cider. I'll try crashing it and bottling it live and heat pasturizing it in the dishwasher once I have the carb.
 
DrPizza said:
I'll have enough for the next batch, except yeast.
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Have you looked into washing yeast? There is lots of live yeast still at the bottom of those fermenters, and with a simple process you have all the yeast you will ever need, and the strain of yeast is perfectly suited for what you are making.

DrPizza said:
Update #3: I kept picking blackberries. A *lot* of them in the freezer. At some point, I said "f it" to the honey. Pain in the neck to spin out those frames. I still have about 150 pounds of honey in the kitchen, sitting in bee supers. (No bees.) Bottled more tonight. The apricot tastes pretty good - wife likes it. Ditto the blueberry, though it needs to age until the summer now.
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I use to make mead, but locally honey has gotten too expensive, and I don't have a place I could keep bees (if I even wanted to). But I should go out and pick some blackberries. It has been too long since I made some blackberry wine. I think after today's weather it might need a few weeks before the vines recover.
 
Update #4: drinking wine time. It's delicious!

Still haven't started the blackberry - but planning on starting it tonight. The apple is really strong, the apricot is really smooth, and I especially like the blueberry.

After forever, we finally started taking care of honey. Only did two frames (have a total of 40 frames) and got a couple quarts of honey. Fortunately, my wife enjoys doing that, so I'm leaving that to her.
 
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Banana wine time. Got a good price on bananas - 20 cents a pound. So, I got close to 50 pounds. Very effortless wine to produce so far: chopped up the bananas, skin and all, into chunks. Peeling the stupid stickers off was the only pain in the neck. Added a couple gallons of water, and brought to a simmer on the stove for about 20 minutes. Poured into two 7 gallon buckets, and mixed in quite a bit of sugar, and a bit more water. I was aiming to yield 7 gallons total after straining out the banana gunk. Added some acid blend, some yeast nutrient, and pectic enzyme to help break down some of the starches. Next day, when it was cool, I added the yeast. Stirred it up every couple of days. A couple weeks later, I poured the stuff through a very very fine mesh straining bag - quite tedious to get the liquid out without the solids. Wound up just shy of 7 gallons - 6 in a carboy and 1 in a separate jug. It's a very ugly pink color at the moment; sort of like if you blended puke into dish water. I'm estimating that I have about a gallon of solids still in suspension. I added a bit of bentonite to help pull out the solids sooner. In about two to four weeks, I'll be able to rack it again & estimate that I'll lose close to a gallon in solids, hence the gallon & 6 gallon will be mixed together. Once it clears, I'll bottle it. The yeast I used doesn't tolerate a very high alcohol content, so this stuff should come out at least semi-sweet, without needing to back sweeten it.
 
DrPizza said:
Banana wine time. Got a good price on bananas - 20 cents a pound. So, I got close to 50 pounds. Very effortless wine to produce so far: chopped up the bananas, skin and all, into chunks. Peeling the stupid stickers off was the only pain in the neck. Added a couple gallons of water, and brought to a simmer on the stove for about 20 minutes. Poured into two 7 gallon buckets, and mixed in quite a bit of sugar, and a bit more water. I was aiming to yield 7 gallons total after straining out the banana gunk. Added some acid blend, some yeast nutrient, and pectic enzyme to help break down some of the starches. Next day, when it was cool, I added the yeast. Stirred it up every couple of days. A couple weeks later, I poured the stuff through a very very fine mesh straining bag - quite tedious to get the liquid out without the solids. Wound up just shy of 7 gallons - 6 in a carboy and 1 in a separate jug. It's a very ugly pink color at the moment; sort of like if you blended puke into dish water. I'm estimating that I have about a gallon of solids still in suspension. I added a bit of bentonite to help pull out the solids sooner. In about two to four weeks, I'll be able to rack it again & estimate that I'll lose close to a gallon in solids, hence the gallon & 6 gallon will be mixed together. Once it clears, I'll bottle it. The yeast I used doesn't tolerate a very high alcohol content, so this stuff should come out at least semi-sweet, without needing to back sweeten it.
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If you need to clarify it further, use gelatin with a cold crash.
 
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