Posts under ‘Brewing’

This weekend, I racked (transferred) the cherry mead from the fermenting bucket into a glass carboy, to get it off the fruit and start clarifying.  I started with a bucket because it has more room top for bubbles while fermenting and it is easier to get all 12 pounds of cherries in and out.
Materials:

carboy
airlock and [...]

These are the cherries that we harvested back in July.   There are 12 1/2 pounds.  I wasn’t ready to use them at that time, so they were frozen.  To thaw them, I put the bags of cherries in a large metal bowl and kept them in our “cold room” for three days.
Our cold room is [...]

Fellow mead maker and blogger Erroll, of washingtonwinemaker.com conducted a double blind taste test of boiled vs raw meads.  By boiling, we are talking about boiling the must (honey / water mixture) to sanitize it before fermenting.
Some people believe that honey has anti-microbial action and therefore does not need boiling, and that the flavors will [...]

This weekend, we harvested 12 1/2 pounds of tart cherries.  It was our largest harvest ever, which is a surprise because the top half of the tree is dying.  Maybe trees and plants set more fruit when under stress. Whatever the reason, cherry mead has always been the best and I’m looking forward to using [...]

At just shy of 1 year, the mulberry mead was ready to be bottled.  The recipe: 12 pounds of honey, 1 1/2 pints mulberries and 1 cup cherries.  It was racked in November of 2007 and ignored until now, leaving it tart and fruity with a hint of sweetness.  The fruit only contributed a touch [...]

The Sunday before last was mead and cyser (cider with honey) day. I racked a mulberry mead, made a mead with this years grapes and made a cyser. I spent about 2 1/2 hours in the kitchen, most of it was washing or sanitizing equipment. Brewing is mostly about getting everything clean, [...]

Erroll, of WashingtonWineMaker.com stopped by and recommended I put bird netting over the grapes. I had thought about putting up something to keep the deer out, but forgot about the birds.
I attached some boards to the top of the posts, then attached 1 inch deer fencing. The fencing is 7 feet wide and comes [...]

Erroll of WashingtonWineMaker.com stopped by some time ago. He has quite a bit of information on wine making and gardening, with a “Northern” grower perspective.
WashingtonWineMaker has only been on the web since April 2007, but already has posts on vinticulture, tomato wine, rhubarb wine, mead and maintenance & cleaning.
I’m interested in how his tomato [...]

Cherry Mead was bottled last weekend. It’s always nice to have somethine special for all those summer get togethers.
The mead was made from about 13 pounds of honey and some frozen, pitted cherries (a few pounds), White Labs WLP715 Champagne Yeast and water to make 5 gallons. The batch was started on July [...]

I harvested the hops today. There have been a few frosts, so the flowers on top and the vines had started to brown and were a bit past prime. I think the hops were at their peak about mid September. I did find that the flowers under the vine were greener. [...]