The old trickster - peach wine

I'm up to my old tricks again - making peach wine! I had a hankering to put something in a vessel and watch it bubble, especially since I haven't started any new projects since we moved to this little one bedroom apartment in Silver Spring. My equipment, such as it is, is all in place, but I haven't set aside time and mental energy to do something fun, fermentation-wise.

This is a small (half-gallon) batch, with the base coming from one of those cheap cartons of peach nectar you can get at the grocery store.

Following my traditional method, I mixed the juice with some sugar and water and put it in a bowl to sit by a window. This, I assume, is when the yeast flies in and starts devouring the sugars in the highly saturated solution. Luckily our windows open here on the 4th floor.

As is typical, nothing had really happened after 2-3 days of stirring and checking, except that a crowd of fruit flies was attracted to the dishcloth covering the bowl.

Then things got weird.

The peach nectar has some kind of solids in it, so this was already a cloudy mixture. On about the 4th day, there was a grayish sheen on the surface of the liquid in the bowl.

Christmas Goodies - a book and a crock

For Christmas, my mom gave me the latest book by Sandor Katz (!) and a 3 gallon crock (!!!). One can only imagine how much this will enable my fermentation hobby/habit. The book is long and packed with new techniques, advice, and illustrations. The crock arrived last night, and in combination with the book should lead to some real fun and some audacious experiments that go horribly awry! At the very least it quadruples my kraut making capacity. It will probably come into use for wild yeast wine ferments as well. Thank you mother, and I promise to share the results.


Updates:

-Over the weekend I racked the beet wine and sauerkraut cider to clean jugs. The sauerkraut cider has really mellowed and is coming into its own. It should soon be stable enough to bottle and age. This one is unique folks, and very exciting, even if I'm the only one willing to drink it.

-I also filled several bottles from the carboy of maple wine, which may be under a gallon in volume by now. I'm a little excited and a little worried because this means that equipment will be free for a 2-5 gallon batch of something. Any ideas?

-Using a bit of my original sourdough starter that went up to Massachusetts to my mom's house in November and came back to Maryland in January, I'm making real sourdough bread this week. I'm also coming off a successful baking of rustic Italian bread which had an excellent crust and moist crumb, so I may be overconfident about my bread skills.

-Last night I started a small batch of peach nectar, cider, and cranberries as an alcoholic ferment. It's on the counter to catch wild yeast as we speak.

Illicit Tasting

After an ill-fated attempt to go to the Shakespeare Theatre last night, I came home and snuck into the basement. I was there for all the wrong reasons. I wanted a taste of the highly immature, barely week-old beet wine. It's way too early for that, and there's no way the wine is ready, but my curiosity would not be sated. As is often the case, I had to know what was happening inside that beet-red jug (get it?).

I went down with a jug of extra must that I've been storing in the fridge to top up after my tasting. Removing the airlock, I poured a little in a glass. The aroma! And the taste. Yeasty, funky, a little weird, but much different than what I was expecting. The sweetness from the added sugar in the must is mostly gone. That Montrachet yeast has been very active, gobbling up honey, cane sugar, and residual beet sugar to turn into alcohol and carbon dioxide. What remains is somewhat viscous and redolent of fruit flavors and a strong hint of banana. The yeast and shredded beets have mostly settled, but there's a lot of sediment in what I poured, leaving a chalky residue on the glass. The thing it reminded me of most is this beer.There was an immediate connection in my mind to the Weihenstephaner Vitus. The yeasty banana flavor is written all over it. There's also a musty, almost savory taste to it.

I topped up the jug with some more must to feed the yeast a little bit and replace the airlock. Needless to say, can't wait to taste the finished product.

Beet Wine - now with video

I spent Monday afternoon making beet wine. It was a long time in the offing, but surprisingly easy when I actually started doing it. I boiled about 3 pounds of beets, removed the beets from the water, added sugar, honey, and orange juice concentrate.

 Boiled that mix, cooled, added a yeast-orange juice starter mix, and voila. Beet wine, in a brilliant purple-red color. Won't be ready for at least six months, so temper your expectations, please!

Here's the video of the must bubbling away in the fermenter:



Waiting for this to finish fermenting and aging is not going to be easy. I want to drink the whole thing right now! Definitely encouraging to try something that seemed so complex and find it a fairly simple proposition. I will not hold back from attempting outlandish wines or other fermentation projects in the future. As the truism goes: you can't succeed until you try. Or something like that....