Bottled the Pinot Blanc

The time has finally come to bottle the Pinot Blanc. Before the bottling had to stop over at the Home Brew store to pick up some bottles and the floor corker. i'll never use the hand corker again, even though it can cork a little bit better than the floor one, the floor one is a million times faster. Plus its free to rent the floor corker from the Home Brew store.

Had an assembling line going to clean the bottles, i filled a tub in the sink with water and the cleaning solution and then rinsed all the bottles and brent dried them. Before bottling, we racked the wine into a 3 gallon carboy again to add the blueberry flavoring. The bottle the flavoring came in says you just need to pour a couple ounces into 3 gallons of wine to flavor it but i don't think that's enough to change the flavor...i guess i'll find out in a couple months.Here is brent showing off the clean bottles...what a dork.
We actually ran out of bottles. We bought 24 today thinking there were some empty bottles around the house somewhere but i could only find four when we need maybe one or two more than that. Oh well, no big deal...i guess 28 bottles will do. i had a sample of the wine, it wasn't horrible but should definitely sit in the bottles for a good two to three months.

Here is a blurry picture of brent corking the last green bottle....

Clearing the Pino

Time for the fun chemicals to be added to the Pino Blanc. The specific gravity was 0.993. Probably will only get 11% alcohol with this batch. While mixing the chemicals and junx there was a lot of CO2 coming off, a lot more than the other batches. But i'm not bottling anytime soon so i won't have to worry about making champagne or explosive bottles of wine.

This one kid i know was bottling beer with his dad. They ran out of beer bottles so they decided to use Appletise (best apple soda ever) bottles. When he was putting the bottles in the fridge, the Appletise bottle exploded and a shard of glass went through his lip and chipped his tooth. Now that sounds horrible, but it was also two days before the Dive Trip to the Red Sea so he missed that...lemon.

Anyway, had manthan over to help out with the mixing. We're heading to Stowe, VT today. Should be a fun 8 hour bus ride...at least this time i'll be able to drink on the bus, woot!

Pinot Blanc'n It Up

Five days in the primary fermenter and time to rack into the carboy. The specific gravity this time was 1.004. Pretty good to see, plus the thing just reeked of yeast and CO2 and whatever else is produced kicking my nostrils in the nuts.

Woot, just 26 days until bottling now! Ugh that seems like a long time. i'll probably have to buy another wine rack if another batch is done.

i'm waiting for the day i really half-ass the cleaning and some bacteria just ruins my wine and turns it into vinegar. Thankfully that hasn't happened yet. i really do hate cleaning everything but looks like i've been doing a good job so far. Well, i guess i'll just have to taste the wine to really know.

Pinot Blanc!

Had another box of juice lying around and decided to start its brewing process. This time the grape is Pinot Blanc. Not sure where these grapes are from, i'm too lazy to look but it will probably be a dry white wine.

The previous grape juice boxes were 3 gallons that produced 6 gallons of wine. But this box is only 2 gallons but says it still produces 6 gallons of wine. Must be really concentrated stuff.

Brent was over again to help out. He was dressed pretty fancy. Had his shirt tucked in too! Which has been unseen for years.
This batch went really fast in setting up since there were only 2 gallons to poor in the primary fermenter and there were no elder flowers or oak chips to add to the wine. Plus i'm pretty much a wine making pro now which can just be seen my my sweet stirring abilities. i'm like a human blender. i'm pretty much a big deal when it comes to stirring, not anyone can pick up a spoon and make a vortex of juice in seconds.
Brent spent most of his time on his lame HP laptop. Did some stuff for work since he got out early because of the ridiculous freezing rain we've been getting. i guess he didn't really do anything, oh wait...i asked him to get the air lock for the primary filter but he dropped one of the pieces and spent 5 minutes looking for it in the kitchen.
Evenly sprinkled the yeast on top and wait. Ugh, posting about all these wines have gotten pretty boring...i need to spice them up a bit. Maybe implement a German light show while brewing. Get some blow your socks off wine making like you never seen before. That would do it, with some glow sticks and smoke machines. Throw in some lasers and strobes...possibilities are endless.