Thread: Homemade Country Wine Production

Originally Posted by Rojo

This Blueberry Must has the entire house smelling like Blueberries. The Yeast has a massive CO2 release each time I stir in more oxygen. Right now if the oxygen runs low I risk SO2 being made by the yeast. If that happens the wonderful Blueberry smell is gone and Rotten Egg smell is produced. Just nasty. I've only had that happen once when I stressed the yeast. Hopefully never again.

Wow, never knew that. Good info, wonder if it applied to beer making too?

Seems a stressed yeast situation can happen in any fermentation. It usually happens early on, I forgot to add a Yeast Nutrient at the beginning of a fermentation that triggered the yeast stress. I did two splash rackings, letting the must drain out the bottom valve falling 2ft into another fermenter. Fortunately I happen to have all the solids in a fine mesh bag. If I was fermenting like I do today a paint mixer would have to have been used to get the oxygen well in solution.

I opened the first bottle of the Raspberry Melomel I made last year.



Super surprise, it's as smooth as a baby's bottom. I think 2 glasses will be in order tonight. I thought it would take 2-3 years to smooth out. Can't wait for Bon Temps to try since it was made with his honey.

Very nice surprise indeed.

I have 75 bottles of wine ready to bottle but no bottles ready to go. Today I pulled down all the bottles again, made a plan for bottling, and culled bottles that doesn't fit in the 192 bottle rack I made.



I had close to enough bottles to handle the immediate bottle needs but not enough matching ones.



I realized some of the saved bottles are too fat. Those are being pulled to be disposed of.



I also see I have too many empty boxes. Box cutter time.



This is the cull pile at the time of this posting 9 full cases are piled up here.

I took a few pictures of how clear the current wine ready for bottling is.



The first wine here is a Dark Sweet Cherry / Maraschino Cherry blend. That is Maraschino Cherries on the bottom. A sweet dessert wine, would pair with a slice of Pie. ABV is around 13.5%



Second here is a Noble Muscadine that the grapes had desiccated to the point they were not marketable but the flavor & sugar concentrations were so high the quality of this wine is really a Special Reserve. Crystal Clear. ABV 16.5%



Lastly I made a Rose' using 2/3rds white Muscadines and 1/3 dark Muscadines. Lower ABV around 13.5-14% with a bit stronger Tannins than the Reserve wine. I expect to back sweeten this wine. Filtering both Carboys of wine into a larger Fermenter will give me room to adjust the sweetness to balance the acid and especially the tannins.

We have discovered much to my Bride's dislike that the sanitizing solution if left on the counter will burn the finish of the counter tops.

I'm sanitizing the bottles out in the shop because the bottle injector works very well. Sanitizer drops manage to get everywhere. Using a Bottle Tree for drying works well.



When you push down on the bottle sanitizer is forced out the nozzle and into the inverted bottle rinsing the entire insides with sanitizer in one squirt. After I like to let them drip out overnight before filling with wine.

Rojo, you're not supposed to use battery acid to sanitize bottles don't you know! j/k lol