Blueberries are on sale at the moment. I just picked up 10Lb for under 20 bucks...so that means it's wine time. Last blueberry wine I made was delicious! So...once again, I'll make another batch. I may add 10Lb berries instead of 8 Lb since I have them and see what flavour it imparts as they aren't quite as flavourful as last year......
My recipe was (for 3 gallons):
8Lb (10??) blueberries washed and cleaned and skooshed up.
5 Lb (11 1/4 c) sugar + 10L water (boiled 2 minutes) and pour over the fruit
Stir in:
1 1/2 t pectic enzyme
1 1/2 t yeast nutrient
1 can welches grape juice concentrate (~1.2 cups)
2 t acid blend
3 crushed campden tablets.
Bleaching the pail as we speak...
I'll get it all going sans yeast tonight and tomorrow ~ 24h later, I'll take the S.G. and then pitch the EC-1118 yeast and let her bubble away until it gets down to racking S.G. and tuck it away into the 3 gallon carboy to it sit until it clears.
I also have schemes for rhubarb mead...once this wine is in the carboy I'll be on that as well. A friend's girl who is the mead goddess has given me her rhubarb mead recipe and I have enough to try it. I also have a scheme for some cider from the 2 gallons of apple juice I have...but need to figure out my carboy situations. I may need another primary fermentor, or a few smaller fermentors for the few 1 gallon batches of wine I want to try out (peach and maybe pear too) and I want to get some beer brewing again too. Fact is I want some delicious homemade beer for my birthday end of October and since it's berry season am thinking another batch of the strawberry wheat beer I made previously would be a great idea...Just need 5 Lb of strawberries and a beer kit...which I think I can get at the berry barn and brew store this weekend.
Oh yeah.
Brewing up some science...yo!
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Monday, July 29, 2013
garden goodness
What started off as a very lame weekend ended up a great one, with us visiting Dad at the lake, going fishing, relaxing and just drinking coffee and visiting with him, playing around with the wood lathe he bought recently. And then we stopped for supper and a visit with my in-laws on the way home from the lake too. As a huge bonus, after supper I got to pick raspberries in their garden - they have 2 HUGE hedgerows of raspberries and I came home with all kinds of garden fresh goodies in the end - tonnes of rhubarb, about 18 pints of fresh raspberries (they get that much every 3-4 days for all august, can you imagine??), some fresh peas and baby potatoes, and even some jams, pickles and sausage she had made earlier...I felt guilty at how much I came home with, but they insisted. They were happy to have me come and pick and she even picked with me so I could have a LOT to take home for freezing for jams and such...cuz I have a freezer now. He heh. Bazinga!
I plan to make some small batches of rhubarb and raspberry mead, as well as some jams. Soon there will be much a brewing and canning at Casa Geo. Oh yes....This has given me the itch to go berry picking next weekend too...it's time for the local u-pick farms to have lots of saskatoon berries and strawberries to pick, so I can get another bounty for the freezer and future wine cellar then too. Bwahaha! I want to try a bunch of small experimental types of wines so I know what is good to make bigger batches of next year...
This sort of thing makes me crave a garden. Reminds me of gardening with my mum and grandma and there is NOTHING like garden fresh veg. Next year I will have raised beds in my front yard for planting and I can't wait....my own carrots, beets, peas, lettuce and tomatoes? Yeah!!!
Got me so pumped that this morning I decided it was back to basics with my life again. We are done holidays until at least mid-september and I honestly have done not much at all this July exercise wise and so now, thanks to the help of the plyo box I made with my dad, it's back on.
Groovy.
I plan to make some small batches of rhubarb and raspberry mead, as well as some jams. Soon there will be much a brewing and canning at Casa Geo. Oh yes....This has given me the itch to go berry picking next weekend too...it's time for the local u-pick farms to have lots of saskatoon berries and strawberries to pick, so I can get another bounty for the freezer and future wine cellar then too. Bwahaha! I want to try a bunch of small experimental types of wines so I know what is good to make bigger batches of next year...
This sort of thing makes me crave a garden. Reminds me of gardening with my mum and grandma and there is NOTHING like garden fresh veg. Next year I will have raised beds in my front yard for planting and I can't wait....my own carrots, beets, peas, lettuce and tomatoes? Yeah!!!
Got me so pumped that this morning I decided it was back to basics with my life again. We are done holidays until at least mid-september and I honestly have done not much at all this July exercise wise and so now, thanks to the help of the plyo box I made with my dad, it's back on.
Groovy.
Thursday, July 18, 2013
Nice afterthought
Jus got a letter from the Dean saying my thesis was one of the ones that won an Thesis Excellence Distinction award last year.
*hooray*
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