It is the end of the year, and I'm not really feeling comfortable in the skin of "By Candle Light Winery." There is no winery, just a dream. My husband suggested I call my dream "The Candle Wine Project," so I'm making the move over. However, due to email issues, I will be shutting this site down in a few days, and I hope you will migrate with me to the new site: candlewineproject.
Thank you!
Heather
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
How to Make Fruit Wine
To make cider or wine, you need a fruit or fruit juice source. Most wine supply stores sell kits that have what you need for this. Or, the other alternative is to use the following method:
Fruit wine from fruit
3 lbs of fruit in a mesh bag
1 gallon of water
2 lbs of sugar or honey
Fruit wine or Cider from Juice
1 gallon juice – can be from concentrate, but fresh is better
1 lb of sugar or 1 ½ lb of honey – leave out if doing cider
Additional ingredients
¼ tsp of acid blend or the juice from 2 lemons if needed
½ tsp Pectic Enzyme recommended
½ tsp potassium metasulfite
1 packet of wine yeast
Heat one quart of water or juice warm enough to dissolve the sugar or honey, then set it aside to cool. Sanitize the jug or primary fermenter with a ¼ tsp potassium metasulfite and water solution per the instructions. If using fruit, put it in a mash bag and mash it up inside the primary fermenter. Add the sugar water/juice solution and enough water or juice to fill one gallon. Test the pH and the acid blend or lemon juice to lower it to the desirable pH between 3.2 and 3.8 and close the container. When the temperature of the batch is no warmer than 75⁰ F, add the pectic enzyme and cover it. Let it sit for 12 hours before adding the potassium metasulfite and covering it once again. Let it sit another 24 hours before adding the yeast and putting on an airlock. The airlock should start to show some activity around 24-48 hours later, but let it be for a week if it does not before tossing it. After about two weeks, rack the batch off of the lees into another bottle. After another two weeks, bottle the batch, and let it sit for about 3 months.
The directions for making cider are about the same, except that fresh apple juice is used and no extra sugar or honey is added. I cannot stress this point enough. Maybe I’ve been hanging around Cider Workshop too much. My husband’s beer making online research stumbled into a page which just happened to have a forum on cider, in which beer makers are rushing the batches and are worried that the ½ cup of sugar they added to a five gallon carboy of cider isn’t enough. It frustrates me, because real cider contains no added sugar, so their half cup is too much.
For more information, please consult The Joy of Home Winemaking by Terry Garey or Cider: Making, Using, Enjoying Sweet & Hard Cider by Annie Proulx and Lew Nichols. These books go into much greater detail than I have here.
Fruit wine from fruit
3 lbs of fruit in a mesh bag
1 gallon of water
2 lbs of sugar or honey
Fruit wine or Cider from Juice
1 gallon juice – can be from concentrate, but fresh is better
1 lb of sugar or 1 ½ lb of honey – leave out if doing cider
Additional ingredients
¼ tsp of acid blend or the juice from 2 lemons if needed
½ tsp Pectic Enzyme recommended
½ tsp potassium metasulfite
1 packet of wine yeast
Heat one quart of water or juice warm enough to dissolve the sugar or honey, then set it aside to cool. Sanitize the jug or primary fermenter with a ¼ tsp potassium metasulfite and water solution per the instructions. If using fruit, put it in a mash bag and mash it up inside the primary fermenter. Add the sugar water/juice solution and enough water or juice to fill one gallon. Test the pH and the acid blend or lemon juice to lower it to the desirable pH between 3.2 and 3.8 and close the container. When the temperature of the batch is no warmer than 75⁰ F, add the pectic enzyme and cover it. Let it sit for 12 hours before adding the potassium metasulfite and covering it once again. Let it sit another 24 hours before adding the yeast and putting on an airlock. The airlock should start to show some activity around 24-48 hours later, but let it be for a week if it does not before tossing it. After about two weeks, rack the batch off of the lees into another bottle. After another two weeks, bottle the batch, and let it sit for about 3 months.
The directions for making cider are about the same, except that fresh apple juice is used and no extra sugar or honey is added. I cannot stress this point enough. Maybe I’ve been hanging around Cider Workshop too much. My husband’s beer making online research stumbled into a page which just happened to have a forum on cider, in which beer makers are rushing the batches and are worried that the ½ cup of sugar they added to a five gallon carboy of cider isn’t enough. It frustrates me, because real cider contains no added sugar, so their half cup is too much.
For more information, please consult The Joy of Home Winemaking by Terry Garey or Cider: Making, Using, Enjoying Sweet & Hard Cider by Annie Proulx and Lew Nichols. These books go into much greater detail than I have here.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Cleaning Bottles
Right before I bottled my first batch, I decided to purchase a Bottle Rinser and Bottle Tree. I was very glad that I did, as they are a time and space saver.
The Bottle Rinser, which can be found for about $15 is a plastic bowl with a spring pump in the middle. The bowl is filled up with a sanitizing solution, and the bottle mouth is placed over the pump. Pushing down on the bottle causes the pump to squirt the sanitizing solution up into the bottle. It is much faster than trying to clean it myself, plus it uses less water and therefore less sanitizer. I use a simple potassium metasulfite solution, while my husband uses Star San, an acid based no rinse sanitizer found at the brew supply store.
The Bottle Tree is a plastic pole with a wide base and little pegs coming out of the pole. Each sterilized bottle mouth is put on a peg so that any sanitizing fluid in it can drain out. The base is designed in such a way that it can hold some fluid without spilling on to the counters. A small Bottle Tree holds 45 bottles and costs about $20, and a large one holds 90 bottles and costs about $32. Personally, I’m nervous to have that tall of a tree that can hold 90 bottles at once, so I use the 45 bottle tree. Maybe I would feel different if we were doing larger batches. All I know is that I don’t have to figure out how to keep sanitized bottles clean yet let them drain out.
The Bottle Rinser is designed to be placed on top of the Tree, but I don’t do that because I find it easier to work down on the counter. I also am afraid of pushing down on the Rinser and accidentally tipping the Tree, even though it has a wide base.
If you keep used bottles for bottling, make sure to wash them out after using. This will get the previous contents out and any germs from the drinker. Plus, it will remove the contents that would attract bugs, especially fruit flies. Since the Bottle Rinser contains and sanitizing solution, it will not clean the bottles or remove any particles. I wash my bottles with dish washing solution and a bottle brush, though my husband is nervous about what dish washing soap might do to his beer. I also have a bottle brush to help scrub at the insides if need be, but it is easier to clean them when you finished using them before anything dries or cakes on.
The Bottle Rinser, which can be found for about $15 is a plastic bowl with a spring pump in the middle. The bowl is filled up with a sanitizing solution, and the bottle mouth is placed over the pump. Pushing down on the bottle causes the pump to squirt the sanitizing solution up into the bottle. It is much faster than trying to clean it myself, plus it uses less water and therefore less sanitizer. I use a simple potassium metasulfite solution, while my husband uses Star San, an acid based no rinse sanitizer found at the brew supply store.
The Bottle Tree is a plastic pole with a wide base and little pegs coming out of the pole. Each sterilized bottle mouth is put on a peg so that any sanitizing fluid in it can drain out. The base is designed in such a way that it can hold some fluid without spilling on to the counters. A small Bottle Tree holds 45 bottles and costs about $20, and a large one holds 90 bottles and costs about $32. Personally, I’m nervous to have that tall of a tree that can hold 90 bottles at once, so I use the 45 bottle tree. Maybe I would feel different if we were doing larger batches. All I know is that I don’t have to figure out how to keep sanitized bottles clean yet let them drain out.
The Bottle Rinser is designed to be placed on top of the Tree, but I don’t do that because I find it easier to work down on the counter. I also am afraid of pushing down on the Rinser and accidentally tipping the Tree, even though it has a wide base.
If you keep used bottles for bottling, make sure to wash them out after using. This will get the previous contents out and any germs from the drinker. Plus, it will remove the contents that would attract bugs, especially fruit flies. Since the Bottle Rinser contains and sanitizing solution, it will not clean the bottles or remove any particles. I wash my bottles with dish washing solution and a bottle brush, though my husband is nervous about what dish washing soap might do to his beer. I also have a bottle brush to help scrub at the insides if need be, but it is easier to clean them when you finished using them before anything dries or cakes on.
Monday, December 28, 2009
Capping or Corking
There are several kinds of bottles and several kinds of ways to seal it. I’ve only worked with beer and wine bottles so far, so I’ll talk about those.
For home brewing of beer and cider, beer bottles work just fine, but they should not be screw type openings for capping. Bottling them is as fairly simple. A couple of caps are boiled to sanitize them, and possibly even make the rubber ring in them swell to make a better seal. The caps should be allowed to cool so that they can be handled without being hurt. My husband got a capper in which a magnet holds the cap. It is then set on the bottle, and the two levers crimp it down on the bottle. Fairly simple.
For wine bottles, there are corks. The method is similar, where you boil some corks and then use a corker to force the cork inside the bottle. The cheapest corker runs a little less than $10, where you load the cork into a chute, place it on the bottle, and then use a rubber mallet to get the cork into the bottle. This did not sound ideal for me.
The guy who let me try his homemade mead actually grew up on his family’s vineyard and winery, and he told me not to go buy the $20 corker, and yet that is what I did. It mimics the industrial corkers in that you use two levers to compress the cork, and then a third lever to force the cork into the bottle. He warned me that it would take two people, but sometimes I find that I can do it myself.
There was a third variety offered to me that was about $30, and it was a double leaver corker that worked a little more sophisticated than the rubber mallet method. I didn’t care for that kind, and the store clerk didn’t think too highly of it, either.
Once I had decided on a corker, it was time for me to buy cork. Low and behold, they were out of real corks, and only had plastic corks. If given the choice, I wouldn’t have bought the plastic ones because real cork is biodegradable. However, I have to say that the plastic ones are growing on me. The biggest pro I see to them is that they don’t require the bottle to be laid on its side to keep the cork wet. If there is still fermentation going on and the buildup of CO2, corks can be forced out. I would think that a bottle stored standing up would create less of a mess than a bottle laid on its side. Plastic corks also seem fairly easy to cork by myself after I got the hang of it.
There are other kinds of closures, such as the champagne mushroom cork held down with wire. I suggest consulting books and your local supply store to see if you want to work with an alternative method.
It is also recommended that when you are capping or corking to boil a few more than what you will need in case something goes wrong – you drop them, they break, refuse to work, bend funny, etc.
Someday, if I really do open a winery, I’ll have to buy the Floor Corker Machine, which will cost me about $125, but I would think it would be easier on your hands to use.
For home brewing of beer and cider, beer bottles work just fine, but they should not be screw type openings for capping. Bottling them is as fairly simple. A couple of caps are boiled to sanitize them, and possibly even make the rubber ring in them swell to make a better seal. The caps should be allowed to cool so that they can be handled without being hurt. My husband got a capper in which a magnet holds the cap. It is then set on the bottle, and the two levers crimp it down on the bottle. Fairly simple.
For wine bottles, there are corks. The method is similar, where you boil some corks and then use a corker to force the cork inside the bottle. The cheapest corker runs a little less than $10, where you load the cork into a chute, place it on the bottle, and then use a rubber mallet to get the cork into the bottle. This did not sound ideal for me.
The guy who let me try his homemade mead actually grew up on his family’s vineyard and winery, and he told me not to go buy the $20 corker, and yet that is what I did. It mimics the industrial corkers in that you use two levers to compress the cork, and then a third lever to force the cork into the bottle. He warned me that it would take two people, but sometimes I find that I can do it myself.
There was a third variety offered to me that was about $30, and it was a double leaver corker that worked a little more sophisticated than the rubber mallet method. I didn’t care for that kind, and the store clerk didn’t think too highly of it, either.
Once I had decided on a corker, it was time for me to buy cork. Low and behold, they were out of real corks, and only had plastic corks. If given the choice, I wouldn’t have bought the plastic ones because real cork is biodegradable. However, I have to say that the plastic ones are growing on me. The biggest pro I see to them is that they don’t require the bottle to be laid on its side to keep the cork wet. If there is still fermentation going on and the buildup of CO2, corks can be forced out. I would think that a bottle stored standing up would create less of a mess than a bottle laid on its side. Plastic corks also seem fairly easy to cork by myself after I got the hang of it.
There are other kinds of closures, such as the champagne mushroom cork held down with wire. I suggest consulting books and your local supply store to see if you want to work with an alternative method.
It is also recommended that when you are capping or corking to boil a few more than what you will need in case something goes wrong – you drop them, they break, refuse to work, bend funny, etc.
Someday, if I really do open a winery, I’ll have to buy the Floor Corker Machine, which will cost me about $125, but I would think it would be easier on your hands to use.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Bottling
In my last post, I said that when the must clears, there is another layer of lees, and the airlock stops bubbling, that it is time to bottle. However, before bottling a batch, test it first with the hydrometer to make sure all the sugar is gone. If there is some present and the yeast continue to work on it in a bottle, the pressure from the released CO2 could cause the bottle to explode. I also rack one more time minutes before bottling so that I don’t have to worry about sucking up lees when bottling. Using a hydrometer, a batch is ready to be bottled if it is 1.005 or less. If it is ready, it needs to be chemically treated to ensure it stops fermenting so that it does not release any more CO2 and create a “bottle bomb.”
Bottling works just the same as racking, only instead of having a second jug, there are bottles to fill up. When I bottle, I put the sterilized bottles on a chair with a large towel that I don’t care if it gets stained or not. The sterilized bottles are lined up to make it easier to process. I rack by either putting a clamp on the siphon tubing so that I can stop the flow and move my tubing to the next bottle, or I use a bottling wand. I got mine from my local supply store, and it is a tube with a ball in the bottom that has a little rod sticking out. Gravity and the force of the flow will push the ball down, blocking the flow, but when it is placed in the bottom of a bottle, the rod pushes the ball up, allowing liquid though.
When bottling, keep the hose or wand at the bottom to prevent splashing and too much contact with air. Fill the bottle as full as possible and then remove the hose or wand. The level will drop since the hose or wand was taking up space. Ideally, the bottle should only have half an inch to one inch of space between the top of the fluid to the cap or cork to minimize the amount of air in the bottle, or headspace.
I find bottling easier to do with two people. One person bottles while the other person takes away the full bottles and replaces them with new bottles. The second person may even have enough time to cork or cap the bottles, depending on the equipment. If there is only one person available for bottling, I highly recommend sterilizing a plate so that the tubing that goes in the bottle can be set down without contamination or the need to sterilize it again.
I should note that this is the method used for making a dry still drink, like wine. I’ll talk about how to make the drink sweet or carbonated in a later blog.
Bottling works just the same as racking, only instead of having a second jug, there are bottles to fill up. When I bottle, I put the sterilized bottles on a chair with a large towel that I don’t care if it gets stained or not. The sterilized bottles are lined up to make it easier to process. I rack by either putting a clamp on the siphon tubing so that I can stop the flow and move my tubing to the next bottle, or I use a bottling wand. I got mine from my local supply store, and it is a tube with a ball in the bottom that has a little rod sticking out. Gravity and the force of the flow will push the ball down, blocking the flow, but when it is placed in the bottom of a bottle, the rod pushes the ball up, allowing liquid though.
When bottling, keep the hose or wand at the bottom to prevent splashing and too much contact with air. Fill the bottle as full as possible and then remove the hose or wand. The level will drop since the hose or wand was taking up space. Ideally, the bottle should only have half an inch to one inch of space between the top of the fluid to the cap or cork to minimize the amount of air in the bottle, or headspace.
I find bottling easier to do with two people. One person bottles while the other person takes away the full bottles and replaces them with new bottles. The second person may even have enough time to cork or cap the bottles, depending on the equipment. If there is only one person available for bottling, I highly recommend sterilizing a plate so that the tubing that goes in the bottle can be set down without contamination or the need to sterilize it again.
I should note that this is the method used for making a dry still drink, like wine. I’ll talk about how to make the drink sweet or carbonated in a later blog.
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Racking
When I was talking about air being the enemy of cider, I mentioned that when there is no more sugar in the batch, the yeast die and fall to the bottom in process called flocculation and create lees. The lees will be a pile of sediment in the bottom of the jug, which will be easy to see if the jug is clear. If there is no more air passing though the airlock, then it is time to move to the next step of the wine and cider making process of racking.
Racking is siphoning the liquid, now called must, off of the lees. If it is not done, the must will take on an unpleasant flavor from the lees. I once heard a cider maker say something about he had never lost a batch of cider racking to early, but he had lost a batch from racking too late. I use that piece of advice in my winemaking.
It is easiest to take the jug and place it on the counter and leave it for a few minutes so that any disturbed lees can sink to the bottom again. A second container that has been sterilized will be placed at a lower elevation from the first container, such as on a chair or on the floor. I prefer a chair because I don’t have to bend down as much, it is easier to see, and it doesn’t require the hose to be as long or as much worry about it coming out. From here, there are two methods. The cheaper method is to take a sterilized hose and put it in the first container above the lees. After swishing your mouth with vodka to “sterilize” you mouth, drop down and begin sucking on the other end of the tube gently to start the siphoning process, and then place the other end in the second container. The better way to siphon is to purchase a siphon device from the supply store, sterilize it, and follow the directions provided.
Try to avoid splashing when racking to avoid contact with air to help prevent oxidization, which dulls the flavor. Pull the tub or siphon out of the first jug slightly before it would suck up any lees. Place an airlock on the second container and set it aside. After the first racking, the must may still be a little hazy and it may continue to push CO2 though the airlock, which is okay. After a few weeks or even months, if pectic enzyme was added, the must will clear, the airlock will stop bubbling, and there will be another layer of lees present. Then it is time for bottling.
Racking is siphoning the liquid, now called must, off of the lees. If it is not done, the must will take on an unpleasant flavor from the lees. I once heard a cider maker say something about he had never lost a batch of cider racking to early, but he had lost a batch from racking too late. I use that piece of advice in my winemaking.
It is easiest to take the jug and place it on the counter and leave it for a few minutes so that any disturbed lees can sink to the bottom again. A second container that has been sterilized will be placed at a lower elevation from the first container, such as on a chair or on the floor. I prefer a chair because I don’t have to bend down as much, it is easier to see, and it doesn’t require the hose to be as long or as much worry about it coming out. From here, there are two methods. The cheaper method is to take a sterilized hose and put it in the first container above the lees. After swishing your mouth with vodka to “sterilize” you mouth, drop down and begin sucking on the other end of the tube gently to start the siphoning process, and then place the other end in the second container. The better way to siphon is to purchase a siphon device from the supply store, sterilize it, and follow the directions provided.
Try to avoid splashing when racking to avoid contact with air to help prevent oxidization, which dulls the flavor. Pull the tub or siphon out of the first jug slightly before it would suck up any lees. Place an airlock on the second container and set it aside. After the first racking, the must may still be a little hazy and it may continue to push CO2 though the airlock, which is okay. After a few weeks or even months, if pectic enzyme was added, the must will clear, the airlock will stop bubbling, and there will be another layer of lees present. Then it is time for bottling.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Primary Fermenter
In my attempt to make a peach wine, I used pitchers to put my fruit in mesh bags into with liquid to start fermenting, and I used cotton balls to act sort of as an airlock. After that whole ordeal, I went to my local supply store and asked for a small primary fermenter. Most primary fermenters are buckets with lids on them which can be sold in three or six gallon sizes. Part of the reason I did not pick one up before was because the lid looked wrong to me. There was no place to put an airlock! I mentioned this to the sale’s clerk, and he said they have a special drill to put a hole in the lid that an airlock will fit into. I just finished up a strawberry wine in the primary fermenter last week, and it looked and smelled good, and I now have a bell pepper/peach wine started in it. After about a week in that kind of container, it is best to remove the fruit, which is why a mesh sack in a bucket works, and move the liquid into a glass bottle or carboy for small batches. These allow you to see into the liquid, noting the color, clarity, and presence of lees.
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