The Winter that Never Ends

Winter of 2018-2019 started early, with cold temps and 3 separate snowfalls before Thanksgiving. And it has not let up. Snowpocalypse 2019 left us with 17" and we have subsequently had at least a couple more snow events, with more in the forecast for this week.

So we're stuck inside, cooking and winemaking. 

Every so often at band practice on Thursday nights, we have dinner. Two weeks ago we had a dinner worth publishing. Chukar is a type of partridge. Josh and others shot these, and I thought they made a fine supper with cabbage casserole.

We have an abundance of crappie and made some killer fish tacos.

Today I worked on the wine. Traminette and Chardonel are both going to be at least decent and drinkable after cold stabilization. Both are slow to clear so I've treated both with SuperKleer. They're clearing already and we'll rack these next weekend. 

The results of cold stabilization.

The grenache rosé looks and tastes great. I racked one gallon off its tartaric acid crystals and bottled it. We'll sample this over the next few weeks and if it tastes fine, bottle the rest. I have 8 gallons of grenache rosé.

The Frontenac rosé unfortunately got a little bit oxidized. It doesn't taste bad, but the color is off. In retrospect, I brought this pH up too high; even though it got the standard dose of KMS every 3 months, the SO2 got too low. Lesson learned. I'm trying the milk trick, followed by Polyclar. I will only post pics if it works.

The other wine with color I don't like is guava/SB. I'm calling this "Psidium sauvignon." This wine has always had an unappealing color and the previous batches suffered the same way. I don't think it is oxidized, that's just the color you get from strawberry guava. I'm trying Polyclar to see if I can brighten it up. 

2018 OVZ went into the barrel. This wine got half of the oak cubes as compared to the 2017 OVZ, but after tasting, I think it's perfect. The 2017 OVZ has too much vanilla/cocoa flavor, but I expect it will settle down. The 2018 may actually be drinkable earlier.

The 2018 SB is bottle-able, but I ran out of energy and I had to cook this week's lunch.

This week's lunch is unintentionally paleo - Spaghetti Squash Meatball Casserole. Meatballs, greens, spinach, squash, tomatoes, and ricotta, topped with sauce and mozzarella.   

2018 Wines - Chapter 9 - Pear Batch #2

The first batch of pear wine came from Seckel and Bartlett pears. I think the Seckel added some needed acid to the first batch, which didn't go dry. We've already bottled a portion of the first batch on a trial basis, and it seems pretty darn good. So I had high hopes for this second batch, which is much larger. I may be disappointed.

I didn't weigh the pears but they were well over 100#. They weren't even fully thawed when I pressed, so I left lots of juice behind. Nonetheless I got 8 gallons of straight juice. I was disappointed in the brown color, I think maybe the longer time in the freezer and lower acidity contributed to some early oxidation. But must which starts brown can clear, so we forged ahead. Initial numbers not quite as good as the first batch: TA 5.4g/L, pH 3.75, SG 1.060. After a total of 44g of tartaric acid (1.47g/L), the pH was 3.25. I chaptalized to 1.080, and used the usual 15g Opti White, 1.3g Lallzyme EX, and a heavy dose of pectic. Also added 2t tannin, then rehydrated QA 23 with GoFerm and pitched. Fermaid K was step-fed.

Because the first batch didn't go dry, and it remains pretty cool in the basement, I didn't put the 10 gallon fermenter in the chiller. Still, this was (is) a very slow ferment. It took 7 days to get to 1.055. Six days later it was 1.026 with possibly a little off odor. I dosed with 1/2 dose of Fermaid O. At 21 days it was down to 1.014 and odor-free. At this point I moved it to carboy, added EC-1118, and moved the carboys upstairs into the warm pantry. There is has continued to bubble very slowly, but dropped only to 1.012 after another 7 days. That's still about 3.1% residual sugar. I'd really like this wine under 2%. And I'd really like it less brown.