Monday night, we racked the orange wine. It will now sit in this 5 gallon water bottle for quite awhile. I'm not sure exactly how long since the next time we rack it, the liquid should be clear. I tasted it, and as of right now, it's not turning out so hot. It's got
tons of alcohol. A few sips and it makes you woozy! We can add more sugar syrup later to make it taste better.
The top of the bottle gets a stopper with an air-lock in it. It's filled part way with water to let the gas out of the bottle and it doesn't let any air in. Outside air can make it rancid and moldy.
Tuesday night, we made three 5 gallon buckets of grapefruit wine. All three buckets are made a little different. Buckets #1&2 have the same amount of juice (12 pts), but different amounts of sugar. Bucket #3 has a lot more juice (20 pts). The little glass stick that's floating in there is a hydrometer. It helped us judge how much sugar to add to each bucket to get the desired dryness or sweetness. Bucket #1 will (hopefully) be a dry wine with a hydrometer reading of 80. Bucket #2 will be a sweeter wine with a reading of 120. Bucket #3 will be in the middle with a reading of 100. We'll see how they actually turn out. We can adjust next time based on the best tasting.
Here's our 3 buckets sitting next to the Orange wine. Tomorrow, I'll add the yeast and yeast nutrient to the grapefruit wine. It will ferment in the buckets for 2-3 days and then we'll rack it and put it into big bottles with air-locks. From there, it's just a waiting game!
After all of this work, I hope at least some of it turns out! I want something to show for this time-consuming process!
Tuesday night, we made three 5 gallon buckets of grapefruit wine. All three buckets are made a little different. Buckets #1&2 have the same amount of juice (12 pts), but different amounts of sugar. Bucket #3 has a lot more juice (20 pts). The little glass stick that's floating in there is a hydrometer. It helped us judge how much sugar to add to each bucket to get the desired dryness or sweetness. Bucket #1 will (hopefully) be a dry wine with a hydrometer reading of 80. Bucket #2 will be a sweeter wine with a reading of 120. Bucket #3 will be in the middle with a reading of 100. We'll see how they actually turn out. We can adjust next time based on the best tasting.
Man that sounds like a complicated process~! I hope it turns out yummy!
ReplyDeleteMy motto is that you can "save" any wine by mixing it with Sprite! Not the most sophisticated thing, but it helps the taste if you don't end up liking it very much!
ReplyDeleteI'm excited to see how these turn out! Wine bottles for Christmas gifts next year???
Sure! If you don't mind saving some! I feel like we already have a huge stash...really, it's like 20 bottles and it won't make a dent in everything we have!
ReplyDelete