Wine Making...anyone?

a reply to: skunkape23

Now that sounds really good!!

I actually love mead, and I understand the 'buttery' taste you're talking about exactly, many honeys have that.

Boy, I'd really like to try your mead!!

This friend of mine I referred to earlier wound up joining this thing called a "mead bar". It was really more of a club than anything else, but they had a building which looked like a bar inside (it was a bar actually) except everyone brought their own different strains of mead in to share with each other. It was really a pretty cool atmosphere! He got into making mead too, but always said he wasn't very good at it (and this guy was a true brew-meister when it came to beer). I went there once, but it was on some specialty night where all these mead makers brought in these meads which were flavored with other stuff (berries, citrus, etc.). There was only one guy there who had just straight up mead, and I only got just a little taste. It seemed really good, but the other stuff was really, really, sweet. My buddy said it wasn't really a good night to get the taste for mead itself. Unfortunately, I never made it back there. (It was kind of a closed deal, members only, due to liquor laws and the like).

A lot of the guys who were in this club were also really into the whole Renaissance thing. They'd show up in the traditional dress, talk in the period tongues and had all the traditional flasks and mini-kegs (whatever you call them). It was kind of fun (at first), but I wasn't really into that...I just wanted to try the mead!! (Plus, it was kinda loud; I guess everyone yelled in those days! That, or they were all deaf back then. Kinda felt like a pirate convention. LOL!) Lots of "yee's", "yeah's", "My Lord's" and "Blessed upon thee's".

"Blessed upon thee, thine mead hast given yours truly great bounty! I wish you to partake in thine mead as it would give me great pleasure and most honor, my Lordship!"

I found myself always waiting for an "ARRRRRRGH" in there somewhere, but I guess it was the wrong genre. Anyway, I digress.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

You should have been at my brother's wedding reception.
I brought 15 gallons to the party.
I should have put some warning labels on the jugs.
There were some heavily inebriated people by the end of the night.
I accidentally busted a carboy in the driveway.
There was an entire swarm of drunk bees bumping into everything.

I made a banana wine once, unfortunately, when I opened the first bottle I ended up with banana wine smelling stuff all over the place. It was explosive. Tasted amazing though !

Just avoid pruno... lol.

I have a still that has not been used in years too, making spirits is another messy process when you use 24 hour turbo yeast. needed to attach a hose to the air lock into a bucket of water to stop it becoming some sort of yeasty monster.

Ahh brewing is fun though, I did try mead once. It just never took off, and a proper grape wine, I've never tried. I just eat the grapes these days, and wait..

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

I guess it would depend on the wine being brewed, I imagine some fruit could have starch and sugar the yeasties might struggle to eat.

I've always finished fermentation, as in allowed all the sugar to be eaten. So I've never really detected a sweetness unless I've added to it, a finished brew will always taste "dry" if fermentation is complete. This is why it's advisable to water down or back-sweeten your wine.

I'm guessing some flavours naturally come out sweet? A strawberry wine I brewed once was kinda "sweet" but it was definitely sugar-less, but that was a kit too so maybe it had sweeteners.

It may have been my palate.

And for some odd reason I have this same kind of memory for some German white wines. It's weird, I know.

I don't drink white wine much but I too remember a couple of sweet German wines... Tbh I haven't tasted a proper dry white for years, everything seems sweetened or flavoured these days.

a reply to: paraphi

Thanks for the info

A prepper I know showed me how to make a natural tap with wood once... I'll have to ask him about it again but I'm sure it was done by cutting a tiny slit at a 45° angle upwards and inserting a freshly cut peg.

I'll look up tapping from branches though, I figure if I can tap successfully without damaging anything then this could become an annual thing.

Again thanks for the info, I've only tried birch sap once... Beautiful stuff.