Life on the Outer Coast

November 13, 2009

I got ambitious this evening. Maybe it was the first snow that fueled the domestic fires or perhaps it was just another way to avoid work. At any rate, I managed to bake a pumpkin for Thanksgiving pies, started soda culture and at long last I started a batch of wine.
The last batch of soda didn’t ferment at all. Not sure what happened, it seemed like the culture was fizzy and there was sugar in the berries. The most likely problem was inadequate cooling of the berry mix before adding the culture. Intense conversations while brewing may not be the best thing for me.
For the wine I used 4 lbs of red huckleberries and blueberries (mostly red hucks). I loosely followed the amounts called for in a recipe that Michelle Putz and Perry Edwards gave us at the wine workshop. I say loosely because I used the amount of sugar, berries, yeast and water, but left out the yeast nutrient , Campden tablet and acid blend included in the recipe. The recipe was for a completely different huckleberry (Gaylussacia baccata), but maybe it will work well enough. I’m using yeast that Perry gave me, I don’t remember what sort of yeast it is. I followed his guidelines for the yeast “mix in a coffee cup full of water with about ¼ cup sugar, let stand for about 5 hours, then add to the berry mix.
I had a plastic bucket with lid (washed and sterilized with boiling water). I added the berries, poured on the boiling water, then added the sugar. Apparently I was supposed to add the sugar later. Whoops. On the 27th of November , I’ll proceed to step 2. One piece of advice that I'll try to remember to follow is to keep a calendar of when to proceed to the next step.