Preparing to Grow some Grapes

Vineyard installation got underway this weekend in the back pasture. We finally fenced out the cattle a couple of weeks ago. Last week I brought home 4000' of high tensile 12.5g wire, 14 9' fence posts, and 14 earth anchors. Amazon had wire vices. A1 Rental had the auger and earth anchor driver. My good friends Bob and Shawn proved invaluable.

The earth anchors went in surprisingly well. Twice they stuck, but a 1" galvanized 6' pipe allowed us to get those last two all the way in.

It doesn't turn very fast, but it has a kick

We haven't had much rain, so there was a bit of a hardpan which made digging the post holes slow going at first. But once through the top 12" the auger chewed through the moister soil easily. 

Stretching the top wire proved to be a challenge. The first two methods were ineffective. But Bob earned every bite of his grilled cheese sandwich when he came up with an improvised wire reel using a garden cart. 

The wire went up easily for the last 6 rows.

Bob and I tamped in the posts at 65 degrees. We attempted installation of the tiebacks using the inline wire strainers. It turns out we were missing an important tool. 

You can't install a vineyard without this

The inline wire strainer ratchet can be found at Orscheln's for $6. On Sunday I made the lower part of the tiebacks in the workshop, then moved out to the vineyard to finish up.

The soil analysis came Saturday in the mail. The pH is 5.5. I need a lot of lime and a little potash, phosphorus, and nitrogen. I hope to till these in next weekend so I can hang the lower wire before it gets too cold.

A special thanks to Bob and Shawn for helping Saturday. My winery is open to you both any time.

Notorious BGE

For Father's Day I got a Big Green Egg. I practiced a couple of times, then went whole hog on 13# of pork butt. Here's how it went down.

Started with two pieces of bone-in pork butt. They were dried, coated with mustard, then liberal application of butt rub. Then they went into the fridge overnight.

I loaded the Egg with charcoal and fired it up. My one mistake with the Egg was allowing the temp to get too high at the start. My thermometer did a 360 it got so hot, probably 800F. So it took some time to cool it off. I put them on at about 325F and did 1 hour/pound (about 6 pounds each) at 300F. It is crazy easy to lock in the temp on the Egg. My temp didn't vary more than about 15 degrees for the entire 6 hour smoke.

After about 4 hours I wrapped the pork in foil and let it finish to 200F. I didn't add any charcoal the whole time and when I went back out to cook steaks last night, there was still about half of the charcoal left.

The meat pulled off easily. It had a little less smokiness than I would like, so next time maybe more chips or even a few chunks of wood. But these butts made for a great Saturday supper with Shawn and Suzanne.

Tomato mozzarella salad, apple cole slaw, and pulled pork 

Fall Winemaking is Underway

The sauerkraut went into the fridge after 5 days of fermentation.  It is chunky and crisp with enough acidity.

We are home for the first weekend in a couple of months. This provided the opportunity to catch up on some winemaking. I bottled the elderberry-persimmon wine. This wine is unique for the large dose of bentonite and heavy toast oak chips in the primary, then a secondary treatment of some black currants. I think it is very good at 8 months, and it is supposed to improve for a couple of years.

We racked the starfruit and lychee wine.  The starfruit wine is not quite clear but will, once again, be fantastic.  I think we have the starfruit wine recipe dialed in pretty well. Getting the pH low enough with mostly citric acid is the key. No malic acid for this wine, acid blend or otherwise. The lychee wine unfortunately blew off all of the lychee aromas during fermentation. I anticipated this, and kept back 15 large lychees from the greenhouse.  These were thawed, destoned, chopped, treated for several hours with pectic enzyme, then added to the secondary. I expect a wine that is subtle but distinctly lychee.

We then kicked off the first of the fall batches.  This one is blackberry.  We are going with (almost) straight fruit. It is said that it normally takes about 11-12# for a gallon.  I had 29.5#, just under 10# per gallon for the 3 gallon batch.

To make up the volume I did use about 4 pints of water. I have some of last year's blackberry wine to top off with if the volume is still short.  The initial pH was 2.79 and it took 7t of calcium carbonate to get it to the desired 3.4.  Sugar calculations were perfect, we're starting at 1.084. I let the pectic work a full 24 hours. 71B will hopefully tame some of the malic acid.

Shawn and Suzanne came over for supper.  We had a nice veggie-based chili, then Suzanne make a delicious apple galette.  I was a poor host.

Spot the veggies?

Apple Galette.

Here is my recipe for 3 gal of carambola wine.

16# carambola
1 liter white grape concentrate
Sugar: 3# (SG 1.082)
Campden: 2 tab at start
Yeast nutrient: 3/4t Fermaid K divided
Yeast energizer: 1t GoFerm
Tannin: 1/2t
Pectic enzyme: 3t
Citric acid: 6t  (starting pH was 3.27)
Tartaric acid: 3t
Opti white: 6g (dose 1-2g/gal)
Water: 2gal
Yeast: QA23

Add Campden tablets at fruit thaw.  Bag the sliced fruit.  Add bagged fruit, grape concentrate, sugar to primary.  Boil water, pour over primary.  When cool, add Optiwhite, pectic, acids, and wait 12-24 hours. Double check pH and adjust if needed.  Rehydrate yeast with GoFerm and pitch.  Step feed the Fermaid K. Stir twice a day.  Bentonite on day 3.  Drip drain bag and rack to primary when 1.010 or lower.  Usual care thereafter.

4th of July Pork Butt

Jake and Taylor surprised me and drove up from Conway for the weekend.  The weather was great and so we decided to smoke a pork butt for the 4th of July.

My Weber smoker is not ideal.  It is really hard to keep the temp up.  We smoked it for about 7 hours.  Meanwhile, Shawn made some tasty sparkling wine/blueberry frozen treats which we enjoyed by the pool.  At the tenderization stage, I gave up on the smoker which was stuck at 190F.  I wrapped it in foil and finished it in the oven at 250F.

It came out great.  We had apple-raisin baked beans, marinated fresh vegetables, marjoram-lime grilled corn on the cob, and the pork.  For desert, Suzanne made an angelfood fruit layer cake.