Winemaking

Yes, I just sanitize the hydrometer and just drop it in. A lot less trouble that sanitizing the hydrometer and the graduated cylinder and the wine thief, just so I can pour the sample back into the fermenter.

It never occurred to me to do that, although I liked tasting the later samples out of the flask to see how things were progressing taste-wise.   Ferment onward!

Yep. Then you get those weird batches when everything looks good and you take a reading but it's nowhere near your target FG, so you know it's stuck. Well, that's beer and especially mead, anyway. Wine usually went fine for me.

^^^^^^^^^^^Looks promising. Great color!

Day 7

Transferred the wine to a carboy today.

My "portable" winemaking cart.

The wine went into the secondary fermenter of day 7 and continued to ferment until today, Day 22.
It was still bubbling very slowly - once every 6.5 minutes, but the specific gravity had dropped to 0.995. Under 0.998 is acceptable, so I called it good. It calculated out to 14% ABV.
Transferred it to another carboy. Added ingredients to stop the yeast, "stabilize" the wine and cause the sediment to drop out.
It tasted GREAT!

Bottled this batch of wine today. An Australian Cabernet Shiraz blend.
Filled 28 bottles. The 29th filled up to the shoulder! Only needed a couple more ounces to fill.
But I always like to have a little left over so I can sample it and make notes. This turned out to be quite a sample.
Oh well, it's a dirty job, but somebody's got to do it.

Since the last post here, there were no opportunities for what I thought were interesting pictures. The wine went into the secondary fermented with an airlock. It continued to ferment slower and slower for a couple weeks. Then it was transferred to another carboy. Any remaining yeast was killed and additives were added to aid in the settling out of the solids. After a few weeks the wine was transferred off the sediment to another carboy.
After another week or so it was filtered. And after another week, today, it was bottled.

I rushed this batch (which is actually per the instructions, but who follows them?) I wanted to get it bottled fast this time to reduce the chance of oxidation. Wanted to see if it made any difference.

So - this "sample" is very "green". No age at all. It's only been 64 days since I pitched the yeast.
But it looks promising.
My tasting notes:
"Color is a deep dark garnet with perfect clarity. Good legs. The nose is a crisp, clean, subtle fruit. Initial flavor is fruity - dark fruit - and very acidic. A bitterness on the finish and plenty of dryness and mouth pucker. The oak is buried by the acids and tannins.
With age, I think this will become a good dry fruit forward wine - with the acid toning down to make it bright and crisp. At least a subtle oak flavor/finish should emerge with time."

I probably won't sample it again for a 6 months - but I don't expect it to reach it's peak until 12 - 18 months.