THE Alcohol (drinkable) Thread (merged)

[PeakOiler]

Thanks for your reminder on equipment cleanliness, americandream. It is a critical point in wine and beer making.

Yes, always wash the hands before (and during) working with the equipment. Recently, the hot (collected) rainwater coming out of my solar water heater has been near the boiling point for rinsing the tubing and containers, etc.

[GASMON]

A guy I worked with a few years ago, a Scot from Glasgow made delicious "moonshine", blew your bloody head off, too strong for me though. "Home brew" apparently a big thing up there in Glasgow.

I tried home brew wine / beer a while ago. Poor results.

I rarely touch spirits, though an odd Jack Daniels or Southern Comfort (both with ice) is nice. Guinness or good old English Bitter is my drink. Some good beer in USA, San Francisco steam beer and a few other local brews I tried in California & Vermont. Yank lager though (big names) is mostly lousy (as is most lager). Currently drinking a nice lager though, Cusquena, brewed in Machu Picchu Peru. 8 bottles for £6 at Sainsburys (uk). (Beer from Peru in Lancashire - No wonder the planet is farked).

Gasmon.

[PeakOiler]

Peach wine update: The wine is getting clearer and tomorrow I'm going to buy another 23 L glass carboy and look into some filters as well.

I plan to rack the wine a second time this weekend. I need the practice.

[PeakOiler]

Today I bought (finally) a second 23 L glass carboy (made in Italy) for racking the peach wine for the second time this weekend. The air lock has quit bubbling. The wine is very clear down to the lees and the color looks golden peachy. I also bought a wine filter housing assembly and filters at Austin Homebrew which were made in the UK.

http://www.homewinemaking.co.uk/

Why don't American companies make this stuff?

In about another two months I will bottle the wine. I may have to try a small sample during that procedure.

According to the recipe, it's best to wait an entire year before drinking the wine.

I really wish I had made a quadruple batch.

[PeakOiler]

Today I racked the peach wine a second time:



I set the carboy on the chair to enhance the gravity flow through the filter and placed coasters under the chair legs to tilt the carboy over so the siphon tube would stay immersed longer.



In another couple of months, I'll bottle the wine:



I sampled about six fl. oz. today. OMG! Awesome!

[topcat]

When racking stuff off, a neat trick is to tape a butter knife to the hose at the appropriate height so you do not have to worry about the hose coming out or going too deep into the dregs.

[pstarr]

PeakOiler, that is purty wine

I've only had experience as a "cellar rat" making grape wine. Don't know the chemistry or science at all. A rudimentary question: do you know the brix (sugar level) and PH (acid) of the the juice? How does it compare to wine grape juice? High numbers reflect how sturdy the wine is, how resistant to bacteria, yeast, infection and how well the wine softens/ages. The cleanliness in wine making is not so important like beer making. I assume it is a result of the high sugar/alcohol levels.

I always thought a way to get a balanced, full-bodied (non-wine grape) fruit wine would be to mix fully ripe fruit (for sugar), and not-ripe fruit (for acid).

[PeakOiler]

When racking stuff off, a neat trick is to tape a butter knife to the hose at the appropriate height so you do not have to worry about the hose coming out or going too deep into the dregs.

That's a good idea topcat. I just secured the larger siphon tube against the inside neck of the carboy using a section of soft, flexible tubing. (You can see the tubing on the left hand side in the first picture above.) Here's a close up of that detail:



See how the flexible tubing is pinched off at the neck? That made for a tight but sliding fit.

[PeakOiler]

PeakOiler, that is purty wine

I've only had experience as a "cellar rat" making grape wine. Don't know the chemistry or science at all. A rudimentary question: do you know the brix (sugar level) and PH (acid) of the the juice? How does it compare to wine grape juice? High numbers reflect how sturdy the wine is, how resistant to bacteria, yeast, infection and how well the wine softens/ages. The cleanliness in wine making is not so important like beer making. I assume it is a result of the high sugar/alcohol levels.

I always thought a way to get a balanced, full-bodied (non-wine grape) fruit wine would be to mix fully ripe fruit (for sugar), and not-ripe fruit (for acid).

Thanks, pstarr. Yes, making wine IS an art, isn't it? This is my first attempt making wine. I didn't measure pH nor the specific gravity (even though I did have a hydrometer). Next year I can try different proportions of ripe/under-ripe peaches in a couple of different batches.

Edit: Btw, that is about 8.5 liters of wine in the carboy. I bought thirty six 750 ml bottles. (Three cases.) 8.5 liters will fill approximately 11 of those bottles.

[Grautr]

In home winemaking some fruit doesnt age well. Raspberry wine should be drunk within a few months of bottling. There will be a noticable decline in quality after 6 months.

[PeakOiler]

Last Sunday I bottled just under eleven 750 ml bottles of peach wine. I tried a 4 oz sample, and it was very dry, strong (10-20% ?), and certainly had a unique flavor. I'll know next year to shorten the fermentation time.

The second glass was even better!

Now that's the way to store peaches!

[Ludi]

I made peach wine during my teens when for some reason we had a lot of peaches. The alcohol content was quite high! I wonder if this is just the usual thing with peach wine? My techniques were extremely casual - I was a teenager not knowing what the heck she was doing - just crushed peaches and sugar in a crock with some yeast.

[Quinny]

Why is your container only half full? I've always had better results with much less air in the container? I only ask because you mention buying another carboy so presumably lack of peaches isn't the issue?

Peach wine update: The wine is getting clearer and tomorrow I'm going to buy another 23 L glass carboy and look into some filters as well.

I plan to rack the wine a second time this weekend. I need the practice.

[PeakOiler]

Why is your container only half full? I've always had better results with much less air in the container? I only ask because you mention buying another carboy so presumably lack of peaches isn't the issue?

I was following a recipe that called for 2.5 lb of peaches. I made a double batch using about 23 peaches. As I mentioned earlier in the thread, I wish I had prepared a quadruple batch. That would have nearly filled the primary fermenter and the carboys.
Since the mixture is evolving CO2 during the fermentation step, and with the air lock on the containers, very little air gets back into the containers.
I bought the second carboy for the second racking step so I would be able to see the bottom of the siphon tube through the glass during the bottling step. One wants to minimize the amount of lees during the transfer, so being able to see the bottom of the siphon tube is important.

[PeakOiler]

I never did post a pic of my finished product. I even printed some bottle labels that included a picture (seen in the Citrus and Peach Trees thread) of a lot of peaches on my dining room table.



Dang! I sure wish I had made a quadruple batch!

I will share some of the wine with family and friends over the upcoming holidays.

If I have a good peach harvest next year, I certainly know what to do with more of the peaches.

[PeakOiler]

Today I finished bottling my second batch of peach wine:



Fourteen 750 ml bottles. Again, very unique and strong!

Now if I set up a still, I'll learn the procedure to make brandy.

I put this picture on the labels:

[vision-master]

A two week supply, eh.

[PeakOiler]

A two week supply, eh.

lol, no. I might drink one bottle per month, if even that.

I still have enough frozen peaches for another batch, but I'd have to buy more bottles.

[vision-master]

One bottle a Month?.

[PeakOiler]

One bottle a Month? WTF.

Well, since I am Type II diabetic, I'm really not supposed to drink any alcohol at all, but ya got to live a little. I've learned that I can drink a glass of wine without spiking the glucose levels too badly.

I'm really more of a beer drinker. I should learn how to make beer I guess, but I had to do something with some of the extra peaches I harvested last season. I don't grow any of the ingredients for beer.

btw , I did find another case of bottles out in my shed, (I thought I had more), so I may start another batch of wine soon.

I like knowing that some of the sunlight energy that fell upon my peach trees and rain that fell upon my house is stored in those bottles.