Bottled the Merlot

i forget what day it was, but one of these past days brent came over to help bottle the Merlot. i could have done it by myself but i was too lazy to drive to the brew store to rent the corker and all i had to work with was that lame hand one that takes at least two people to operate.

Being bored one day i decided to read the directions that came with the siphon. Bottling was frustrating because whenever it was time to remove the siphon from a full bottle and start filling another one....i would always spill a little wine. In the wine kit there is this plastic tube with a stopper on it that i have no idea what its purpose was...After reading the instructions, read that it was to keep spilling between bottles to a minimum. )@#$&)@(*#&$)(#$&)This plastic tube made the bottling so much easier, i didn't even spill a single drop of wine this time.
Since i always clean the bottles, i decided to make brent do it while i dried them. i really just dried a couple and let the others 'air dry'. We filled up about 28 or 29 bottles...we had a good amount of wine left in the carboy but it wasn't enough to fill a whole bottle, plus we probably would have gotten a bunch of sediment if we did. We then decided to drink it, even though we knew it would taste horrible...which it did. We each got a glass and we couldn't even finish half of it. It was disgusting. We made the most ridiculous faces whenever we took a sip...but maybe it'll taste better in a few months.

Clearing the Merlot

First thing to do was to take the specific gravity. The hydrometer read 0.991. i should have taken another reading the day before or following day to see if the wine is actually done producing alcohol, but the last reading was 0.992 10 days ago so i'm just going to guess the yeast has killed itself off from the alcohol produced.
After taking a reading i then dissolved the potassium junx in a half cup of water and then poured it into the carboy as i have done several times before...

But now for something new...The Mix-Stir!!
And BAM!

i started to freak out at first because i couldn't fit the degasser into the carboy, but all i had to do was pinch the two wings a little bit and it slid in with no problem. i then pulled the trigger on the drill and all my possible expectations and dreams came true...sort of. Would have been cool if i made my own "Mix-Stir" but i'll just settle for this. Now 2 weeks for clearing and then time for bottling!

Racked The Merlot

Six days have passed since i started the primary fermentation of the Merlot and was time to rack it into the carboy. No one was around today so i had to do everything myself but it wasn't that big of a deal. Probably could have racked the wine the day before but i got home late and i was too tired to do anything other than sleep.

First thing i did was take a specific gravity reading. It was 0.992, which is kind of low and probably won't get any lower as the yeast has probably killed itself off from all the alcohol it has produced. Not sure if its a big deal how fast the yeast does its thing, i guess i'll find out in 4 months when its ready to drink.


i can't stand cleaning everything, i wish i could just befriend someone that just likes to clean and invite them over when i need the wine junx cleaned. Alas, i haven't found anyone yet...Oh well, now just another 11 days until the clearing chemicals are put in. Woot.

The Merlot

Since the Shiraz that i brewed is ready to drink it won't be long until we give away those bottle or consume so might as well start another batch of red to add to the 'wine cellar'. This time we decided to do something boring and make a batch of Merlot.

Brent messaged me and told me he would be over so i would have some help making the junx. Which is always a good thing...its kind of boring if you do everything by yourself. Plus it lets me take these sweet action wine making shots.

Here brent is rinsing the juice bag with some water to get as much juice into the primary fermenter as possible.

Topping up the bucket to the fill line...Here brent is trying to be funny and look like he's taking a sip of the juice. But when he up the spoon down some juice actually splashed in his mouth and he then had a sour look on his face...jokes on him.Here he have just added the yeast and put the bucket in the warmest room in the house to help the yeast do its thing.The specific gravity of this batch was 1.080. i found a website that will convert your first and final SG reading to the alcohol by volume. Of course i have no idea how accurate it is. They site gave me totally different values than the ones that i calculated. Whatever, as long as i get a buzz with my meal.

i miss calculated the number of days that the wine will be fermenting and turns out i won't be around to further the wine process when it needs to so it'll ferment for an extra week before i come back. Oh well, the reds have been fermenting slowing anyway, might do it a little good.

After the wine was all done and i cleaned a few things brent said he was going to bounce. What?? You can't just wine and dash in this house. We decided to watch a movie. i was even kind enough to nuke brent some hot dogs. The movie of choice was Grindhouse Death Proof. It was a pretty ridiculous movie. Of course with Quentin Tarantino being the directore there were several references to Pulp Fiction. Brent can't be away from a computer for more than 5 minutes so during the whole movie he was typing away on his eeepc. Its no power house pc but for the price and its size its a good second laptop to carry around. Overall Death Proof was a good movie. Now i'll have to watch Planet Terror just so i can say i watched Grindhouse.