Cap and Cork

It’s been a month of Sundays since my last post, and for that I am profoundly sorry.  I hate leaving you 3 folks in need of my rapier wit for far longer than anyone should have to wait.  In an effort to assuage your anguish, I wanted to get something out there for your eyes to feast on.  Here’s a quick recap on how things have been going brew wise:

All the wines that have been in secondaries, remain there.  I added 1/4 cup of honey to my chocolate mead, as well as 1/2 cup or so of icewine to top up with.  It has dropped some additional lees and I will rack it off of them within a couple weeks.  I also added 1/4 cup of sugar to my latest batch of welch’s wine.  It seems to “perform” better when sweetened IMHO.  No lees or refermentation as I added a pinch of campden and sorbate at the same time.  I will bottle this soon.

My jalapeno wine is clearing nicely on its own.  Another month or two and it should be crystal clear.  I did have a sip I must admit.  It’s hot, but very bearable.  Quite interesting.  Exactly what I had expected.  I am not sure if I will sweeten at all or not.  I also started a batch of jalapeno mead, which I do intend to sweeten with some honey later down the road.  It is just barely starting to clear, but remains very very young.

My braggot #2 is bottled finally!  Bottom line - braggot takes 3 weeks in a primary/secondary to be ready for bottling.  It’s that simple.  I bottled in the normal fashion and tasted one 2 weeks after bottling.  While it was only a 1/2 bottle (the leftover, mind you) it is clearly better than my first batch.  A correct amount of body with malty sweetness and definate honey notes.  I am still trying to decide if the hops are in the correct amount.  I may try a whole bottle tonight and decide where to go from here for batch #3.  All in all, a success so far.

A gentleman I work with was kind enough to pick me up a gallon of honey from a local guy so I’m good to go on the mead and braggot front for quite some time.  Only $25 and pure as the driven snow…  Can’t beat it!

I’ve tasted my crystal clear dandelion wine recently as well.  This deserves a whole post as it is clearly the finest homemade non-kit wine I have made.  It is a shame I only made a gallon, although picking those dandelions was not easy.  I am not sure I could have done another 2-4 gallons!

Coming up:  I acquired a whole brewers best beer kit so I need to clean all that and get it into the rotation!  Another primary means I need another large carboy!  I plan on making a Chardonnay for the wife here soon.  I just need to select a kit.  I still plan on making my icewine style kit, a tomato wine, a garlic wine for cooking and more braggot.  I should have a week off here soon where I plan on making SOMETHING almost every day!

Stay tuned.  The updates, even if small, will be coming along at a steady pace now.  Consider me recommitted.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 6th, 2007 at 7:56 am and is filed under Miscellaneous. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.