I’ve been away on a little vacation with my awesome almost 7 year old son. We flew out to Edmonton, Alberta and enjoyed most of the time - spent in Whitecourt and a couple of trips, one through Fort Assiniboine and then one to Jasper. Not wine making country - but I do enjoy Alberta very much. When I was 17, I “ran away” from home and got a job on a ranch near Trochu. I loved the long summer days - and they are even longer at this time of the year the further north you go.

Needless to say, my own wine making activities have been nil for about two weeks. I did enjoy some wine while away though. But I also drank some beer too. What is it about beer that makes me so tired sometimes, I wonder? I could have a glass of wine in the afternoon and feel fine, but often when I drink one single beer, I feel very tired and drowsy. Anyone else find this?

I know of a few fly anglers that also make their own wine. Jack Keller is one, and so is Ernie Kalwa, the Captain of the Fly Fishing team (The Osprey’s) that I used to be a member of. Not sure which one of us ties the better flies, but I know it’s not me! Although I do enjoy doing that. Today and yesterday, I had two good days to combine my two hobbies. And one advantage a home winemaker has if they’ve brought a fish back to eat for dinner is that wine selection is not difficult. Whatever is there! For me, the bottle of Liebfraumilch was a good pairing with the baked trout and rice I made. And on top of that, the fly that I caught the trout on yesterday was made with hair from my Maltese dog named Rudy. You can read about the afternoon fly fishing here.

Winemaking activities included racking and degassing. The maple wine I started on May 5 is expelling lots of co2 gas still, even though the fermentation is complete. The specific gravity was at 0.996 yesterday when I racked it - it’s cleared nicely on it’s own since the last racking on May 28th. It has a very interesting taste - I just had very teeny sip of it, and could taste maple candy - but without the sweetness. I’m looking forward to seeing how this will age a few more months.

I started three wine kits two weeks ago - a Chamblaise and two Vieux De Roi. All are four week kits - I generally use 8 week kits for red wines but I wanted some Vieux De Roi and it was only available at the time in the more economical priced version. I noted that these two kits in the instructions called for 14 days in the primary fermenter. Anyhow, these three kit wines were racked and degassing is on going in all of them before I add the fining agents.

Then there is that potato wine! I’ve had a few interesting questions and comments about that. Like, “what does it taste like?” Yesterday, I racked and checked the specific gravity which was 1.002. It does taste a bit sweet - I’ll have to check my records on that one, but otherwise it is pleasant. I am reluctant to describe its taste just yet as it was only a very small amount and not quite what I expected or can really identify. The demerara sugar certainly has left it’s mark though.

The other day, I was snooping around some “stuff” I had and discovered two more wine kits I had forgotten about! They were purchased about September of 2007, just before I headed off to Grande Prairie, Alberta for the Canadian Fly Fishing Championships. I guess I had meant to start them upon my return, but totally forgot I had them. Both are Cru Select RQ’s: a Montepulciano Cab Merlot, the other Unoaked Chardonnay. I’m hoping and believing the juice will be fine but I will use fresh yeast when I start them, probably in about two weeks from now.

So there’s another connection between fly fishing and winemaking. One can get in the way of the other at times! Actually, it wasn’t the fly fishing that distracted me from these two kits back in 2007…

Have you ever looked at your airlocks popping up and down as carbon dioxide gas is being released and wondered just how much co2 you might be responsible for generating? There was an interesting discussion started by a user “Dhorton” at the WineMakingTalk forum who was wondering if there was any concern in regard to co2 amounts in their apartment as a result of making wine at home.

Apparently, since Dhorton began making wine, their smoke/carbon monoxide detector was activated a few times. I imagine the detector detects carbon monoxide specifically, and there could be a number of reasons for false alarms including humidity, dust and even bugs getting into the unit. But to a new winemaker, I can understand the concern seeing all these carbon dioxide bubbles coming up and wondering if the quantity is enough to affect the air inside.

An engineer, “Kiljoy” who admits to having too much time on his hands responded to the forum thread and figured that one gallon of wine with a specific gravity of 1.09 would release about .07433 lbs. of carbon dioxide per day over a 14 day fermentation period. The calculations then went on to show that this was a negligible amount, even in a small apartment.

Later in the thread, a link to a blog post that discussed carbon dioxide emissions by breweries was posted. In that post, Pablo concludes:

“Maybe this doesn’t sound like much, but let me put it in perspective: in 2004, Americans drank 23.974 billion liters of beer, resulting in 1,491,182 mT of CO2 emissions. Global beer consumption in 2004 was 150.392 billion liters, resulting in 9,354,382 mT of CO2 emissions. For a little something more to think about, the US emitted a total of 1,446,777,000 mT of CO2 in 1996. Now, keep in mind that this is based on an assumption of a brix value of 12. The average beer may be a bit weaker than that. Feel free to plug in your own assumptions to see what you get. Either way, the CO2 emissions from brewing are not negligible.”

Well, it seems to me that Pablo’s logic might be a bit off if he is suggesting that the brewing industry alone is responsible for this. Bare in mind that we are talking about emissions from the fermentation of organic material that contains sugars. I could be wrong, but I think that there would still be quite a bit of CO2 even if it wasn’t used in the brewing or winemaking industry - as the stuff rots it would likely release plenty of CO2. Humans release CO2 in their farts after eating organic plant material so either way - fermented or digested, or left to rot, CO2 will likely be produced. I’m just not sure if it would be in the same quantities - does simply rotting matter convert sugars to CO2? What I’m saying is that this plant material would release CO2 in time, whether it’s fermented or not.

In my opinion, trying to put some blame or pin global warming causes to include brewing or fermenting is a bit much. I don’t think home winemakers have anything to worry about, even if they do put great stock in theories about CO2 emissions and global warming.

I recently wrote about the homemade maple syrup wine that I started on May 5, 2009. On May 14th, I racked it to a carboy with the specific gravity at 1.016.

Since then, it has begun to clear nicely and the colour is very interesting. It’s a very autumn or fall looking colour - the colour of some maple leaves after they have turned their colours at that time of the year. It’s hard to describe exactly, but perhaps vermillion .. or light cinnamon might be descriptive enough.

Although the SG was 0.997 last week, it is still showing signs of fermentation with lots of CO2 rising through the wine and the airlock continues to bounce every so often.

I’m going to let it continue doing what it is doing for another couple of weeks, then measure the SG, rack and likely add sulfite.

About a year ago, I had a friend who “makes” wine at a local store (in other words, my friend pitches the yeast and then helps with the bottling - all the work is done by the store) give me a bottle of a Gewurtztraminer that he had “made.” The bottle was 375 ml in size. I know some folk who will bottle some of their wine in these small size bottles, and I do the same at times. However, a comment on Jack Keller’s blog got me to thinking a bit more about when and why I choose 375 ml over 750 ml, and when I might even select magnum size bottles.

Jack’s comment:

“A preface. I do not put all of my mead in 375 mL bottles, even though I know many do. I only fill two 375 mL bottles with each mead, and these are for tasting to see if the mead has aged enough to drink. I enter full, 750 mL bottles in competition unless 375 mL bottles are actually required, which they rarely are. You do as you desire.”
~ Jack Keller (Scroll down to the May 22nd, 2009 entry)

Personally, I’d never give anything less than a 750 ml bottle of wine as a gift if I’ve made wine from a kit that makes 23 litres of wine. It just seems “chintzy” to me. However, there are times when I do consider a 375 ml bottle for both gift purposes and my own use. I have my own arbitrary thoughts about it and as Jack says, “You do as you desire.”

First, I seldom bottle into 375 ml or magnum size bottles. Most of my wines and meads go into 750 ml. But then, most of my wines are 23 litre (5 Imperial gallons). I like the standard 750 size, and corking them is easy. Corking the 375 ml bottles with my Portuguese floor corker is a bit awkward - I need to put a block of wood over the bottle stand in order to give them enough height to be corked. And that means I also need to hold them steady. As well, obviously there are more bottles to be filled when using 375 ml.

When I do bottle into 375 ml size bottles, it’s when I’ve made 3 or less gallons of a particular wine or mead, or when I’ve made something exceptional and I’d like to be able to give away as many as possible to friends and clients while still keeping a good amount for myself. For example, a few years ago I made a 5 gallon batch of blackcurrant wine that turned out to be like heaven. That went into 350 ml bottles - and many were given away. The recent Kiwi Melomel that I made was 3 gallons, and it too turned out exceptional, so I have all of it in the smaller size bottles.

As far as magnum size bottles, the only time I can think of that I’d consider bottling into those would be if I was making wine for some special event where there was a corkage fee for bringing my own wine instead of purchasing the wine provided by the venue. If I were trying to save costs, then reducing the number of bottles that needed to be opened might be a time I’d think of magnums.

But then, that’s just another advantage of home winemaking. You can choose whatever size of bottles you’d like to use for whatever your purposes or reasons are. One caution though: smaller quantities might be more susceptible to temperature changes when aging your wine. Just as wine in a 5 gallon carboy won’t be as susceptible to temperature variations while aging as much as wine in a 750 ml bottle will be, wines in 375 ml bottles will be more susceptible than that in 750 ml bottles.

I am awaiting a very important phone call at this late hour (3:30AM) from the most special woman - to let me know she arrived at her house safely. Due to some circumstances beyond our control at this time, she lives a four hour plane ride and then about a two hour drive away. Tonight, I dropped her off at the airport in Toronto after we spent a wonderful five days together. Some of that time was enjoying some of the homemade wine and mead I’ve made. But one of the highlights of our weekend was being able to take in Leonard Cohen together in London, Ontario on Sunday night.

Mr. Cohen is such a fine old gentleman that we decided to dress for the occasion, and it was very nice to get compliments from the staff at the John Labatt Centre as we walked through the turnstyles and had ushers and usherettes direct us to our floor level seats. And I was able to “whisper sing” in my beautiful lady’s ear, along with Leonard Cohen, “If you want a doctor….. I’m your man.” Of course, in his older age, and his Marlboro cigarette “enhanced” voice, Leonard does it much better than I do, but the sentiment is the same.. if not deeper.. when I sing it.

Anyhow, as I wait for that phone call to know Colleen has arrived home safely, I thought I might as well add a post here. If you enjoy it, very good. If not, perhaps some of the other content here will be of more interest to you. I don’t mind.

I haven’t started another batch of kiwi melomel yet, but am thinking I might do that on the weekend. My beekeeper friend/client might be dropping off quite a load of honey to me on Friday. Thus far, the kiwi melomel has been met with compliments and this time, I’m going to make sure I make ten gallons of it. It will make for a very good gift to friends and clients.

I was also going through some photos and came across one of my six year old son helping me cork some bottles. He’s a great wee man, and perhaps this photo says it all about his constant happiness and love for doing things.

Ok… here’s the photo… and hopefully, the phone will be ringing in minutes!

Ring…! There’s the phone!

Anyone else noticing an increase in articles and websites that infer they can teach you how to make wine quickly?

Folks, settle down here! While it is true that you can pitch some yeast into fruit juice which might have some added sugar and in seven days end up with something that contains alcohol, it’s not going to be very drinkable - unless you’re desperate. Wine takes time. Yes, home winemaking can be fun, it can save money, and you can create wines that you won’t find in many wine stores - but the process to make decent wine requires the same thing the world over: time.

Recently, I came across someone trying to sell a manual and a packet of yeast who was claiming he could teach you to make wine in four days. I hope no one purchased that. A packet of yeast costs about a dollar, and no manual will ever teach you to make wine you’ll be pleased with in four days. It’s impossible. The very bare minimum you’ll need is a month - and you’d be best off to head over to your local winemaking supply shop and pick up an economical winemaking kit that provides instructions, grape juice concentrate and the necessary ingredients to stabilize and clarify the wine in 28 days. Even then, the wine will benefit from at least a month’s worth of aging in the bottle.

I did watch once a video about how some prisoners made wine in jail. Even they agreed it took at least seven days to end up with some plonk that had alcohol in it. But it wasn’t exactly very appetizing. It had something to do with smuggling sugar from the jail cafeteria, a plastic trash bag, fruit juice … a dirty sock, and some mouldy bread. I guess Lalvin EC-1118 yeast is hard to come by behind bars. I can only guess what use the dirty sock had.

If you want to learn how to make wine, be sure to take your time - or rather, let time do the work.

When making wine at home, the usual expression that is used to describe this is “home winemaking.” When making beer, folks will often refer to “home brewing.” In actual fact, “brewing” technically speaking refers to steeping something with heat. Think of “brewing a cup of tea.” Recently, I’ve seen some websites refer to making wine as “wine brewing.”

When folks make beer at home using a simple beer kit containing malt extract and yeast, and no heating is required, it’s not really a “home brew.” The brewing has already been done and all the home beer maker needs to do is add water to the malt extract. When a home beer maker purchases all the necessary ingredients, whether it is a kit form or not, and is required to heat any of the ingredients like the hops and barley, then technically that person is “brewing” beer.

Winemaking is often referred to as “vinting.” Therefore, a home winemaker is a home vintner.

Not that I’m fussy about technical labels, but it does seem weird to me to see making wine referred to as “wine brewing.”

From looking at my referrer logs and some of the questions on other website forums and blogs, there seems to be a good deal of interest in the use of potassium sorbate in home winemaking. Some of the answers I’ve seen to the questions show that there is a lack of understanding about what exactly potassium sorbate does, and when it is required.

For example, one “expert” recently responded to a question about potassium sorbate, suggesting it was necessary to add it to all wine to prevent a malolactic fermentation in the future. At a reasonable rate of addition to keep yeast from reproducing and starting a new yeast fermentation, it is still possible for lactic acid to reproduce and renew a malocatic fermentation. Indeed, winemakers are warned to not add potassium sorbate to wines that have had a malolactic fermentation in case the lactic acid bacteria become active again. Wines that have been sorbated and then undergo malolactic fermentation will end up with a very unpleasant geranium smell.

When I first began learning about how to make wine at home, I had the mistaken impression that potassium sorbate killed yeast. This is what some of the literature says or implies. However, this is simply not true. What it does do is inhibit yeast reproduction.

With this in mind, we can better understand when potassium sorbate is required and when it is not.

However, if you are new to winemaking and are following instructions of a recipe or a wine kit, and it says to add potassium sorbate to your wine, I would recommend that you do so until you have more experience and know for sure that your wine has fully fermented to dryness. Ignore for now the rest of what I’m going to write, and follow the instructions to the letter. I do not want you to have corks exploding out of the bottles due to a renewed fermentation going on after you’ve bottled your wine! Neither do the makers of the wine kits, and they don’t know for sure that you’re going to ensure your wine ferments fully, or that you know how to read a hydrometer, or that other issues might arise during the fermentation process causing the wine to not ferment fully and have just about all of the sugar consumed. That is why they instruct you to add potassium sorbate.

Having said that, what is the argument against using potassium sorbate when it is not needed? Some people claim that it can leave a “bubblegum” taste - sometimes referred to as a “wine kit” taste. I personally have never detected this, and scientific literature suggests that potassium sorbate is taste neutral. Even if it is taste neutral, I’d prefer to add as few additives as possible, so if it’s not necessary or the risk is very low, I don’t add them.

So now that we know what potassium sorbate does, when is it required and when may it be omitted?

First, it is not required when fermentation has been complete, ie. it has fermented fully dry with only a trace or zero amount of residual sugar. As long as there will be no back sweetening, there is nothing in the wine for the yeast to begin consuming to turn into alcohol and carbon dioxide. So even if there are still some viable yeast cells, they can’t do anything as far as starting up a renewed fermentation goes.

You SHOULD add potassium sorbate when:

1. You’re new to home winemaking, and you’re following instructions.
2. You’re wine is off-dry to sweet which means there is more than a trace amount of residual sugar.
3. You’ve fermented your wine dry, but you are going to sweeten it with a sugar based sweetener before bottling. This includes honey as a sweetener as well.
4. If you’re unsure.

You should also consider that potassium sorbate works better with the addition of sulfite.

For advanced winemaking, the higher the alcohol content, the lower the amount of potassium sorbate that is needed to inhibit yeast activity. In other words, if you add the amount of sorbate that comes with your wine kit accidentally before you add the yeast and ferment it, there is still a very good chance the yeast will not be affected much by that amount of sorbate and will probably reproduce and ferment your juice into wine. Of course, it’s best to try not to have accidents in the first place. But I did read recently the account of a winemaker who thought he had ruined his wine kit by accidentally putting sorbate into the juice instead of yeast. The faulty advice given to him was that his kit was ruined - however, it was not ruined and when he added yeast, they did their job fine.

The British Columbia Amateur Winemakers Association has published an article by Bill Collings which states:

“Assuming that proper levels of free SO2 are maintained and the pH’s are within the desired ranges, sorbate additions can be determined by the estimated alcohol of the wine. The following table is based upon the percentage of alcohol in the wine:”

% alcohol sorbate addition
10 0.20 g/l
11 0.17 g/l
12 0.135 g/l
13 0.10 g/l
14 0.07 g/l

Source: Potassium Sorbate

For those making non-kit wines, this is a handy guideline to have when the addition of potassium sorbate is required.

There are a few things about making my own wine I don’t like: Cleaning and sanitizing bottles, trying to figure out where I’m going to store carboys not in use along with wines I’ve just bottled, and being disappointed about something.

Today, I’m disappointed. Very very disappointed. Hey, when you’re a home winemaker, it can happen. You put a lot of time and effort into trying something - wait two or three years, and with much anticipation - you sniff the aromas and put the liquid to your mouth. Will it be as good as you hoped? Was the patience of waiting worth it?

How about this one? “I didn’t make enough!”

Back in 2006, I went to the grocery store and bought a bunch of Kiwi fruit. About nine pounds. Then I followed this recipe. Except, I stopped racking after a year and just let it age in the carboy for another 2 years and 4 months. I bottled it the other day into 375 ml bottles. Last evening, I put a few of those bottles into the fridge to chill. Then I opened one. I smelled. I tasted. I drank. Then another bottle was opened. I tasted. I drank. Then another…

You get the picture.

Heck, even the hangover tastes good. Now, where’s my Milk Thistle?

Oh, I am so disappointed that I only made three gallons. And a few of these bottles are marked already as gifts which leaves me with even less to enjoy over the summer. Kiwi Melomel is something you can enjoy with anything you’d eat that would call for a white wine - but I can also see myself sipping this on a hot day while sitting out in the sun.

I’m off to buy about 40 pounds of kiwi fruit (thankfully, there are three grocery stores in my town. Not sure what they would think of me at Zehr’s buying up ever last Kiwi they have in stock). I’ve got enough honey to do make two five gallon batches. If you enjoy home winemaking, and are thinking about trying some meads - seriously give Kiwi melomel lots of consideration. Tell your friends when you offer it to them that I told you to try it. Your friends will thank me.