Starting Wines

It’s been a long time since I started any wines.  We usually do this in the fall, but it’s been crazy busy and we didn’t have a good apple harvest around here.  I’m out of my two favorite wines, though, so my mom dug the last of the apple juice from the freezer.

I dug deep into my freezer and found some cherries that I froze in 2010.  It’s good to get these older frozen fruits and juices used up.  We’re making a double batch of Chapel, a dessert wine made from the apple juice and cherries.

I heated them up enough to thaw things out.

We are doing just a single (gallon) batch of this apple wine called Mirth.

Then we added some acid and tannins and sugar

and lemon juice and put it all in the super fancy primary fermentation vessels.

Of course we add a Campden tablet to keep any natural yeasts floating around from incubating in our wine.  Besides, it’s fun to use the mortar and pestle.

Then I covered the buckets and put them in a nice warm area.

After the two juices sat overnight to prepare a good environment, I added the yeast.

This is why I won’t even apply for a permit to make wine until I have a nice building put up where no animals are allowed.  Bob is so helpful!

Tonight we are transferring the two wines from the bucket to glass carboys.  Then I’ll only have to rack it a couple of times and wait for about six months to have more of my favorite wines.

Linking to Farmgirl Friday.

Bumper Crops

Every farmer wants a bumper crop.  Anyone who’s ever tried gardening or farming knows that it’s a huge gamble to grow crops.  My garden this year was not the best.  I’ve gotten decent tomatoes, but lost a lot of my vining plants to the squash vine borer.  The best thing in my garden this summer was actually the peppers.

Bell peppers, Anaheim chili peppers, Jalapeno peppers and Hungarian yellow wax peppers~they all grew and produced like crazy.

Don’t ask me why, but they really produced!

My worst crop of the year is my apples.  I don’t have a single apple on my tree this year.  That’s very disappointing.  I have to say I really, really like my apple wines.  Of course my favorite is the cherry apple wine.  I might actually have to purchase apples to make some this fall.

My most important crop is the beans.

It is the time of year that the plants begin to die down and farmers can start to make a reasonable estimate of how their crops are doing.

My soybeans are a very slow maturing variety.  With the hot dry summer that damaged many crops, that seemed like  a good thing.  After our recent rain, the little soybean pods were finally starting to fill out.

Some were still pretty empty, but most were filling up.

Yesterday, I was told by a local expert, that my bean field looked like it had the potential to be one of the best yielding in the area…if we didn’t have an early frost.  Last night’s forecast…frost.

I actually think we made it through the night without frost, so I’m hoping all those little bean pods finish filling out to give me a bumper crop.

Linking to You Capture where today’s theme is apples.

Linking to Farmgirl Friday

Linking to Farm Friend Friday.

Wines are Bottled

Last night we bottled five varieties of wine.  I always am amazed when I look at those bottles and see how clear and beautiful they look.

strawberry-rhubarb, Concord grape, apple-golden raisin, strawberry, apple-red raspberry

How’s that for clear?  You can read the numbers stamped on the bottom of the bottle.

I just love making the wines with my family!

We have one wine left in the carboys waiting to be bottled, but it will be a little bit yet.  Then this year’s wine making is finished.