Archive for January, 2007

As I wrote on the 25th of January, I started a new mead which used 20 lbs. of honey and a starting SG reading of 1.110. Fermentation continues to be vigourous six days later and today, I took a SG reading which showed 1.090. Just to repeat if you are interested, I used Lalvin EC-1118 yeast strain. It looks like this may take a good ten days in the primary before I rack to a carboy.

I’m still not confident in the vial of “Sweet Mead Yeast” (#WLP720), the liquid yeast from White Labs that I wanted to use in the second batch of mead I started this week. After 30 hours in the orange juice/yeast nutrient activator, there is no activity that I can observe – although it does have a “yeasty” smell to it now. But I don’t know if that is because the activator containing juice, sitting at room temperature for almost a day and a half, would take on that odour regardless.

But, I’m going to give it a try anyhow and see how it goes. If there’s no noticeable activity in two days, I may decide to pitch some 71B-1122 yeast, where over on this forum, a “Frank” writes, “I really like the one I did w/ 71B-1122. That mead tasted good even after only a couple months of fermenation. ”

I’m not entirely convinced that a strain of yeast will produce a beverage that has that much difference in taste – I think there are a lot more variables than yeast strain that affect the final taste of a wine or mead. But, if this liquid yeast doesn’t come through, it will make for a good experiment.

Back in the latter part of 2005, I ordered a variety of dry yeasts from a vendor that offered a good variety in stock that I wanted to try. As well, they stocked White Labs “Sweet Mead Yeast,” which comes in liquid form.

Well, I misread the “Best Before” date on the vial of liquid yeast when it arrived. My eyes are getting dimmer, I guess – but I had read it as January 26 – 08 when in fact it was January 26 – 06. I’ve never used liquid yeast before, so it didn’t strike me as odd to read an expiry date just over a year away after receipt of it.

Last evening, I decided to make use of some time – and honey, and try a sweet mead using White Labs yeast. I took the vial out of the refrigerator where it has been stored since I received it, and started to prepare the honey and must while the yeast warmed up.

After my must was prepared, I took another look at the vial of liquid yeast, and realized that I had read the expiry date incorrectly.

So, I sent an email to the folk at White Labs, and JoAnne Carilli-Stevenson, their Sales and Marketing Manager was swift to respond. I had several emails with her throughout the day as she offered me advice and tips – and let me tell you – over a five dollar product, or whatever that vial cost me, I’m very impressed with White Labs’ – and JoAnne’s – willingness to respond to me practically immediately!

To be honest, I cannot do that myself with all of my own clients.

We’re still not exactly sure if this yeast that I’ve been keeping will indeed come along, but both JoAnne and I are crossing our fingers and giving it some time before I decide to resort to one of my dry yeasts that I have.

I put the yeast in an activator – and have seen no observable yeast activity – although I am smelling a “yeasty” smell that was not evident before. It’s also my understanding that liquid yeast, especially “Sweet Mead” yeast, can take a while to show signs of activity.

I’ll let you know how it goes. But regardless, Kudos to White Labs and JoAnne Carilli-Stevenson!

“Max Nelson earned his PhD in classical studies through pioneering scholarship and 10 litres of the oldest beer ever produced in Canada.

“The beer recipe reflected what they were doing in Egypt millennia ago,” says Nelson, a University of Windsor professor and beer history guru.

He describes the ancient beer, called bouza in Arabic, as intensely sweet-sour in taste and a beautiful ruby red in colour – once the heavy sediment settles.”

~ The Toronto Star

Along with a wee bit of history of beer and some attempts at tracing back why beer is sometimes shunned in preference for wine, the article contains perhaps the oldest known (and very simple) beer recipe known to man.

It’s interesting – and I may give it a try sometime.

As mentioned earlier this evening, I decided to start a new Mead. Mead takes a good long time to age to be enjoyed thoroughly – minimum of one year. In fact, I started a mead over a year ago and will continue to age it before serving to others for at least another six months.

However, using this recipe, I do find this mead to be a bit on the “thin” side as far as taste. This evening, I decided to increase the number of pounds of honey by almost 50%, and I was aiming for a specific gravity of at least 1.090. Using Lalvin EC-1118 yeast, this should provide a dry mead. An even higher specific gravity would be fine as well and indeed, increasing the amount of honey to 20 lbs and then adding enough water to just go over the 23 litre (5 Imperial gallon) mark, I ended up with a specific gravity of 1.110. A touch higher than what I was aiming for – but within range that things can be fixed later if need be.

I didn’t check acidity – I’ll worry about that later. I’m too tired now .

I’m not sure exactly how much water I’ve used by volume for the 20 lbs. of honey but basically what I did was use a kitchen scale that uses a large wide mouth plastic container for placing material in to be weighed. Five pounds of honey by volume takes up a full volume amount of the plastic container – and five pounds of honey combined with two lots of water that can be carried by the plastic container is about enough for my biggest pots to hold.

If you read the recipe, you’ll realize that the honey should be combined with twice it’s volume of water and then boiled for awhile, and the foamy bits skimmed off.

So I have two large pots and therefore went through two separate events of boiling the honey/water, each event using two pots.

So, making mead this way is time consuming as far as one evening goes. You really do need to boil the honey/water mixture for at least half an hour and skim off the foam that appears on top. As you skim off the foam, you should end up with mostly just a boiling liquid. The foam will contain wax and impurities and the mead will clear much better the more foam that is skimmed.

A few other suggestions: Using liquid honey, if you can get it in a large enough size, will save you time!! My honey is not liquid, so I spent much of my time trying to carve up the hone in the large pails of it that I had and then spooning it out onto my kitchen scale. Makes for very sticky fingers. Which is ok.. if you like honey… and don’t mind sticky fingers

I have a very large “spoon” type of implement with holes in it – not sure what it is called… but it is simlar to what you might use for spooning out vegetables from boiling water. Except, mine has a very wide (about 4 inches across?) surface, with very little lip to it. This works well for me. But.. don’t worry too much if all you have is a ladle or some other type of serving spoon… don’t worry if you skim a little bit of the honey/water mixture. This ain’t rocket science, where you have to have everything exact.

Hey.. don’t forget that you’re boiling this mixture – it’s going to need time to cool down before you pitch your yeast! Hot temperatures can kill yeast. To get my must up to just over five gallons, I needed to add about two gallons of cold water – and it was still way too hot to add yeast. Use that time to proof your yeast in the orangejuice and yeast nutrient mixture. Heck, you could even just let it cool overnight to room temperature, and you’ll be fine.

Anyhow, if you’re interested in mead making, be prepared to experiment. Be prepared to realize it should take at LEAST a year before you have something that is enjoyable.. and even then.. it might be longer.

If you really want to make mead and melomels, prepare to spend a little on honey… experiment… try some different things (my next experiment will be decreasing the pounds of honey.. probably to about 18 pounds approximately, and using a yeast developed for sweet mead – I’ve got some yeasts that I want to try and see how things turn out as opposed to others that I’ve tried in the past).

And in the meantime, go buy some mead from the local liquor store. You might not even like the stuff that others like! And that’s ok.

But.. a bit of trivia… do you know that the term “honeymoon” and mead are related? The term “honeymoon” comes from an ancient tradition of some peoples, where newlyweds would drink “honeyed wine” or mead everyday for the first month after being married.

Sometime ago, I wrote a review of an “Advintage Celebrations” kit, using Barolo juice. Admittedly, my review of the kit as far as the instructions are concerned was not very good. But what of the final product?

Well, I have to admit that I never did write any formal tasting notes – but – it was, in my opinion, yummy! I had some bottles that were drunk young, other bottles aged a year – and all of them were just… wonderful. One thing I do recall that was a distinctive licorice or anise taste to it. But not overwhelming anise or licorice – and the flavours were bursting – and delicious that the 30 bottles I made have all been consumed over the past two years. This Barolo went well with pasta dishes, red meat, or just for the want of sipping and tasting Barolo.

I know there is some controversy about what makes a “real” Barolo – in days gone by, a Barolo was expected to age for years. But whatever – I’m not interested in what is “real,” but rather, what I enjoy and like. And it was time to make another Barolo.

This evening, while starting the Petit Chenin Blanc, I decided I also had time to start another Advintage Celebrations Barolo kit that I’ve had for a couple of weeks. I was visiting my friend Debbie (the very pretty and knowledgable Debbie) who owns “Wines To Go” in Alliston, and asked her, “Debbie… do you have any of that Barolo?”

Well, she did! So I bought one. Started it this evening, and this time, I’m committing myself to keep back even more bottles (oh, if I can… if I can) for longer ageing.

I still say the instructions are not the easiest to follow – but I am so looking forward to the final product. I also suspect that I might have to go see Debbie again – no.. not just to have an enjoyable conversation with her – but to pick up another Advintage Celebrations Barolo kit. Maybe if I have 60 bottles instead of 30 – I can really put some aside for longer ageing.

I’m also experimenting with another mead this evening – more on that soon. The mead I made last year, using this recipe seems “ok,” but at the same time, a little thin. So, I’m increasing the pounds of honey I’m using and am hoping that I came close to something that will have a starting specific gravity of at least 1.090.

Posted a review of R.J. Spagnols 2006 “Restricted Quantities” Petit Chenin Blanc. I’ve been enjoying it so much, I went back for another kit, which Winemakers had in stock.

The above review also includes tasting notes.

Alright, over here, Jeff asks what the garlic wine actually tastes like. He claims he’s tasted garlic icecream, and that it was “supurb.” Well, I have no clue about Jeff’s subjective likes and dislikes as far as his taste buds go, but what the heck – I’m up to the challenge of tasting my garlic wine – straight – and without cooking it with something first.

So.. here goes… as I start to think to myself, “Ok Ian, are you nuts?? Well… yeah, and a promise to Jeff is still a promise, even if it is to Jeff… ”

So I’ve poured a very small amount into a wineglass.

Colour: About the colour of pineapple juice. I was thinking something else at first, involving snow and one of those moments when you really have to go… but thought there might be a better description. So the colour of pineapple juice is it.

On The Nose: You know, it’s not bad at all! It’s kind of like.. mixed vegetables.

Alright… here goes the part where I become a he-man, willing to actually taste… garlic wine.

On The Tongue: You know what? This is not unpleasant. There is a hint of garlic, but ever so subtle. But along with that subtle garlic are flavours, believe it or not, of salt, celery and tomato.

But, there is also something very unique that I can’t place at all. It’s not gross or anything; at the same time, I’m not planning on sitting down with a glass of this stuff to sip on while reading a book, that’s for sure. But it’s really not unpleasant at all.

If you were thinking you might be able to torture someone by forcing them to drink garlic wine, I don’t think it would work. I don’t think folks would come back for seconds mind you – unless it was something you had cooked using the garlic wine, which does add a very nice subtle flavour, at least to the rack of lamb dish I cooked the other day.

A day mixed with delight and disappointment. First, the disappointment: I wish I had made more!

The delight? Ahh… three gallons of blackcurrant wine that I started November 2005. The last time I racked it (I don’t recall when now), there was still some haze in the wine so I figured today would be as good a day as any to rack it off any sediments on the bottom.

Once again, it had been so long since I paid attention to the wine that it was with a bit of trepidation that I put the one end of they syphon to my mouth and sucked. What would I be tasting? I shouldn’t have worried about anything foul; rather worried about how lovely this would taste, my tastebuds begging for more!

I took another sip, delighted with the sensations across my tastebuds. There is just something wonderful, sensual, about blackcurrant wine. Little sips are enough to liven the pallate. Yes, it’s not a dry wine – but if Jesus really did make water into wine, it must have been blackcurrant wine.

I now am going to find me a parcel of land where I can plant blackcurrants. Enough blackcurrants that I may make gallons and gallons of this.

That might take awhile, so in the meantime, I’m heading back to Andrew’s Scenic Acres and will be crossing my fingers that they have lots of frozen blackcurrants still in stock.

If you want to make a wonderful wine, I’d suggest that you find yourself some blackcurrants as well, and try this recipe. I think you’ll agree that you’ll have made a few gallons of heaven as well.

“Garlic wine?!?” you ask. Yes! And it’s lovely, believe it or not.

Ok, agreed – it’s not something you are going to pour into a glass and drink. Well, I suppose you could do that if you wanted – and you don’t mind a vegetablish taste.

Over a year ago, I made a gallon of garlic wine using this recipe. Because I wasn’t planning on using this wine for drinking straight, I didn’t worry too much about clarification. The colour of the wine turned out to have straw colour tones – and after letting it age for a year, it did turn out fairly clear although if I had wanted to really clear it up, it could have used some kind of clarifying agent.

Yesterday, I took a rack of lamb out of the freezer and decided to use my garlic wine as part of the liquid mixture that the meat would marinade in as well as have brushed over it during the cooking time. There are no recipes that I could find for marinades that include garlic wine, so I made one up myself – and everyone seemed quite pleased with the results.

Now, a couple of notes are in order:

1. I purchase my lamb from a local farmer who raises lambs. I buy a whole lamb from him, butchered for about $2.50 a pound. That’s a great price for lamb! Some folks find lamb to have a strong taste that they don’t like but the lamb that I’ve been obtaining from my local shepherd is wonderful! It definitely has the taste of lamb that I love but it doesn’t have that overbearing extra taste or smell that I found with frozen New Zealand lamb that I used to buy in the grocery store.

2. You might find the spices I used odd to use together; but they work for my taste buds. And they seemed to work for Wendy as well, who pronounced dinner to be “Wonderful!”

So here’s what I made up:

1 cup of sunflower oil
1 cup garlic wine
teaspoon of rosemary
teaspoon of cumin
approx. 10 dried curry leaves, crushed.

I stirred this up, and let the mixture sit for a while to allow the dried spices to hydrate and add their flavour to the marinade.

In the meantime, I peeled and cut into squares sweet potato (also called yam), and along with white potato, placed them in a large casserole dish. After brushing the marinade over the mixed potato, I roasted this dish for 45 minutes in the oven.

While the potato was roasting, I brushed the rack of lamb with the oil/wine mixture. Rack of lamb does not need long periods of marinading time; it’s not for tenderness but rather to add some flavour.

When the potato was completed, I removed the casserole dish and placed it on the vent burner on the stove, which kept it warm while the lamb was cooking. The lamb was cooked in a shallow roasting pan for 30 minutes, but at ten minute intervals, I removed the lamb and brushed the marinade over the top and sides.

Mmmm.. was it ever good! Along with the potato dish, mixed vegetables of beans and baby carrots were served. And the wine that we drank? A nice Valpolicella.

After dinner, I went and did the Canadian thing – watch the Toronto Maple Leaf hockey team lose yet another game.

If you’re looking for some ideas for wine to add something a little extra to your cooking, consider this garlic wine. It’s very easy to make, the ingredients are cheap, and you don’t have to worry about fining it. Racking a few times after it’s in the secondary is a good idea.

I only made a gallon, but now that I’ve used the garlic wine once, I know I’ll be using it more frequently so I’ll be making another batch of garlic wine, and perhaps will also experiment with other ingredients as well as garlic.

Well, I’ve been lazy as far as my winemaking is concerned. And it’s time for me to get back on track here.

I’ve almost felt guilty in some ways – I’ve left some wine batches to fend for themselves without any help from me just because I’ve been so busy doing other necessary things. I’m actually quite impressed with what I discovered this evening when I decided to spend some time in the home winery area.

Back in the summer, I started an R.J. Spagnols “Limited Quantities” Petit Chenin Blanc. On August 12th, I racked from the primary to a carboy – and it’s been sitting there ever since. No sulphite added. No racking. Nothing. I expected vinegar… even the water in the airlock was totally low.

So today, six months later, I cautiously removed the airlock and took a whiff. “Hmmm….” thinks I, “smells like wine, not vinegar.” So, put in my racking cane and tube – noticing the thickness of the lees on the bottom.. and suck to create the syphon. “Doesn’t taste like vinegar either!” I say to myself.

I tasted far less than a mouthful – but it was definitely wine and not vinegar and continued to rack. Although it had been sitting for six months, there was still a lot of CO2 present – but after doing some degassing sessions, I added sulphite and then the liquid Isinglass that came with the kit. Perhaps this will all turn out fine in the end!

I then put my attention to the mead I started last year. Again, I hadn’t given this any attention since June or July. After adding crushed egg shell to it, it had cleared up very nice. Time to rack it off the lees – and a little mouthful in starting the syphon – “Hmmm.. that has already mellowed significantly than my last recollection.”

Next up was the three gallons of gooseberry wine I began last year. Wow! This tastes great! I’ll have a more formal taste report later – but yes, this quite ready for bottling… and drinking along with foods with curry.

Happily, I move on to another .. a blueberry melomel. Another one I’ve neglected. Start the syphon, get a taste on my tongue… “hmmm…. I think I like it… but… hmmm… it’s not vinegar…which is good.”

I was not impressed with my blueberry melomel. But, it’s been racked, a 1/4 teaspoon of sulphite added, and I’m going to seal it for another year of ageing and we’ll see what it’s like then.

That was enough for the evening. Tomorrow, I’ll get to the other wines I’ve got here and report back. I’ll also be starting a new R. J. Spagnol’s LQ that I picked up today.

And I also need to plan on getting up to see my very good and very pretty friend, Debbie at “Wines To Go” in Alliston.