You may laugh at me for my methods but this is my story and I'm sticking to it.
For the last few weeks, my aging wine has been siting in my living room and is in desperate need of cooling. It ranges from 65 to 71 degrees but need to be steady between 50-60 degrees. I've searched craigslist and other avenues for either a cheap refrigerator or a mini fridge. I've actually checked out 2 people mini fridges but have come to realize that a mini fridges won't fit my carboy. There is a small indentation on the bottom rear (for the cooling motor) which won't let a carboy sit in there with the door closed. I also don't have a truck to get a fridge into my garage and there is no way in hell I'm renting one to move a $100 fridge.
Since my last post (March 5th), I've wrapped my carboy in foil, sat it close to a window and added a fan. The fan did absolutely nothing. Therefore it has been sitting there looking like a scene out of Signs... foil prevents aliens from reading your thoughts.
But NOW, I have stumbled upon something GREAT. Something of EPIC proportions. Something FREE99. My Boss first gave me the idea to insulate my wine when I started this adventure. He said to get either a foam or large igloo cooler and put my wine in there with bottles of frozen water to regulate the temperature. And what to my surprise did I find at my wife's mom house? A big ass igloo cooler!
WahBAM
KAPOW
It snug as a bug in there. I'll keep you posted on the difficulties of temperature regulation with frozen water bottles.
On a side note, I cracked the bottle of Rideau Sangiovese we bought in Santa Barbara. Got damn it was delicious! Best Sangiovese I've tasted thus far.
The wine is doing fantastic... from what I can tell. I moved my wine out of the kitchen and back to the living room. I need to keep the wine stored at 50-60 degrees which takes me on the hunt for Mini Fridge October. According to my calculations, the diameter of my wine vessel is about 12.63" with a height of 26" (including the airlock) which most Mini Fridges should hold. I originally was searching for a kegerator but $300 for an old beaten up kegerator just sounds silly to me. An inexpensive Mini Fridge will have to suffice. Craigslist is where I've started my search but it looks like I will have to expand to costco and other 'for sale' websites due to the lack of mini fridge availability.
The wife and I went to Santa Barbara this weekend. One of the places we visited was Santa Ynez Valley for WINE TASTING! We stopped by 4 wineries: Sunstone, Rideau, Buttonwood and Gainey.
Sunstone is very cool and had a great atmosphere. $10 for a regular tasting 5 and $5 more for their reserve tasting of 3. Definitely opt for the reserve tastings. Their white and rose were okay. Their reds were very decent but not worth the 45+ dollars per bottle. The reserve tasting is where it's at. We tried their Reserve Pinot Noir and let me tell you, the best Pinot I've tasted thus far. We ended up buying a bottle. This will go next to our Opus One Overture to be opened on a special occasion. The other 2 reserves were very good, including their award winning Eros.
Rideau is a New Orleans inspired winery. A fun atmosphere. The wines were good. We kind of went through here fast. Lots of grass to have a picnic.
Buttonwood's wines were just okay. There are on the more affordable side. But their cab was very drinkable. This was our least favorite of the 4. I swear, there was one white wine here that smell like manure. I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.We poured this one out after the first sip. I have no clue why you would buy this.
Gainey - Second favorite place. The tasting room has low light atmosphere and lined stacks of barrels adding to the ambiance. I found out there were just for show and all their wines aging is done at their sister location. All the wines here were by far consistently good. The only reason we didn't buy a bottle was because we have a strict rule of not buying any wines after the 2nd winery; this rule does get bent from time to time ;)
Overall, we had a blast wine tasting in Santa Barbara. Going in a big group here would be fun.
Here are the wines we bought
This is the inside tasting room at Gainey
I've never seen such large wooden wine containers. These things are over 6ft tall - Gainey
Well everyone, the majority of work is done. Now it's time to hurry up and wait. Let me back up for a moment and tell you how Sunday went because there was a definite learning curve.
Sunday March 28th, 2010
After talking with Advintage on Friday, I felt a little more comfortable with how long the degassing stage was taking. I finally had some free time on Sunday so I popped the airlock and gently stirred my wine (5 days into degassing). I made the mistake of stirring the wine too vigorously which caused all the wine foam shown in my previous posts. If you gently stir in a circular motion, the residual C02 will bubble up similar to soda in a glass. I was creating a water tornado :). When I stirred it this time, the amount of bubbles was negligible. Now it's time to add the remaining ingredients and top off my wine.
I first added the Metabisulfite to 1/2 cup a warm water to dilute. Okay, what they don't tell you in the instructions is that adding Metabisulfite to water produces Sulfer Dioxide. So with me being curious by nature, I decided to see what Metabisulfite smells like. BAD IDEA, Don't breath this stuff. My nosehairs were singed and I was coughing for a good 10 minutes. NO BUENO! As I add this stuff to the wine I thought to myself, why am I adding this chemical to the wine I'm going to DRINK? Metabisulfite is a stabilizer and basically helps to kill any harmful bacteria and yeast in the wine. It also helps prevent oxidation. I then add packed #5 - Kieselsol. This is a fining agent that is negatively charge to help with clearing the wine. It acts like a big sponge and attracts any large particles then sinks to the bottom. After 15-30 mins, I add packet #6 - Chitosan - This is positively charged clearing agent and works the same as the Kieselsol.
Now it's time to top off my wine. I pop open the 3 bottles of cupcake cab and start pouring them in. I soon start to realize that these 3 bottles isn't going to be enough. CRAP! I run to the store to buy 2 more and guess what, they only have one cab left. Quick thinking draws me to the merlot section where I spot Cupcake Merlot. I go home with haste, open and pour the two bottles in. Yeah, I'm still about a half gallon shy from the top. At this point, there's no way I'm buying any more wine just to add to my wine. I do the unthinkable... add water. I ended adding a little less then a half a gallon of water. Adding water to wine, Blasphemy! I know, I know, but it had to be done.
After I finished up, I thought about the cost of topping off my wine. I just invested another $50 to a $90 wine kit with a $200 overhead of winemaking supplies. Doing the math, my first batch of 30 bottles will have a cost of $9 EACH! If I do another batch, it then it drops the cost down to about $4.3 per bottle not including the wine to top it off. The next time I do this, I'm thinking about buying a 6 Gal glass carboy (which I can use for beer making - $40) and not use any wine to top off. This hobby, as well as my others, is starting to get a little expensive.
Now my wine needs to chill out for a 22 to 45 days at 50-60 degrees F. My apt is about 72 degrees ambient which means i'll have to buy either a kegerator or refrigerator off craigslists and store it in my garage.
I'll keep you posted.
Here are the remaining 3 packets with the wine making instructions.
This is before adding any bottles
This is after adding 3 bottles
This is after adding 2 more bottles - 5 total - $50, WTF
This is after adding water to top it off. Stage 3 COMPLETE. This better be AMAZING ;)
Oh Degassing process, you sure are taking your sweet a$$ time. I called Advintage today and asked them about why my wine is taking so long to degas. They confirmed it could take 3-5 days. Awesome. I had been concerned about the amount of stirring I was doing. I didn't want to hurt the wine by introducing new air in the mix. They said as long as you stir it and don't splash it, you'll be fine. I also asked them about the lack of oak taste even though the oak chips that were soaking in the PF during the first stage. They said the oak chips are optional but if you want more oak taste, add more oak chips. What a concept huh? I'll remember that for next time.
Anyways, the lady is spoke with had french accent. Yeah, French Canadian to be exact; Quebec. She said this was one of the best wine kits they sell. DING!
I plan to top my wine off with 2007 Cupcake Cab Sav - Central Coast.
And BTW, thank you wife for dipping into the bottles of cupcake I was planning to top off my wine with.
I walk in the door after a long day and get to work.
I clean the hydrometer and drop it in. KABOOM, .992. We are ready to rock!
I wash my hands, clean and sanitize my tools and the PF (Primary Fermenter).
I set the glass carboy on one of my dining room chairs and start transferring the wine to the PF on my kitchen floor. It took about 10 minutes total.
The top of the red is .990 - This reads about .992
That's me with my tickets... It's transfer time!
All transferred over. Time to retrieve the hydrometer and clean the Carboy
Here is the left over sediment. It's almost like a wine sediment sand barge in a ocean of purple goodness.
Kitchen Sink Murders
Back into the Glass Carboy ever so gently.
Now it's time for the degassing process.What do I do in the degassing process you ask?
Well let me tell you, I have to Move it, Move it. The wine has residual CO2 levels left over from the fermentation process that must be removed before bottling. So I've been stirring the wine with my big ole plastic spoon per the instructions. I swirl it one way making a whirlpool (similar to the one seen in Pirates of the Caribbean 3 at the end of the movie when they are pirate ship fighting), then switch directions and swirl it the opposite direction. It creates wine foam and releases CO2.An hour or so later I'm still degassing... and degassing... and degassing. I only expected this to take an hour or so but it's been taking FOREVER. I've been yelling "UNLEASH THE CO2" at my wine.... it doesn't appear to be helping. I seal the carboy up and let I chill out a bit to dissipate the wine foam overnight. I've been at this stage for a few days now.
Here is my big plastic stick.
And here is me stirring the wine with my big plastic stick.
I would also like to mention, for those of you who actually made it down this far, I tried my wine and it is pretty damn good. It tastes like a very decent bottle of something off the shelf. I can't wait to try it when it ages a bit. The neighbors wanted a glass of it right then. I thought about it myself.
Temp: 72.3, Check. Today is the day I take my third hydrometer reading. If all goes well, I'll be proceeding to stage 3 tonight; Degassing and Clearing.
Here is what the wine looks like as of this morning.
This is how the wine looked on day 11.
This is how the wine looked this morning - Day 16 - No Bubbles.
Here is a shot of the sediment that has accumulated on the bottom, hence necessity for the clearing stage.
I've been keeping a watchful eye on my bubbling purplish liquid. It's very cool to be able to see the wine in action but underwhelming at the same time because the fermentation process has slowed down. I love the reaction I get from people when they see my 6.5 gallon glass carboy sitting ever so calmly in my kitchen... and yes, it's still in the kitchen. I'd say the most popular response is - "What is that? What's in there?", then they say "Wow that's a lot of wine. Call me when it's done."
Like I said, I've been keeping a watchful eye on my wine. Every day I check the temperature in the morning and when I get home from work. Then I stare at the airlock and watch it go bloop. I've noticed that the frothy wine bubbles sitting on top of the juice have been disappearing. For minute I though about calling Captain Nemo and asking him to head up a search party into the depths of the unknown in order to find these lost bubbles, but lost his phone number. This morning there were practically no bubbles; no blooping in the air lock. The airlock initially was off gassing every few seconds but now it few minutes. I so wanted to drop in the hydrometer this weekend but am holding strong to the instructions of 8-10 days. Tomorrow will be the 8th day and when I drop in the hydrometer.
If any of you are interested, here are the wine making instructions from the distributer: in PDF format:
http://www.advintage.ca/english/instructions/celebration.pdf
Now I was thinking about the logistics of my next hydrometer reading. Once I drop it in, I won't be able to take it out because the carboy has a small opening at the top. So if the reading isn't between .998 and .990, it's staying in there. I'm also starting to think about what wine I'm going to use to top this off the carboy with. I love blended wines such as a Meritage so I'm thinking of using a sangiovese or malbec. I'll keep you posted.
Ever since I transferred my wine to the glass carboy, SoCal has heated up. Instead of keeping the heater on, It's now the A/C. Actually I only had to use the AC once. But, the avg temp of the wine has jumped from 71 degrees to a steaming 75.4 which is still within range of the recommended 68-77 degrees. Also, I haven't moved the carboy out of the kitchen. With the carboy on the plastic shelf on the floor, you can move it around fairly easy. So far, everything looks kosher. The wine continues to bubble as does the airlock.
I also forgot to mention that I tasted the wines progress after I racked my wine to the carboy. It tasted less like sweet grape cider and more like the makings of wine. Although still sweet, it had some wine taste without the body; almost like watered down sweet wine.
I get home from work and go straight to the gym with the neighbors. All day I was wondering if today would be the day.
SPOILER: IT WAS - Jump to pictures if you wish to discontinue reading.
I get back home and immediately pop the lid on the PF (primary Fermenter). After washing my hands and cooking up a batch of sanitation liquid, I drop in the hydrometer andCha CHING, 1.008. Then 1.010, then 1.012. Okay, what's gone on? I take the hydrometer, pick it up and drop it back in gently. Now it reads 1.014. At this point I'm in disbelieve because I swear I saw 1.008 on my original reading. I re-sanitize the hydrometer and drop it back in. BOOM, 1.008. I noticed this time that if you have a freshly sanitized hydrometer and drop it in your fermenting wine, the wine bubbles disperse away from your hydrometer as if you put a drop of dish washing liquid into a dirty pan. The hydrometer starts moving around as it settles and floats into the wine foam. My theory: the wine foam sticks to the hydrometer lifting it slightly which skews the reading. What matters is that the reading , 1.008 is between 1.000 and 1.020 which means its stage 2 time. With a sanitized carboy, racking siphon and tube, I prepare to transfer my wine.
I put the PF on my kitchen counter, the glass carboy on my linoleum kitchen floor and siphon in my sanitized water bucket. I have a auto racking cane which is super easy to use. I put the siphon hose into the glass carboy, the racking cane in the PF and start the flow. The instructions say for this step you should allow splashing for a little aeration. My tube is hanging about 6 inches from the bottom of the carboy so I should be good. The whole transferring process took about 8 to 10 minutes. I made sure to keep the racking cane few inches from the bottom in the PF to not transfer any sediment.
I start getting down to bottom of the PF, I tilt the bucket towards me to get as much of the precious wine transferred as possible... my precious. All of a sudden, I hear slurping coming from the PF. I look in but there's still a good amount of liquid in the PF with wood chips stuck to the end of the racking cane. I'm trying not to waste a drop because I want a full 30 bottles. I shake the racking cane and continue transferring. It happens again and again and again. I finally get down the the bottom and accept about a 1-2 cup loss of wine.
Here's where it gets interesting. 3 things happen: 1) My primary focus is on the PF, 2) I didn't notice is the lodged wood chips in the end of my racking slowing the rate of transfer from the PF to the carboy and 3) A lack of logic: when I lifted the racking cane out of the PF, the tube inside the carboy lifted out as well. The siphon, still full of liquid, was flowing slowly. And here I thought it was empty. When the tube came out of the carboy, it started to swing and spilled wine all over my carpet. My wife was sitting on the couch reading. I looked up to see if she saw, yeah, she was totally into her book. I put the grab the tube and put it back into the carboy and say, "Uh, hey babe, can you help me out of a sec." Her reply, "No, this whole thing is your deal." I say, "Yeah, could you run to the neighbors really quick and get some resolve because I kind of spilled a little." She wasn't furious but wasn't a huge fan either. I soaked the wine with resolve and moved to the final steps in this process. I put the end of my giant spoon into the small carboy opening and stir the wine around for about a minute or 2. The instructions say to do this for initial degassing. I pop on the rubber stopper and secure the airlock.
BTW, moving your wine in a glass carboy is a pain in the ass. There isn't any place to get a secure grip and that bad boy is heavy. I moved the plastic shelf top to the kitchen and put the carboy on it.
Hydro Reading with bubbles lifting it up - 1.014
Correct hydro reading - 1.008, notice bubble void
Here I am, PF on kitchen counter transferring to glass carboy on kitchen floor.
Transferring the nectar of the gods
Wanting to bite through the hose and my drink wine now.
Why the wife was pissed at me
All sealed up and ready to sit for 8-10 more days
What was left over and those pesky little wood chips.
So I'm a pretty patient person. I understand that wine needs time before it's ready but come on! It's Sunday and I check the hydro reading in the sample tube - clunk, the hydrometer hits the bottom. Awe crap, it needs more liquid. And there would have been more liquid if I didn't take a tasting sample :)
I open the PF and take a reading - 1.023. What does this mean? Absolutely nothing. I shall wait longer. I also add more wine to the sample tube and take a reading - 1.016. Constancy for the LOSE.
On a side note, I hope all of you have checked out those links I posted for emergency preparedness. It could make your life easier or even save it one day. I digress.
It's Friday, I'm excited, and can't wait to rack my wine. I spoke to my friend Fire/Paramedic Marshal, who's accomplished in beer making, and asked him about the sanitizing power of campden tablets. He said he always uses star san for sanitizing his gear when making beer. Concerned looms around campden tablets and their sanitizing power grows. I run over to oshea's during lunch to get to the bottom of this enigma. Jeff told me that Star San is used by professional beer makers to sanitize their stuff but the campden tablets will work fine for wine making; and is what wineries use (sulfur). I buy a small bottle of lo-star sanitizer just in case. Maybe I'll used it to sanitize my bottles.
I get home from work and first thing's first, I need to take a hydrometer reading. I create a new batch of sanitized water with the campden tablets (1 tablet to 1 gal of warm water), let my hydrometer soak for a few mins and wash my hands. I crack the lid (picture below) and drop the hydrometer in. And what do you know, the wine is no where near being between 1.020 and 1. The hydrometer reads 1.050. You have got to be kidding me! I sanitize the hydrometer liquid holder and take a sample of wine. Dropped in the hydrometer and it reads 1.044. WTF. I can hear the wine gods laughing at me right now.
The only thing I can come up with is that the temperature of the wine is on the lower side of the fermentation temp range. The instructions say to keep the PF's(Primary Fermenter) temperature between 68 and 77 degrees F. I've set my heater to 71 and the PF has been a consistent 70.9 to 72 degrees. As for the hydrometer mini reading, It is possible the side of the hydrometer is touching the side of the container skewing the readings a bit. Regardless, the wine isn't ready for the stage 2. The instructions specifically state that if in doubt, wait a day or 2. I seal up the container, put clean sanitizing liquid in the airlock and tell the wine, I like you, your cool but hurry up.
The Good News:
I poured a little bit of the mini hydro's wine into a cup and tested the wine. You know what, it tasted pretty good. My wife said it tastes like carbonated grape cider. Neighbor Michelle says I should bottle it as is. Michelle, thank you no. I ain't bottling no girly wine on my first time around. This means that A) the wine has not been infected (thank you Jeff and campden tablets) and B) if this is any indication of the wine, it should turn out pretty darn good.
Here 's my ghetto splatter protecting airlock bag
Opening of the PF on day 5.
The hydrometer reading - 1.050, COME ON!
Here is the hydro reading in its holder - 1.044, Wine gods, this isn't funny.
All is clear on the west side. No changes to note. Friday will be my first hydrometer reading since my initial reading before I pitched the yeast. If all is well, i'll be racking (transferring) the wine into a 6.5 gallon glass carboy for step 2 of the fermentation process. I temp checked the PF(primary fermenter) last night before I went to bed and it was at 70.9 degrees.
Okay, it's Wednesday. I get home after work and the house smells of wine. The first two days had no smell but today, I walk in the door and BAM, I got slapped with the smell wine confirming the fermentation process is rocking away. To regulate the temperature, I keep all the windows closed and the heater set to 70 in my one bedroom apartment which locks in all the CO2 off-gas inside. I do have a venting plan if the smell gets out of control. The wife hasn't been home since Sunday night so I needed to air this sucker out. I opened our patio's sliding glass door for about 5 minutes and presto, back to normal. Since it was a little hard to shower with my PF(primary fermenter) taking up half the tub, I moved the it back out to the living room. It's sitting on the plastic shelf (right side up this time for stability) and I put a plastic sandwich bag loosely over the air lock to prevent any additional splatter on my walls.
Worries of ditching my first batch loom in my head however I am confident I kept everything clean. I just hope those campden tablets do their job.
And as I write this, the USGS shows Chile getting hit with several aftershocks, largest being 6.9.
Check out these links, Be Prepared!
It’s Tuesday morning. I get up and start my usual routine before work. Now all these massive earthquakes around the world have been freaking me out. (Be Prepared!) I made the brilliant decision to move my PF (primary fermenter) from the living room to the bathtub right before I left to work. My PF is sitting on a plastic shelve that was left over from my garden stand. Its purpose is twofold: 1) to raise my PF off the floor so it doesn’t absorb the ground’s temperature and to catch any dripping wine. The plastic shelf lying upside down has with side channels and 2) can only hold a small amount of liquid. In my mind, if the spout on the PF leaks, I should be okay but if the whole thing goes, I’m hosed. The only problem is when the PF sits on this shelf (which is currently upside down), it sits on 3 plastic support channels that are flimsy and with all these earthquakes recently, even a tiny one, this bad boy is going down. I can see it now; it tips over and spills all 6 gallons everywhere. It seeps down through my downstairs neighbors ceiling and the next thing I know, the swat team is kicking in my door because they think I’ve murdered someone. No Bueno. Bathtub, Check! I check the temperature of the PF - 70 degrees, check that the heater is on and set to 70, looked at the bubbling air lock for a brief moment (ahhh its working) then leave to work.
So, I get home from work and walk straight into the bathroom. OMG, I’m not sure exactly what happened but all I see is that the airlock is filled with wine (instead of clear sanitizing liquid) and wine droplets are everywhere. It’s as if my PF sneezed big time. The airlock cap had blown off straight off and the airlock is bubbling very consistently. All I can think about is that I am the luckiest guy in the world right now because A) my wife isn’t home to see this and B) my decision to move it into the bathtub prevented wine from spraying all over my walls and my wife’s new curtains.
This is what I saw when I got home
Close up
Temperature between 68 and 75, Check
PF was originally sitting to the left of the bar. Notice wife's new curtains.
