Cranberry Wine

I'm slowly making the move to greater than 1 gallon batches of beer.  The biggest expense in doing this is upgrading my brewing pots and mash tun.  Since I'm still buying furniture for my new apartment, I can't really justify those expenses yet.  However, fermenters are pretty inexpensive, and that's all you need to make wine.

I've made a few batches of wine in the past that have worked out pretty well.  Peaches made some of the best wine I've had.  Their flavor held up amazingly without the aid of sugar.  Blackberries made pretty good wine, but I had to add some sugar and preservatives (called back-sweetening).

Around this time of year cranberry sauce is pretty inexpensive, much more affordable than whole cranberries (at least down in Texas).  My idea was to use cranberry juice and cranberry sauce to make up the must.  It's always a good idea to use as much pure juice as you can.  The artificial flavors of "fake" juice will impact how the final product tastes, and a lot of fruit tastes different after fermentation.  The classic Cranberry cocktail juice is basically cranberry flavored sugar water.  Since I'm already not able to use raw fruit, I wanted to stay as close to real ingredients as I could.  I wasn't able to find 100% cranberry juice.  The juice I ended up using was a blend of 4 juices (cranberry, grape, apple, and pear) with cranberry as the main component and flavor.  The juice had a SG of around 1.040.  I was shooting for a strong wine, but the sugar content of the cranberry juice and sauce was much less than I was expecting.  Since I was expecting to have more sugar from the juice/sauce, I didn't stock up my pantry before blending the must.  I had 2 pounds of white table sugar and 1 pound of brown sugar that I added to raise the gravity to 1.080.  It means the wine will only be about 10-11%. Not quite the 14-15% I was shooting for.


I have no idea how cranberries are going to taste post-fermentation, but that's what experiments are for.

Cranberry Table Wine
//6 gallon batch

Ingredients

9.5 bottles 100% Juice Cranberry Juice (1/2 used for starter)
10 cans whole berry cranberry jelly
2 lbs white sugar
1 lb brown sugar


Additives
6 tsp Fermax yeast nutrient
3 tsp pectic enzyme (may need more to compensate for the jelly)
6 Campden tablets, crushed (to sanitize the must before pitching yeast)

Ferment
1L starter of Lalvin 71B-1122 (white, red, rose wines yeast)
With no airlock activity after 24 hours, I panicked
Sprinkled 1 packet Lalvin EC-1118 (champagne, all purpose)
OG 1.080

Notes
Blended Dec 1st
I wish I used more cranberry sauce, since it added less sugar than expected

First Tasting
Rack to secondary Dec 17th
Color is orange/pink, surprising since the juice and sauce was more maroon/burgundy
Very tart, will probably need to backsweeten this one.
Usually I'm trying to guess the final taste of my young wines through the alcohol heat, but there was none this time.

I had about a half gallon of wine and a half gallon of lees leftover after transfer.  (Lees are the wine equivalent of trub, the yeast and fruit parts leftover after racking.)  I put these leftovers into jugs to freeze and melt out some of the sugar and alcohol.  Maybe that can boost the weak body of the wine. I may end up freezing more and making a port/sherry.

Cider Season

Living in Texas, we don't really have a lot of apple orchards like up north.  There are a few, I got peaches for my Peach Wine at Henrietta Creek, and they also grow apples.  But, none of them grow hard cider apples.  Usually these apples are more tannic, and terrible for eating plain.  Rather than going to buy fresh apples, making a press, pressing the apples into cider myself, and ending up with sub-par cider I just go to Walmart and get gallons of unpasteurized, unfiltered cider for $4.50.  It's a cheaper route at probably the same result.

Last year I made several batches. The first one developed an unpleasant sour/bitter taste after a couple months. I think this goes back to the source apples not being good for hard cider.  During batch-priming, I added a packet of Splenda for every 2 bottles. This unfermentable sweetness balanced out the bitterness well into the summer.  You can make still or carbonated versions, but carbonated it was a very refreshing drink in the middle of the Texas summer.

I also took a couple of gallons and froze it in some gallon jugs.  When inverted in a funnel over a jug, the alcohol and sugar will melt out faster than the water. It makes a drink called Ice Cider or Applejack.  Cider-makers in the northeast used to use this technique to take cider to market.  They could carry less weight and water it down before they sold it.  Unlike my regular cider, I leave my Applejack still.  It feels more like a Brandy. Basic Brewing has a great video podcast on the process.

This year, I'm trying something new that I'm calling Caramel Cider.  I boiled about a gallon and a quarter of store bought cider for an hour.  It reduced to around 2/3 of a gallon.  I always get wrapped up in how simple cider is, and after 6 batches I have never remembered to take a starting gravity reading.  The unboiled version usually gets down to 1.000.  I'm hoping the caramelization from the boil will create some unfermentable sugars so that I don't have to add Splenda again. You can see the color difference in the picture.


First Winter Cider 2012

3/4 gallon of Musselman's Cider
1/2 vial White Labs California Ale Yeast (WLP001)

Caramel Cider 

1.25 gallons Musselman's Cider
Boiled 1 hour, final volume approximately 2/3 gallon
1/2 vial White Labs California Ale Yeast (WLP001)

//Notes
Brewed 11-14-12
Did not take original gravity readings

Fig Dark Saison: Tasting

I'm planning to do a post like this for each recipe, assuming nothing goes terribly wrong with one.  I don't have the most advanced palate yet, but I'm only 22.  I only started drinking craft beer a year and a half ago, and even then it was mostly "I like that style" rather than doing a tasting analysis of it.  As with the blog in general, I intend for this to be an outlet for me to document my brews and develop my skills as a brewer and taster.  I hope you'll follow me on this journey.

Appearance:  Very dark.  Hints of deep brown around the edges.  Thin head forms around the edge, but goes away immediately.  Very small hiss when opened.  I didn't take notes past the brew day, so I can't be positive that I primed it.  It is fairly carbonated, however. 

Smell:  Malty with a hint of roast and caramel. Hops take a back note and are pretty much unnoticeable. 

Taste:  Exactly what I was going for with my original recipe.  Citrus up front.  A little bit of malt and caramel in the middle and a little bit of roast in the back.  The roast is really subtle, I guess the Carafa mostly added a lot more color than it did flavor.  Can't really taste any figs (which were a afterthought anyways).  Next time maybe I'll add more (and not blend them, that was a mess, there's fig chunks in the bottle of the glass).  Or just leave them out entirely.  

Mouthfeel:  The light carbonation works its way to the back of my tongue.  A little bit of sweetness remains, but it's very easy to drink.  Not cloyingly sweet or over-dry.  Just right.  

Overall + Thoughts:  Probably one of my favorite personal homebrews. I hit what I was expecting pretty well, since it's just a recipe I already liked with some Carafa thrown in.  It could stand to be a little more carbonated, however.  I really love this yeast (WLP566 Saison II).  It has great fruit notes, with just a hint of pepper.  Boulevard's Tank 7 (And Saison-Brett) is one of my favorite beers, and this yeast delivers that character.  Maybe I'll grab a bottle of Tank 7 and compare sometime.  

Next time I try to brew a dark saison I'm going to add something with more punch, a roasted or chocolate malt. 

Pineapple Pale Ale

Whenever I brew or talk about brewing, I have a few family members that always ask, "When are you going to brew the pineapple beer again?"  I've said in previous posts that I have yet to rebrew the same recipe.  Well, I finally gave in to the pressure.

The idea for this recipe started after a discussion about a friend's trip to Hawaii.  He told me about how there was pineapple-everything there. Pineapple wine, pineapple cakes, pineapple brandy, pineapple soaps, all sorts of pineapple-based goods.  Except no pineapple beer.  (This was before Maui Brewing Company started distributing Mana Wheat off of Maui.)  As an experiment, in my 4th or 5th batch of homebrew ever, I brewed a basic pale ale and added pineapple chunks in the secondary.  And my family hasn't stopped talking about it all year.

This recipe is pretty simple.  A few pounds of 2 row, a little 20L, and Chico yeast.  I decided to try out Safale's US-05 dry yeast on this batch.  I didn't write down how much pineapple I added last time, so I decided to follow the 2 pounds per gallon rule I've heard several times on Basic Brewing Radio.  I ended up getting crushed pineapple instead of chunked since it was cheaper and came in convenient 1 pound cans.  Big mistake.  The crushed pineapple was very fine, not nearly as simple as the chunks.  The additional sugars kicked of a second fermentation, and in less than 30 minutes I was having to punch down the fruit cap with the back of a spoon.  I ended up having to do this about 7 times in 3 hours.  Even though I replaced the airlock with a blowoff tube, the stopper was getting clogged.  Now, the pineapple flesh has settled, but it is very loose.  Not sure how racking is going to go.

Using canned pineapple makes sense to me.  This beer is all about the pineapple flavor/aroma.  Boiling/pasteurizing would cause some of this to be lost, and I'd have to process my own pineapple.

Abacaxi

Grain Bill
2 lbs 4 oz  2-row Barley Malt
4 oz          Crystal 20L
2 lbs         Crushed Pineapple (canned)

Mash/Sparge
target temp 150°F
starting temp 151°F
final temp 146°F
Batch Sparge
preboil: 2.5 gallons @ 1.028

Boil
20g "Magic Hop Dust" @ 60 minutes
10g "Magic Hop Dust" @ 13 minutes
10g "Magic Hop Dust" @ 0 minutes
("Magic Hop Dust" is Austin Homebrew's way to sell the debris leftover when they break up bales of hops. This batch was estimated to have 7% Alpha Acid)

Ferment
1 packet Safale US-05 "American Ale" Yeast
//sprinkled directly into wort, per instructions

OG 1.045 (not sure why it was so low compared to preboil)

Notes
Hour long cooling rest at 98°F because I got stuck on the phone with my insurance company
Bottled one plain Pale Ale on 9/24/12 (no priming sugar, hopefully it wasn't finished)

Dark Saison with Figs

This one is a tweak of an old recipe.  In my year of homebrewing before this blog, I have yet to re-brew a recipe.  I have had some requests for another batch of Pineapple Pale Ale (coming soon) and a Dunkelweizen (that started as a Doppelbock).  I did try to tweak the Dunkel during a co-brew session with my friend Nate, but I used a different yeast.

I really like Saisons, Farmhouse Ales, and Biere de Gardes.  One of my personal favorite brews is a basic Saison.  I drank the whole batch too soon, and the last one had this amazing citrus and pepper character that the others all lacked.  I was inspired by a post on The Mad Fermentationist about a Saison with Figs and I just happened to have some figs in my freezer from a local farm.  The figs are not dried, but have been frozen to break up the cell walls (this lets the juices escape the fruit more easily).  I added in some Carafa malt, a roasted malt with the bitter husks removed, hoping the orange and black pepper flavors will mix well with the roasted malt and the darker-version-of-a-strawberry flavor the figs have.

I'm still adapting to brewing at my dad's house.  His stove is either boiling like a cauldron or not at all. I boiled off a lot more than I usually do, even with adding extra water.  I ended up having add the sediment, straining out the hops, just to make up my fill level.

Dark Saison with Figs
// 1 gallon batch

Grain Bill
2 lb 4 oz    2 Row Malt
4 oz          White Wheat Malt
2 oz          Munich Malt
2 oz          Carafa III Malt
~8oz         Frozen Figs, thawed and blended
Mash/Sparge
90 minute mash
Target temp 146*F
Starting temp 148*F
Final temp 145*F
Lazy Fly Sparge @ 170*F 

Boil 20 g      Hallertau (5.2%AA) @ 60 minutes
3 oz      White Sugar @15 minutes
4 g        Hallertau (5.2%AA) @ 0 minutes 6 g        Hallertau (6.2%AA) @ 0 minutes
Ferment
1/2 tube WLP566 Saison II Ale Yeast
OG 1.064 
//Notes

Brewed 9/1/2012 by myself
Farmers Branch water, filtered through a Brita pitcher
Fermented under the sink, thermostat set to 78*F
Figs added 9/4/12

Spontaneous Plum Wine

Not having a job and being home all day, I tend to end up browsing the internet for random brewing styles and techniques (rather than applying for jobs like I should be).  I found 'dinosaur plums', which apparently are pluots.  Like any good homebrewer, I spent the night doing various Googles for plum, apricot, and pluot wine recipes.  I'm still planning a pluot wine, but in the process I happened upon Slivovitz, a distilled plum brandy.  I found it interesting that this maker didn't add any yeast to the mix, just plums.

Basically, you add some plums, let them start fermenting, and add more plums.  Repeat until the fermenter is full.  No stirring or mixing until the last addition. He used whole plums, but they won't fit into my 1 gallon jug.  I cut them into eights and pitted them (some recipes call for branches and pits, others recommend only using the flesh). I also added 8 ounces of honey that I found in my cabinet.  I'm hoping it might add some 'wild' bugs stuck in the honey. 

Obviously I won't be distilling it, since it's illegal in the States. Maybe that means it's just a $20 experiment in making rotten plum mush. Maybe I'll try making it into an ice wine, that seems closer to Slivovitz than plain wash/wine. Who knows? I'll just keep going and see what I get. 

Plum Mush

8 oz Honey - 8/27/2012

2 lb Black Plums (walmart) - 8/27/2012

//Notes
No yeast pitched. Relying on the natural yeast on the skin of the fruit (or trapped in the honey)
Cleaned jug with OxyClean (no sanitizer)

pitted and cut plums to fit into fermenter 

Day 1 - Lots of liquid leaving the fruit.  Small bubbles forming around fruit at the surface.  Airlock bubbles every 45 seconds, so something is happening.

Day 4 - The plum meat is floating in their own juice. Its amazing how red/purple the juice is. Even more amazing is how much there is. The airlock has been consistently been bubbling every minute. There is a Lacto looking pellicle forming. Maybe the fermentation is mostly lacto right now, because it formed very fast. Waiting until the plum meat starts to break down before adding more plums. 

Peach Wine

Let me start my first post on my new blog with a statement. I'm a beer brewer. However, my current living situation makes it difficult for me to find time to brew. To continue my fermentation-based hobby, I'm making fruit wines (and beer when I have time) at my dad's house. We just bottled a fantastic blackberry wine, and since peach season is wrapping up here in Texas, we decided that would be an interesting country wine to try and make. 

There is an orchard (Henrietta Creek) close to where I live. The season was ending sooner than we expected, and was essentially over. They had a half dozen trees still producing, and what they had left was very small. I got around 3 pounds of peaches at 80 cents a pound though, so I wasn't complaining. 

I topped this off with a few pounds of white peaches from Sprouts, and a few pounds of yellow peaches from Central Market. I didn't realize how overpriced CM is (we went there first). I probably wont be going there for fruit again.



I'm not sure why I wanted to mix varieties of peaches. I just couldn't decide what I wanted to get. I have heard that peach wine often lacks in body, so I'm hoping that the variety can add some complexity that it might otherwise lack. I de-stoned and chopped the peaches into small chunks. Then they went into the blender with a little bit of water. To the peach mush, I added sugar and topped up to 3-1/2 gallons. (The volume was determined by how many pounds of peaches I had.) Additives went in, and a lot of stirring to aerate. Pitched 1 packet of Lalvin EC-1118 as recommended by the LHBS.

I followed the basic recipe in the "Enjoy Home Winemaking" book/pamphlet given to me at my LHBS. 

Indecisive Peach Wine

Must

2.678 lbs Henrietta Farms Yellow Peaches 

3.428 lbs Central Market Yellow Peaches

2.266 lbs Sprouts White Peaches

7.5 lbs white table sugar

Additives

3.5 tsp Yeast Nutrient

5.25 tsp Acid Blend

7 tsp Pectic Enzyme

.75 tsp Wine Tannin

4 Campden Tablets

Yeast

1 packet Lalvin EC-1118 

Notes

Brewed 7/24/12

Collected 3.5 gallons total must

OG 1.100