A few pics of various progressions

Here's the white grape/raspberry in secondary (center,) and apple/cherry (right) about to be oaked,


A glass of the apple/cherry stolen from the wine thief...OG 1.110 FG 0.096
cleared nicely


And the apple/cherry with French Med roast oak added


In primary is 6 gals of skeeter pee, can't wait to try this stuff!


From what I've read, the pee can be a cantankerous fermentation. But with attention to detail and the right temps...


GANGBUSTERS!

These all look wonderful! And good call on the skeeter pee. It's time to start thinking about spring/summer of next year.

Quick Qs. What was your apple to cherry ratio? Did you use juice, whole fruit or something else?

Nice color and clarity on the cherry. Never done skeeter pee. Just can't seem to fit anything extra into the schedual. ...

TexasWine said:

These all look wonderful! And good call on the skeeter pee. It's time to start thinking about spring/summer of next year.

Quick Qs. What was your apple to cherry ratio? Did you use juice, whole fruit or something else?

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Don't know the ratio, from concentrate... old orchard.

About the pee, This is my first attempt. I think I've done every thing right...I plan on taking to our annual canoe trip in june along with the apple/cherry.

WilliamSlayer said:

Nice color and clarity on the cherry. Never done skeeter pee. Just can't seem to fit anything extra into the schedual. ...

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Thanks. As for your schedule, there's nothing on it more important than starting a new batch... pick up some more carboys! :rockin:

T_Baggins said:

Thanks. As for your schedule, there's nothing on it more important than starting a new batch... pick up some more carboys! :rockin:

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Lol, you bet. But its tough to convince SWMBO that "one more fermentor" won't take up too much space.

On a side note: bottling today!

And here's the oaked apple/cherry ready for bottling! got 12 1.5L bottles filled plus two pint masons. The flavor doesn't seem to have changed all that much (Not that the non-oaked flavor of this batch is fresh in my mind) but the mouthfeel has improved incredibly, I will be doing this again for sure. I added the oak at the time of above photos and bottled at the time of this post. The bag of chips I used said it was enough for 25 gals, I eyeballed half the bag into this 5 gals.

Looks great!

Skeeter Pee cleared by time/gravity...

Here is the white grape/raspberry on its second racking...

I'm about to use a slightly modified Jack Keller's recipe for a simple strawberry...

3 lbs. fresh strawberries
2 lbs. granulated sugar
2 tsp. citric acid
water to make 1 gallon
wine yeast & nutrient...

The only thing is I don't have straight citric acid, so will replacing it with acid blend be ok?

T_Baggins said:

I'm about to use a slightly modified Jack Keller's recipe for a simple strawberry...

3 lbs. fresh strawberries
2 lbs. granulated sugar
2 tsp. citric acid
water to make 1 gallon
wine yeast & nutrient...

The only thing is I don't have straight citric acid, so will replacing it with acid blend be ok?

Click to expand...

Shouldn't be a big difference, but I would hold off on the acid addition until y ou are positive you need it. I made the mistake of adding acid once and had to tweak backwards because the strawberries already had enough acid.

T_Baggins said:

I'm about to use a slightly modified Jack Keller's recipe for a simple strawberry...

3 lbs. fresh strawberries
2 lbs. granulated sugar
2 tsp. citric acid
water to make 1 gallon
wine yeast & nutrient...

The only thing is I don't have straight citric acid, so will replacing it with acid blend be ok?

Click to expand...

Personally, I would use lemon juice to substitute rather than using acid blend. Acid blend has tartaric, malic and citric acids, with citric acid being the least abundant.

I'm not sure of the exact lemon juice dosage I've used in the past, but a quick web search should provide ample info.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Home Brew mobile app

hey thx for the info TX, but damned if I culdn't wait and moved forward already!
maybe next time.

First off, two gallons, and when I say two gallons I don't mean water to two gallons, I mean two gallons of water PLUS the rest of the ingredients.

2 gals water
2 cambden tabs
8lbs frozen whole strawberries
4lbs granulated white cane sugar
2tsp Yeast Nutrient
1tsp Yeast Energizer
4tsp acid blend
1tsp tannin
Montrachet yeast



I brought 10 cups water to boil in a large stockpot and added the sugar, stirring a few times till the liquid looked clear again like water then removed heat. Add semi thawed strawberries and mashed with tater masher. Add the rest of the water (1 gal plus 6 cups) Add chems. Take temp and SG which came to 1.066@68F.
Now don't sweat me heating the strawberries, the sugar absorbed MOST of the heat really and they were still half frozen so they didn't really get heated up. Let stand 24 hrs.
Today I raised OG to 1.086@69F with raw cane sugar and pitched Montrachet.
In 5 days I will check SG...1.000 is my target, should yield 11-11.5%ABV, I will use sorbate at 1.000 and reduce temps a bit because I don't want this recipe to dry out. Then rack at 30 day intervals till clear and bottle!
Acidity MAY be a factor since I used acid blend instead of citric acid (I never even thought of lemon juice, thx again TX) but I will deal with that when the time comes if needed.

If anyone has any prediction, advice for future batches or even a PROVEN recipe (I'm not sure what I mean by "proven" as we all different tastes etc,) please feel free to chime in! THX!