Wine Label Honorable Mention

I'm happy to report my Apple Wine label got an honorable mention in Winemaker Magazine's label design contest. The latest issue of the magazine arrived at the house with the results of this years label contest. The competition was good, and the winners had some fun label designs. They awarded some big prize packages to first, second, and third place. Mine was one of 16 other honorable mention labels. According to the magazine I won a Carboy Cleaner, so I may be receiving a package in the near future. Thank you Winemaker Magazine!

Fourth of July 2010 - Boating & Cherry Wine

The family enjoyed a fun Fourth of July this year on Mom & Dad's boat. The day started out rainy and windy as we made the 90 minute drive down to Red Wing, but the weather slowly turned around as we floated in the marina eating our lunch below deck.

Nathan enjoyed his first boat ride, much of which was spent sleeping thanks to the dark bedroom and slow rocking of the waves. He slept almost 2 hours for his afternoon nap. Once awake, Grandpa let him help steer the boat. He had a blast!



After we returned to the marina mid-afternoon, Dad and I went out to pick some cherries from some trees on public land not far from there. Dad had been there already to pick some for making wine and had also started picking some for me. By the time we got there, most had been picked already, but we were able to scrounge up maybe another pound, giving me about 10 lbs total, enough for at least 3 gallons (15 bottles) of wine.

We headed home at Nathan's bedtime so he could sleep on the car ride. This happened to be his last ride in the car seat since he's big enough now for the upright car seats. After putting Nathan to bed we enjoyed a relaxed evening, and I stayed up late to start processing my cherries for wine. The new batch is now fermenting away in the basement. Can't wait to try it!

Building my magnetic stir plate

Back in November I went out to learn more about brewing beer. Among the demonstrations, one guy showed us a magnetic stirrer he made using a computer fan and a magnet. He was using it to stir up a yeast culture. In theory, this helps the yeast grow and thrive more than just letting them sit. Since starting a healthy yeast culture is an important step in making wine and mead, I thought I could use something like this for myself. Plus, I love a good workbench project.

The principle is very simple: place a magnetic stir bar (a small plastic coated magnet) in a container, and then place a spinning magnet underneath the container. This will spin the stir bar, and thus stir the mixture. I started researching, and ordered some small stir bars. I tried using some salvaged hard drive magnets, but I didn't like the results after my initial testing. After that I bought some smaller stir bars from eBay, and it turns out the seller of those stir bars runs the website stirstarters.com, whom I must give much of the credit for the design and my inspiration. While he sells his own stir plates, he also understands the DIY culture, and provides details about his design including a schematic for the speed control. With this information, I set out to make my own with one major difference: I didn't want to have to keep track of another AC adapter. I just wanted to run AC wall current right into the device for simplicity.

To get power to my stir plate, I would need an AC adapter to convert 120V AC to 12V DC, and it needed to be small enough to fit inside my project. What I found was a wall adapter that converted to a cigarette lighter plug like the one in your car. These are often sold as cell phone accessories, and with some searching I was able to find them very cheap online. I removed the "car plug" and the prongs that go into the wall, and replaced them with wires to connect into my project. This gave me 12 volts DC for powering the stir plate.

To actually get the AC power into the box, I salvaged an AC inlet plug and power cord from an old computer power supply. The plug mounted nicely onto the project box, and looks pretty nice I think. I also used a molex plug and wires to carry the 12 volts DC out of the AC adapter.

The speed control circuit was fairly simple to build, with the exception of the voltage regulator which I put on backwards the first time due to a poor diagram on the package. Thankfully it didn't cause any damage, just a confused engineer. I was able to find all the parts I needed at the local Radio Shack, except for the potentiometer, which had an uncommon resistance value, so I ordered that and the project box from Jameco. Had I not already bought my parts from Radio Shack, I would have gotten everything at Jameco. They have good selection and good prices. I mounted all of it on a proto circuit board to keep things relatively tidy, and added a power indicator LED to the circuit because I had some laying around... and LEDs are just fun.

The stirrer itself is made up of an old computer fan I pulled from an old project, a plumbing adapter from Home Depot which happened to be the perfect height, and some super strong button magnets from Ax-Man Surplus. This whole assembly is held together with epoxy, and thanks to some careful planning and assembly, is pretty well balanced when it spins.

The completed stir plate works quite well. I can just plug it in, turn on the power switch, and adjust the speed. I haven't tried it out yet on a yeast culture, dissolving some bentonite, or anything else yet... but it can stir water like a champ! I tested it out on a 1-gallon jug and got a little vortex, so this looks like it will be a useful tool to have on hand.

The first attempt at Rhubarb Wine

Three months ago, my dad and I harvested the last 15 pounds of rhubarb from their garden. I spent much of the next night hunched over the sink washing & cutting all the stalks, and into the freezer they went.

Today, with some simpler wine & mead projects under my belt, I've decided to tackle the rhubarb. This is my first batch using actual fruit (or vegetables). I pulled all 15 pounds of rhubarb out of the freezer and into the nylon straining bag. Water & sugar was added in small batches. I boiled 1 gallon at a time, and dissolved 4 pounds of sugar into each gallon. With all the rhubarb in the fermentation bucket, there was only room for about 3 gallons of sugar water. I also decided to try one of the optional ingredients in the recipe: white grape juice as a substitute for some of the sugar.

After about 7 hours of cooling down, the tannin, yeast nutrient, and metabisulfite are added. Tomorrow morning Pectic Enzyme is added to help break down the rhubarb and keep the wine clear. Finally, yeast is added on Monday morning to start fermentation.

In a few days the bag of rhubarb is removed, and I can add more water and let the fermentation continue. So far it smells good. With any luck it will turn out tasting good too.

Finishing & Bottling the Apple Wine

I'm happy to report my first wine experiment has successfully made it all the way to being bottled. The Apple Wine stopped fermenting while it was still a bit sweet, but I liked the flavor. Rather than ferment it out further, I decided to call it a Sweet Apple Wine and call it a day.

The wine had cleared up quite a bit while it sat in the carboy, but could have sat & aged longer. However, with our son's birth fast approaching, I wanted to bottle it before he came and life got busier. I borrowed my brother-in-law's Mini Jet wine filter to remove any remaining haze/particles from the wine, and the difference was impressive... crystal clear.

After collecting a surplus of bottles from craigslist, I was well stocked and ready to bottle. Bottles were washed & sanitized, I started the siphon from the 6-gallon carboy, and began filling bottles. I only spilled a little wine when the bottle filler bumped against the outside of a bottle; not too bad for my first try. All total, I got almost 31 bottles out of the 6 gallon batch. The last partial bottle was sacrificed for quality control purposes, so to speak. You can definitely taste the apple flavor. It still has some of the alcohol "burn," but that should mellow-out over time.

Corking went relatively well, considering I have the most basic corker available. I had to put a lot of force into it to cork each one. I can say now that I appreciate the mechanical advantage of a good corker. I may need to upgrade before bottling my next batch. I left the bottles standing upright for a couple days so the corks could expand and seal up, and then turned them on their sides for storage.

During the months the wine was in the carboy I was working out label designs in Photoshop and eventually arrived at the final design shown here. Just in case I decide to change label shapes in the future, I decided to use full-sheet label paper so I wasn't stuck with a fixed size. It's a bit more work to cut them out, but not too bad.

I've seen labels printed on inkjet printers before, and I know the ink can run & bleed when it gets wet... especially when the wine bottle gets some condensation on it. So I tried something a bit different. After finalizing my label design, I brought it over to FedEx Office (formerly Kinkos), and printed 6 sheets (36 labels) for less than $4. The key was printing in color laser-printing. This won't bleed when it gets wet, and as an added bonus, they have a nice shiny finish to them.

Now the wine can continue to age & improve in the bottles. It's been a fun project with results I can be proud of and enjoy. Maybe we'll break some out at Thanksgiving & Christmas, or maybe when our son is born! I'm sure we can find reasons.

Cleaning Bottles & Racking The Apple Wine

Earlier this month I was learning about winemaking and preparing myself for the first batch. One of my big concerns was getting enough bottles. Since a typical batch of wine is 5+ gallons, and you'll get about 5 bottles per gallon, I would need plenty of bottles soon. This is when I turned to Craigslist, and posted a wanted ad for free wine bottles. I didn't really know what to expect, but I don't think I expected the amount of response I got. As they say, be careful what you wish for, you just might get it. I got about a half-dozen responses, and decided to pick up bottles from three different people. All total I ended up with over 150 bottles. About 115 of those were green, most of the rest were brown or amber, a few clear bottles, and some other miscellaneous styles.

Over the last couple weeks I've been soaking bottles in large rubbermaid tubs with soapy water, scrubbing them out with a brush, and removing labels with a window scraper (razor blade). Having audiobooks and podcasts to listen to, and nice weather to enjoy makes the tedious work much better.

Here you'll see what the bottom of the carboy looks like a week after racking it into the carboy. The dark layer at the bottom is yeast and other suspended particles from the wine that have settled out. It's not finished by any means, but I decided to "rack" it again last night to remove the wine before the sediment begins to affect the flavor. I set up my equipment, and started a siphon to move it into my fermenter bucket, washed out my carboy, and transferred it back into the carboy to age & clear up some more.

Starting my First Batch - Apple Wine

After standing by watching my family do this for years, I've decided to jump in and try my hand at making homemade wine. Dad helped me get started with some basic books to learn about making wine, and I picked up a starter equipment kit from Midwest Supplies.

I've been reading through The Joy of Home Winemaking and learning a lot about making wine from fruit. As a beginner, the book explains the process well, and gave me a good enough understanding to get started. I can tell though that there will always be lots to learn, which should make this a fun hobby. I get to learn stuff, make some good, unique wines, and share them with friends & family. Not a bad deal.

For my first batch, I followed the advice of the book, and started with apple juice from frozen concentrate. Cub had frozen apple juice concentrate (100% juice) on sale, so I picked up enough juice, sugar, and water for a 6 gallon batch. On another trip to Midwest I got some good tips and advice from one of their experts, and a small shopping bag of more ingredients... tannin, pectic enzyme, yeast, yeast nutrient, and some other necessities. Overall, it was a pretty easy process... clean and sanitize the fermentation bucket and equipment, and dump everything in. The most effort was spent heating up water so I could dissolve in the sugar.

After letting the mixture (aka the "must") cool down to room temperature for a day, I added the yeast last night. I stirred it this morning, and with any luck, I should see some fermentation soon as it begins to bubble.

Now I just have to be patient, and find something else to fill my time while the wine does it's job.