Some background: (Just give me a moment & I will get to the whole wine-making stuff!)
We don't have alcohol in our home & I grew up in a home that was alcohol-free & a community that was nearly alcohol-free. The first time I ever even saw alcohol was when I was in probably about 10th grade & went out to eat with some people, (non-family people, naturally!), who had a drink at dinner.
In fact, I remember attending a wedding in IL with some friends the summer I was 20. It was the first and only wedding I've been to where there was alcohol. I didn't partake, in spite of some ribbing, because I wasn't yet 21 years old.
In fact, as a waitress it used to be quite the joke that I couldn't pronounce the names of any of the wines (or any other drinks, for that matter!) because I am just so unfamiliar with alcohol. "Pinot Grigio, anyone?"
Do I sound like I should be 67 years old and not 37, due to the type of cultural upbringing I had?? Oh well now, you must not be familiar with The County! In some ways, Aroostook County is like taking a small step back in time!
In college as I was "sorting out some things" I sought some advice on whether or not drinking was "okay" as far as Biblical principles go & found what seems so obvious to me now - that or course drinking is okay. The Bible does say:
"And do not get drunk with wine..." -Ephesians 5:18
"use a little wine for the sake of your stomach & your frequent ailments." -1 Timothy 5:23
and also-
"determine this- not to put an obstacle or a stumbling block in a brother's way." -Romans 14:13
"if food causes my brother to stumble, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause my brother to stumble." -1 Corinthians 8:13
There is some discussion around what kind of wine there was in Biblical times, its alcohol content, etc. I am not writing this blog post for it to be a theological discussion! I am writing it b/c we made our own wine which we think is pretty cool! I just feel obligated to give a little background info! Kevin & I feel we have the freedom to drink, but except for rare occasions just don't. We're not against it, it's just really not part of our culture. Another point to note is that because of the first 30 or so years of Kevin's life, alcohol kind-of brings him back to that place & he's not interested in going back to who he used to be!
SO~ anyway...
We have a plethora of blackberries. Last year I spent a lot of time searching for blackberry recipes, non-dessert recipes! I came across a blackberry wine recipe & although I didn't make it, I sort-of tucked it to the back of my mind.
This year I thought, "Why not?" and kind-of charged forward with little information but plenty of enthusiasm!
"The Recipe" ;)
I mixed together my blackberry juice, sugar & water, put it in a pot, loosely covered it with cloth and marked my calendar!
Day One:
Day Two:
Day three:
Day 3 & it's time to skim the junk off the top. The vessel I chose is by no means a good vessel for fermenting! Lesson learned! This blog post will horrify those who are good at wine making! This was my first effort and I don't seem to be the "read the directions first" type! I learn as I go! By this point, even 3 days in, the mixture smelled very wine-like! (That is the technical term, btw, "wine like!")
6 more days of sitting, loosely covered. For the first few days you could peek in and watch it bubble up.
After a total of 9 days of fermenting, I made the biggest NO-NO of wine making! The next step is to add, according to my recipe, a small amount of brandy. Then to seal so that no air gets in & let ferment for 2 more days. Due to my poor choice of a vessel, I felt I needed to put the wine in a container that I could seal. So - I transferred the wine, (without a siphon!), into the new container.
What I found out is that this oxidized the wine. Not good!
From www.winefolly.com:
Oxidized Wine …aka maderized wine
- What it is: Contamination/chemical breakdown caused by too much oxygen exposure. Rusted metal is oxidized…it’s that same process but in your wine. Oxidization is the most common wine fault and is easy to replicate at home with any bottle of wine.
- How you can tell: Oxidized wines lose their brightness, both in color and in flavor. Bright reds turn to brick color or brownish, and fresh tastes develop drier, more bitter characteristics. White wines are much more susceptible to oxidization than reds, because reds’ higher tannin levels act as a buffer. If you really want to see what this looks like: open a new bottle, pour a glass and save that bottle for about a week. Congrats, your bottle is ruined. Drink some and compare it to that first glass you had.
- Can I fix it? No, but you can prolong the shelf life of opened wine by using a wine preserving tool. If your bottle is oxidized right off the shelf, it was either poorly sealed or mishandled. Take it back!
In other words, where my wine is concerned, when I poured the wine from one vessel to another, without using a siphon which would have [theoretically - I haven't 100% figured out how to use it!] transferred without exposure to too much oxygen, I introduced oxygen into the wine. I have since learned how very, very bad this is!
However, Mr. Orange Pants over at Central Street Farmhouse told me to bottle it anyway and use it probably around the 5 month mark. I currently have an even smaller second batch fermenting and I will not make the same mistake with this one!
In the future the best thing to have is a 5 gallon, (or smaller), plastic bucket with a tight fitting lid.
SO~
A teeny bit of brandy was put in & the bottle was left to ferment for another 2 days, making a total of 11 days of fermentation.
That made today - Bottling Day!
I purchased from Central Street Farmhouse in Bangor:
-some small bottles
-corks
-a "corker" (okay, okay. I don't know what it is called!)
(I naively asked if I could make my own soda with the bottles & corks & corker, but I can't b/c carbonation will get out through a cork.)
-a siphon with tubing & sort-of a filling tube to go in the bottle. (technical terms again.)
A note about Central Street Farmhouse: They were super helpful! Also, I give a big kudos to them for never once pushing products on me. In fact, Mr. Orange Pants was almost the opposite, (perhaps because he sensed what a pathetic non-aficionado I am), he encouraged me not to buy stuff & to use their information & help to get started. I must say that I really appreciated the lack of pressure!
So, even though I recognize that this wine isn't going to be named, "Stellar Cellar". (Hey - maybe that should be my label name!)
Note: I just looked it up & that name is already in use!
So, even though... this has been a great learning process for us! It's also been pretty fun! Eventually I would like for the wine to be good enough to use as gifts for others.
We laughed a lot since I have no clue what I am doing! If nothing else, this wine will be great for cooking up some roosters! Now that is a combination!
I need to find out what I was doing wrong because sometimes we were getting air in the tube, which we all now know is very, very bad for wine!
I think this is the most fun part!
Putting some effort into it!
Unfortunately, no matter how hard they tried or how much leverage they got, neither of them had quite enough "elbow grease" to cork the bottles! Noelle was even "leveraging" as the kids said!
So my little batch of 7 bottles is done!
Lessons have been learned! Fun has been had! It seems like there is an unfortunate amount of sediment in the bottles, but I guess I can ask Mr. Orange Pants about that too!
So, in 4 or 5 or 6 months, I will open up a bottle- actually, Micah wants to do that part - and I shall take a taste.
And the likelihood is that I shall not know whether it is good or whether it is terrible, but I shall enjoy it all the same!
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