Tag: Wine

My Brewsy kit contained three airlocks, so I can have three bottles of wine or cider fermenting at a time. Plus, my half-gallon glass bottles arrived from Amazon this afternoon. Virginia wanted to try black cherry and the basic advice from Brewsy (which I ignored) was to do cranberry first, so I had ordered RW Knudsen Just Black Cherry and RW Knudsen Just Cranberry – both 100% juice. The slight problem with the juices is that they are only available in 32oz bottles, so I needed two of each. (A Brewsy packet will process between 1.5 quarts and 1.5 gallons, but I’m not going for volume, yet.) The bottle size issue is why I did apple juice first – the Kroger juice is a 64oz bottle, and it is processing in the actual bottle.

I don’t really have to obsess about 100% juice, since some of my co-vintners are fermenting Hawaiian Punch and Dr Pepper, but I haven’t been that brave yet.

This was going to be the same simple procedure as yesterday, and I was going to do Cranberry, since that is supposed to be your first project, and I was running back and forth, checking the Sweetness Calculator, and trying to learn how to use my hydrometer, and measuring sugar and a lot of other steps. Plus, the added “complexity” of fermenting in a bottle other than the bottle the juice came in.

The process still went well, I don’t really believe the specific gravity reading, but I will ask for help on that later. I’m pretty sure I did something wrong or I can’t read. I really need to remember to get large print everything from now on.

So, everything mixed, sugar measured, juice measured, magic packet added, dogs tripped over, and it’s in the closet, ready to become wine. Whew.

Then, Virginia said, “Hey, you used one bottle of Black Cherry and one bottle of Cranberry!”

She was drinking the juice I had left out to leave headspace, so I said, “Wait! What juice are you drinking?” She said, “It’s cranberry and it’s tart.”

So, we have a mistaken mixture, or what a vintner would call a “blend.” It is 32 ounces of Black Cherry juice and 18 ounces of Cranberry. I call it “Happy Accident”, because I don’t think I should put “Dammit!” on a wine label.

So, I have sugar measured to make Cranberry semi-sweet, when 2/3rds of the source is actually Black Cherry. This is going to be interesting.

5 Feb 2021 9:45pm

Source Juice: 32 oz RW Knudsen Just Black Cherry (100% juice), 18 oz RW Knudsen Just Cranberry.

I followed the Brewsy “semi-sweet” recipe from the Sweetness Calculator, based on Cranberry juice. We’ll see what happens.

• Removed 14 oz of juice from the bottle – later had to figure out which bottle it was from
• Added 229 grams sugar
• Added one Brewsy packet

Proposed Schedule (updated with actuals):

Date	Time	Step	Complete	Comments
Fri Feb 5	9:45pm	Fermentation Began	√	Here’s hoping for a happy accident
Sat Feb 6	Morning 11:55am	Check for bubbles – swirl the bottle	√	Bubbles – had to swirl the bottle to wash some yeast residue back into juice
Feb 6	Afternoon 7:10pm	Check for bubbles – swirl the bottle	√	A bit late! Bubbles – still some yeasty residue on bottle, another swirl
Feb 7	Evening 4:15pm	Check for bubbles – swirl the bottle	√	Bubbling happily
Mon Feb 8	Afternoon 11:00am	Check for bubbles – swirl the bottle	√	Slowed down but still bubbles
Feb 8	9:45pm	Earliest End for Fermentation		(Will probably need more time) – Decided to leave it until morning, at least
Feb 8	9:50pm	Earliest Racking after Fermentation	Postponed	Rack before Cold Crash
Feb 8	10:00pm	Earliest Start for Cold Crash	Postponed	Remove airlock, replace cap, into fridge
Tue Feb 9	1:35am	Taste Test	√	Wee bit boozy. Think I will leave it until morning and then cold crash.
Feb 9	9:25pm	Racking	√	Prior to cold crashing
Feb 9	9:30pm	Cold Crash	√	Into the cold
Wed Feb 10	Morning	Checking	√	Some sludge developing, will rack this evening
Feb 10	Evening	Racking	Skipped
Thu Feb 11	3:05pm	Racking	√	Not too much to filter
Feb 11	9:30pm	Earliest End for Cold Crash		We have wine!
Feb 11	9:35pm	Tasting

Well, a cidery, anyway. Well, I started one bottle. My Brewsy kit arrived today, so it’s time to make some cider, since we have apple juice in the house. (OK, I ordered it because I wanted to try cider.) Wine comes from grapes, cider comes from apples, hangovers come from either.

This is supposed to be a really simple process – you add a magic Brewsy packet and sugar to the base juice, ferment it for three days (or more) and then a couple of days in the refrigerator to kill off the yeast. This is not standard wine-making, rather,this is wine-making with Brewsy.

Now, if you read the online (very detailed) manual and follow the conversation on the private group on Facebook, it is a simple process with a couple of key steps involved. If you watch the random YouTube videos of people using the kit, none of them have read the manual or followed the conversation on Facebook.

So, I have some confidence I will be making different mistakes than the people on YouTube. However, being married to someone who actually cooks, we do have measuring cups, a digital scale and a funnel, and I actually know how to use them, unlike some of the YouTubers I saw.

My notes for YouTubers:

• Read the instructions, but not live on your video
• Measure, measure, measure
• Don’t split Brewsy packets
• Sugar amounts are important and based on the amount of sugar in your source juice
• Measure, measure, measure
• Rack the chilling wine (cider)
• If there are lumps in your wine, you didn’t rack it (don’t drink it)

I ordered a hydrometer so I can check specific gravity and actually calculate alcohol by volume (ABV), but it’s arriving tomorrow, so I think I will just make my first cider as the kit says, and see what happens. (Apparently, you need an initial specific gravity and a final specific gravity to calculate the ABV. I think you multiply ABV by two to get proof which is what we old folks care about.)

Here is what I like about Brewsy before I even get started – the support is amazing (others have mentioned this, as well.) I got a text when I ordered the kit and it said to save the number in case I had questions. They were serious. I texted this afternoon about trying to determine carbs, and got a response almost instantly. It was actually a conversation, and it wasn’t a chatbot because it was coherent.

So, updating this post as we progress. We should be fermenting through the weekend.

4 Feb 2021 9:45pm

Source Juice: 64 oz Kroger Apple Juice (100% juice) – well, I think they added Vitamin C. We will have cherry and cranberry juices arriving tomorrow, along with the hydrometer and extra bottles (for racking and making larger batches.)

I followed the Brewsy “semi-dry” recipe from the Sweetness Calculator.

• Removed 1 1/2 cups of juice from the bottle (it was tasty)
• Added 162 grams sugar (weight is probably more accurate than volume)
• Added one Brewsy packet

The cider-to-be is wrapped in a dish towel and resting in the bottom of the pantry. I’ll be checking for bubbles from the airlock.

Here’s the plan, according to Brewsy’s basic timeline:

Over the next few days, we will check for the rate of bubbles from the air lock. Hopefully, fermentation will be slowing down by Sunday or so – I’m a bit concerned about the temperature in the house, although my wife likes it about as warm as Brewsy fermentation requires. After that, it’s into the fridge for a couple of days to kill off the yeast. This will also be the time to rack the cider (siphon out the good stuff and get rid of the dead yeast – the tun) – a step many YouTubers have missed. I’m planning to rack the cider at least twice, so I don’t have to swirl it around to disperse the dead yeast before tasting.

Proposed Schedule (updated with actuals):

Date	Time	Step	Complete	Comments
Thu Feb 4	9:45pm	Fermentation Began	√	Here’s hoping for the best
Feb 4	11:30pm	Started my personal wine-making log	√	Should have done this sooner
Fri Feb 5	1:00am	Check for bubbles in the airlock	√	Thank you, insomnia
Feb 5	10:00am 10:40am	Check for bubbles – swirl the bottle	√	Bubbling
Feb 5	Afternoon 2:00pm	Check for bubbles – swirl the bottle	√	Bubbling
Feb 5	Evening 9:45pm	Check for bubbles – swirl the bottle	√	Bubbling
Sat Feb 6	Afternoon 11:50am	Check for bubbles – swirl the bottle	√	Bubbling
Feb 6	Evening 7:10pm	Check for bubbles – swirl the bottle	√	Bubbling
Sun Feb 7	Afternoon 4:10pm	Check for bubbles – swirl the bottle	√	Very slow bubbles and sludge on the bottom – may be getting close
Feb 7	4:45pm	Taste Test	√	We have firewater with an apple aftertaste. It’s not very sweet, and it is certainly not just apple juice any longer. I think I will cold crash it later tonight. I may have to figure out how to rack it first.
Feb 7	9:45pm	Earliest End for Fermentation	√	(Will probably need more time) Will cold crash, based on taste test.
Feb 7	10:40pm	Cold Crash	√	Decided to skip the racking before the cold crash. Will see how much sediment is produced in the fridge.
Mon Feb 8	Morning	Racking	Skipped	12 hours after cold crash
Feb 8	Evening	Racking	Skipped	12 hours after previous racking
Tue Feb 9	Evening 9:20pm	Racking	√	First racking – goodnight, sludge!
Feb 9	10:40pm	Earliest End for Cold Crash	Postponed	We have cider! (Hopefully) Will leave one more day after racking
Feb 9	10:10pm	Tasting	Postponed
Wed Feb 10	11:00am	Checking	√	Some sludge developing, will rack this evening
Feb 10	Evening	Racking	Skipped
Thu Feb 11	3:00pm	Racking	√	A lot less sludge than first time, but still some. Almost ready.