Chronicles of the Long Shot Farm

Wine

Blackberry Wine Progress

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This evening we syphoned the “Blackberry Batch #1” from the fermentor into 3 five-gallon carboys and 1 one-gallon carboy.  We added the airlocks and labeled each jug.  Now we can listen to the “bubbling” and watch the sediment slowly settle on the bottom of each jug.  The carboys will all be covered with dark bags to keep light out.

We also took out the nylon bags which held the blackberries for the “Blackberry Merlot” batch from the fermentor.  We hung each of them on a drywall screw from our beam that spans the kitchen, and let gravity do its job- we collected nearly a gallon of extra juice this way, without pressing the berries (afraid that pressing might crush the seeds and lead to bitterness).

Wine Making 2012 Started This Week!

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Exciting things happening this week:  we started 3 “experimental” batches of wine.
 

yeast starting to bubble
in blackberry juice
  • July 28:  our first batch is a plain blackberry, made from frozen berries we picked earlier this season. 
  • July 29:  a small batch of strawberry wine, also from previously frozen berries
  • August 4:  another batch of blackberry, but with this one we are trying for a “Blackberry Merlot” kind of wine, used more berries per gallon and added wood chips already during fermentation.

For all batches, we kept the fruit secured in fermentation bags, which will make it easy to remove before racking into carboys.

We had to make a run for more wine-making supplies like yeast, pectic enzyme, campden tablets etc.,  and ended up buying a fermentation vat for future use.  It was a good deal…and we can always dream big 🙂

Wedding Wine Selection

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Since it was a “Barn Wedding”, all the wines we served were home made and most of them were country wines, including:

  • Dry Cherry
  • Sour Cherry (slightly sweet)
  • Honey Crisp Apple
  • Dry Apple
  • Peach
  • Elderberry
  • Concord

All the beer was homemade as well, not by us, but by the bride and groom.  The bar menu was written on a mirrored antique serving tray.

    Organizing the Wine Tools and Chemicals

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    We cleaned out one of our upper storage cabinets to devote the entire space to the ever increasing collection of wine tools, chemicals, cleaners, corks and hoses.  Everything has a spot now and is neatly labeled and out of little ones’ reach.

    Bottling Wine

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    Finally got caught up with bottling some wine over the weekend, almost 100 bottles:

    • 6 gallons of “Honey Crisp Apple – 2010” 
    • 5 gallons of “Mixed Apple 2010”
    • 3 gallons of “Peach 2009”
    • 5 gallons of “Concord 2010”

    Finished labeling, shrink-wrapping and storing them just this evening.