and

5 gallons of beer fermenting at Gerry's house ...

Fine Lemon Wine

Well today I made my first batch of Fine Lemon Wine.

I put in two liters of fresh squeezed lemon juice

3189 + 315 grams of sugar

2 grams of tartaric acid

Water to 22 Liters

Yeast from a riesling I just racked

4 tsp of yeast nutrient

3/4tsp of tannin

Came to a SG of 1065 tossed the yeast and watched it ferment!

I will keep an eye on it once it reaches 1005 I will put in another liter of lemon juice and two more tsp of yeast nutrient and then rack to a secondary a few days later.

Reflections on brewing

I suppose sometime I ought to think about this. I have in my house right now:

Cider - Bulk storage ready to bottle anytime I want to

Cab/Merlot - Just put into the secondary, bubbling nicely

Riesling - Just put in the secondary, starting to bubble

Sugar Wash - Started yesterday

Lemon Wine - Pitched the yeast about 10 minutes ago

Add to that in one imperial gallon carboys:

Kiwi - Ready to bottle anytime I want to

Lavender - Just put in secondary three days ago

And I am wanting to start a wisteria wine...

Various

Took some readings today:

Lavender SG - 1.06+

Cab-Merlot - 1.04+

Riesling - 1.05+

Lavender Wine

Today I made Lavender wine!

1Kg Sugar

2LT Water

85 Lavender Flowers (2 stems I forgot to remove)

1 Lemon squeezed

1/8 tsp of Tannin

1 tsp of Yeast Nutrient

Boil the water put in the lemon and sugar. Poor over Lavender flowers, Tannin, and nutrient.

Let cool.

Add 2LT of fermenting white wine of your choice (I had a riesling going at the time.)

Top up to 4.250 in primary.

Starting Gravity - 1040! Oh my that is not right.

So I added some more water, and some more water, and some more water. I have the SG down to 1010 which I think is too high as well. God knows how much liquid is in the primary right now, I expect I have somewhere near 6LT. It tastes pretty good sweet and full of lavender.

Lessons learned. Don't wing it calculate it! I followed a recipe for 3.8LT and up scaled it to 4.5LT by adding 10% more sugar and lavender flowers.

Tasting Note

Well well well. You don't need all that candy sugar and hops to have a belgian flavor. All you need is some yeast from a bottle of Chimay Blue.

This (both the Chimay, and Number 17) is a great beer. I wish I could say that it was something that I had done, but truth be known with the exception of using that cup of yeast siphoned off from No. 16 I have been keeping in the fridge I did nothing different than one of our bog standard beers.

The beer itself is dark amber in color, light, and has a wonderful effervescence. More to come as it ages ...

Tasting note ...

Well well well that was good. So very very good. Kind of one dimensional but definitely in the belgian camp. I can't wait for another 6 weeks as it was only two weeks in the bottle.