Archive for the ‘Vegetable’ Category

Well, I hope she’s right! When I posted the Potato Wine recipe, I quoted Judith Irwin: “The maturation period is important, as this wine improves greatly with keeping.” And yes, this wine is only about six weeks. When I racked it off sediment today, I had a very small taste – and it was mostly a flavor of demerara sugar. The specific gravity today was 1.002 – I was expecting that as when I started it was high at 1.128 based on Irwin’s recipe.

It has cleared quite nicely on it’s own but there remains much trapped gas. I’ll spend some time tomorrow degassing it and then I’ll probably rack in another month, have a taste, probably add potassium sorbate because of the remaining sugar and then let it bulk age for awhile before bottling.

And that’s about all there is to report on the potato wine for now.

I did manage to get out fly fishing today. The afternoon looked as if it was going to turn out fairly decent – partly cloudy. When my “wee man” and I arrived at the small lake we were going to fish, we sat down and had a bite to eat first and then got into fishing. About half an hour, it began to rain. A few minutes later, I had a nice rainbow trout on the end of my line. As soon as that rainbow hit, the rain started to come down in a torrent. Bravely, the wee man stood by with the net while we got soaked. After the fish was netted, David decided he was heading to the car to get out of the rain. I was not long after him but left my gear in the hopes the rain would break and we’d return. It did stop after about half an hour – and I was able to give Colleen a call to let her know I’d caught a fish, knowing she’d be pleased!

We walked back to the water, had a few more casts when the rain started up again. And this time, thunder and lightning not far off. I decided to call it a day, but at least after a long winter, I did hook and land a fish the first time out. The fish will be breakfast.

“Garlic wine?” you might ask with just a hint of incredulment. “Who would ever make wine out of garlic?”

One of the fun and interesting things about home winemaking is the fact that you can make wine out of just about any organic plant material as long as it’s not poisonous. And garlic wine is certainly something that you can make.

As far as drinking it for pleasure, that’s another matter. But, garlic wine makes an excellent addition to foods and salads. I wouldn’t advise pouring it into a glass and serving it to guests if you want your guests to return, but using it in a variety of dishes including beef, chicken and seafood will impress the tastebuds.

We’ve all heard about the health benefits of red wine. When the fermentation process starts, there are many chemical reactions going on with new compounds being created, while other compounds become more potent and concentrated. For example, the compound that may provide many health benefits, reservatrol, can increase when red grape juice is fermented. Red Spanish grape juice typically contains 1.14 – 8.69 mg/l while Spanish red wine contains between 1.92 and 12.59 mg/l. This increase may be explained by the fact that reservatrol is produced when the grape is under attack by bacteria or yeast.

There are no known studies that I am aware of regarding any compounds specific to garlic wine, however garlic has been known by itself to have many health benefits for those that consume it regularly. It has been said that the ancient Roman physician, Galen, used garlic wine to treat sick and injured gladiators successfully.

Whether or not there are health benefits to garlic wine, it does make for an interesting additive to gourmet meals. Making it yourself is quite simple if you have the right home winemaking equipment. You do of course need to bare in mind the important factors in making any kind of wine, the biggest being that of ensuring your work area and equipment are sanitized.

If you do plan on making garlic wine, I would not recommend anything more than a gallon at a time. Filling a five gallon carboy with garlic wine leave you with a predicament of what to do with it all as amounts needed in cooking are small. You could of course, bottle it and give it away as gifts to your dining friends. Just be sure they know it’s not a sipping wine!

You can find recipes for garlic wine as well as others wines that have interesting ingredients such as parsnip, ginger, blackcurrants and other fruit at this home winemaking site.