Pineapple (Maybe Pina Colada) Wine Update

I started with a recipe from YouTube but wanted to be a bit more mindful of the outcome than those nice ladies seemed to be... and wanted to maximize the fruit flavor as well.

2 pineapples
1 gallon water
7 cups sugar
1 pkg Lalvin RC 212 yeast

Peeled and cut up the pineapples (ate some, LOL), put in a pot with water and sugar. Brought to a boil. I didn't weigh the fruit, however, 'cuz I didn't think of that until later and don't have scales anyways. Transferred to primary bucket ‘cuz the kettle was too full for fermenting, and let cool. Added activated yeast, stirred, and covered. Recipe says to use an airtight container, stir every two days for 21 days, strain and enjoy. I didn't do 21 days, instead using the hydrometer I was able to record the following:

8/12/13 – 1.116 SG
8/14/13 – 1.061 SG
8/15/13 – 1.045 SG
8/17/13 – 1.022 SG
8/22/13 – 1.000 SG
8/23/13 – 0.996 SG

Tonight I strained the must into a big pot then moved to secondary (well, 2 secondaries, actually) using a colander and a sanitized flour sack dishtowel (my strainer towel, never sees "soap"), moderately squeezing out the fruit, for a total of 5 liters of liquid under airlock. Using the on line calculator, this comes out to 15.987 ABV. Too high for my palate, but I'm thinking this will allow for additions later on, for sweetening if needed and possible experimentation with coconut flavoring, for that pina colada taste I want.

1st Batch of Beet Wine 3 Weeks Later

It needs to age.  It also will need some back-sweetening.  This was my first batch, but as you can see in a mere 3 weeks' time, it's clearing nicely.  Tastes, um... alcoholic, sour.  That's where aging comes in.  And knowing what you're doing, which I didn't but I'm learning :)  Cheers!

Pineapple Wine Label

Here's what I've come up with... Once it's done fermenting, I'll change the ABV.  If the yeast will permit, 17% isn't out of the question, but I won't know 'til it's done.  If it's that high, it's going to have to be mixed down with something... Adding coconut extract for the Pina Colada flavor won't do the trick, so I'll have to come up with some other brilliant idea.  But that's in the future, and subject to all sorts of chemistry and other assorted magic... *grin*

New Pineapple Wine and Beet Wine Update

Tweaked a recipe I found on YouTube, and came up with this recipe.  Trying to achieve good wines with a minimum of additives while using more sophisticated techniques than hootch-makers.

Three Cats Fine Wines Pineapple Wine

2 pineapples
1 gallon water
7 cups sugar
1 pkg Lalvin RC 212 yeast

Total investment:  $8

Peeled and cut up the pineapples, put in pot with water and sugar. Brought to a boil. Transferred to primary bucket ‘cuz the kettle was too full for fermenting, and let cool. Added activated yeast, stirred, and covered. Recipe says to stir every two days for 21 days, strain and enjoy. Not sure but I may tweak those directions a bit. With this high of a starting specific gravity, I should be able to rack into secondary when it reaches 1.000, and end up with an alcohol content of about 15%.  I'm not certain at this point if this strain of yeast is alcohol-tolerant to that level, but if not that's OK, the wine will be a little sweeter is all.  Intent is to try for a Pina Colada wine, using Coconut Extract at the end.  We'll see.

8/12/13 – 1.116 SG
8/14/13 – 1.061 SG

Here's the formula for determining alcohol content using a hydrometer:  Subtract the last hydrometer reading from the first hydrometer reading, then divide by 7.36.  This will give your percentage.

The beet wine is now coming along nicely in secondary.  Here's what it looks like:

I need more wine bottles for sure, now! Gotta see if I can find some more carboys, too. I've got a gallon jug from a Carlo Rossi Sangria I found the other day, for the pineapple's secondary fermentation process, but if I'm going to make more than a gallon at a time, I'm pretty much stuck now until I get more equipment. But wine bottles I need.

OK, Obviously I Have No Life...

Skeeter Pee Label, as previously suggested.  Sigh... Like I don't have anything better to do?  LOL!!!

New Label

Dragon's Blood is essentially a 3-fruit wine that's fairly quick to make, tasty, and said to come out fairly potent.  It'll be the next wine I start, once my beet wine is racked off into secondary and I've got a free bucket for primary fermentation.  But, I was feeling creative so I went ahead and designed a label for the Dragon's Blood even though it's not even begun yet.  Skeeter Pee will be the next one I try after that, it's a lemon-based wine that's also said to come out real smooth and potent, also fairly quick from start to bottling -- No doubt I'll have a label for that too, before long.  So... here's Dragon's Blood.

Winemaking Update

The pictures below are the two wines that currently are aging, before bottling.  The rhubarb is clearing, and tastes pretty nice, and the beet is just starting to clear a bit.  This particular beet isn't real fancy, it's just beets with some lemon and orange to get the acidity correct.  The beet label I'm posting here isn't meant for this particular batch, but rather for the upcoming batch.  But since I'm posting pics and labels, figured what the heck.
                                                                                                                                                            

This will go on clear bottles.

This will be about 7 bottles.

This will go on green bottles.

This also will be about 7 bottles.

The 6 gallon batch currently in primary isn't fermenting as quickly as I'd like.  My specific gravity readings thus far have been:

* 7/28/13 – 4 gallons in bucket, added 2 cups sugar; 2 gallons in kettle, added 1 cup sugar, to reach 1.090 SG in each. SG Readings corrected for temperature.
* 7/29/13 – Divided and added 1 packet Lalvin Bourgovin RC 212 yeast to both containers. Temp 83 degrees in the house.
* 7/30/13 - 1.087 SG
* 8/1/13 – 1.077 SG
* 8/2/13 – 1.067 SG
* 8/3/13 – 1.062 SG
* 8/4/13 – 1.050 SG

Can't really rack off into the secondary, the carboy with the airlock, until the readings fall below 1.000, preferably 0.950.  But as long as they're still falling, it's still fermenting which while slower than I want, is acceptable.  This batch should net approximately 27 bottles.  Guess I'd better start finding wine drinkers to save their bottles for me :)

3 Cats Fine Wines

3 Cats Fine Wines Beet Wine

• 15 lbs. beets, cleaned and thinly sliced. No need to peel.
• 10 lbs. sugar
• Zest and juice of 3 lemons and 2 oranges
• 20-25 whole cloves
• 2” of ginger root, grated
• 5 Campden tablets, crushed
• 6 gallons of tap water
• 1 package wine yeast
• 1 5-gallon food grade bucket (bigger if you’ve got it, I don’t)
• 1 5 gallon carboy with bung and airlock (bigger if you’ve got it, I don’t)

Zest the oranges and lemons, and juice them through a strainer. No pulp, no seeds. Into the primary fermentation bucket, place the sugar, the orange and lemon juice and the Campden tablet powder. Boil the beets, the orange and lemon zest, the cloves and the ginger root, roughly divided between however many cooking vessels you need to use to achieve about 6 gallons of liquid.

When beets are tender but not mushy, line a colander with a flour sack dishtowel and place it on top of the primary bucket. Pour the beets and liquid into the colander.

Stir the sugar mixture and juice once you’ve got a couple gallons of liquid, so it’s easier to dissolve. Once the bucket is full nearly to the brim with liquid, stir carefully then siphon off 2 gallons into a second container. This is so the full bucket doesn’t overflow during the primary fermentation process, and a 5 gallon bucket will potentially overflow if it contains 5 gallons of fermenting liquid. You’ll lose some wine later when you siphon it into secondary, so this extra will help replace the loss enough to fill the carboy properly.

Take a hydrometer reading, after noting the temperature of the liquid. This calculator http://hbd.org/cgi-bin/recipator/recipator/hydrometer.html?16280467 will correct your hydrometer reading since your liquid probably isn’t at the standard 60 degrees. You should be starting out at about 1.091. If it’s lower, add sugar to each container until you reach that mark on both. Cover loosely and let stand. The Campden powder needs 24 hours to kill any stray bacteria that might harm the wine. Start timing when everything is in the bucket and stirred up, you don’t have to wait until it’s cooled to start the clock. After 24 hours have passed, activate the yeast, and divide it proportionally into the two containers. Stir. Cover the containers with a cloth tied down, or rubber-banded, and set aside for 5 days, stirring twice a day.  Don’t cover tightly, it needs to breathe.

Stirring First Day Ferment in Kettle

First Day Ferment after Stirring, Bucket

After 5 days have passed, take another hydrometer reading and compare it with the first. Write it down. Siphon the wine from the primary buckets into the carboy, affix an airlock, and set aside. When the airlock stops bubbling, and there are no more bubbles on top of the wine, take another hydrometer reading. Subtracting this reading from the first reading should give you the wine’s alcohol content.

* 7/28/13 – 4 gallons in bucket, added 2 cups sugar; 2 gallons in kettle, added 1 cup sugar, to reach 1.090 SG in each.

* 7/29/13 – Divided and added 1 packet Lalvin Bourgovin RC 212 yeast to both containers. Temp 83 degrees in the house.

* 7/30/13 - Fermenting very nicely as you can see above! After the Primary Fermentation is complete, I'll post up more photos and discussion of the process. Meantime, it's just wait and stir, stir and wait. I can say that the taste I had after mixing all the basic ingredients together was simply divine... hoping that is a good omen for the finished product!

Here are pics of the two other wines currently in bulk aging, in back is a Rhubarb and in front is a basic Beet without spices that I started last month.

Awesome Trip!!!

Well, I just got back from a wonderful 800 mile journey, just me and My BMW (My Bike My Way). Left here after work Monday, got on the road about 1:30pm. Headed west on 2 and hit a gnarly thunderstorm, complete with rain and wind. Glad I had that $25 rainsuit, with that on the rain didn’t bother me a bit. Bike does well in the wind, too, much to my surprise. All was smooth sailing to Twisp, from that point, spent the night there and headed on to Bellingham in the morning. Beautiful but cold through the mountains. Spent the night in Bellingham, then headed south to Seattle, via Whidbey Island. Took the ferry from Clinton to Mukilteo, much to my surprise bikes get on first and get off first :) Sweet! Hit I-5 rush hour, wasn’t as bad as I expected and I discovered I’d rather do rush hour on a bike than in a car. Go figure. I HATE the road surface though… every lane has this groove running down the center just about the width of a bike tire. The other grooves in the pavement felt a little oogey but I got used to those pretty quickly. I also discovered that grated bridges feel really oogey, but again the bike will go where it’s told to go. Spent the night in Seattle, slept in, left about 1pm on I-90 ‘til I could head north on 97. That was my least favorite part of the trip, the time I spent on I-90. Road surfaces sucked, and I just didn’t enjoy. Give me those nice 2 lane roads, please :) Got in about 8pm after a nice leisurely meander, tired but happy. Bike ran well, my total fuel expenditure was $49.54, 12 gallons. So the math works out to an overall average of 65 mpg. No complaints about that!

There’s some pics up on my PhotoBucket account, here. For some reason, though, they uploaded in reverse order of how they were taken. So the slideshow will be the trip backwards, LOL! http://s1110.photobucket.com/albums/h453/AuntieMayhem/Bike%20Trip%20July%20%202011/

Lots of lessons learned, a few technical errors along the way, but no dropped bike so no harm, no foul ;) Had no issues with any cars, and most every bike that went by, they waved. Ate great food… baked salmon, calamari, French onion soup, trout amandine, yakisoba… of course not all at the same meal! Didn’t quite earn an iron butt, but getting there… 7 hours on the bike today with a couple fuel stops and a couple photo stops… not so shabby :)

Upcoming Trip

756 miles, couple nights' stays at friends/family, just gonna be chill about it... got 4 days vacation and hoping to get some great pics along the way I'm pretty excited about this, been a long time since I've done anything "just for myself" by way of travel. It'll be interesting to learn about my own stamina and abilities along the way, and yes, I'm packing light... not one to feel the need for everything but the kitchen sink Camera, 2 changes of clothes, toothbrush, 9mm, pint of R&R, basically... the rest I always carry in the saddlebags anyway. Yup, taking the bike... she's purring and eager to get on the road for a good long ride. My average MPG has been about 64 when riding 60 mph and below, and about 55 when riding above 70 mph. Sure beats what I'm getting in my Tracker, 25 no matter how I drive whether fast or slow, in 4wd or 2wd. I know the routes, and if I play it right I'll be able to get some nice mellow time here and there to take advantage of awesome photo ops. I'll post 'em up after I get back, of course :)