HOMESTEADING: DOING IT YOURSELF

I made wine! It's part of the homesteading lifestyle. Of course, Ron doesn't drink. At all. And I can keep one fifth of wine for a year or two before throwing the remainder out. But we have so many wild blueberry bushes and wild grapes growing in the area that I thought I would give wine-making a try. What fun!

I started with blueberries several weeks ago. Yesterday I bottled my first batch. Here it is. I bought the
supplies, the bottles, and the gold cap
seals at a brewers' supply shop in Pensacola.
Friends gave me their empties.
I made the labels myself. This one
is a little crooked. But it says
Yvonne's Homemade Blueberry Wine 2008.

One gallon of wine makes 5 bottles (5 fifths, duh) of wine.

I have cherry wine fermenting as I write. In about 3 months, I'll bottle that.

L@@k at the cherry wine fermenting! It is now in
the carboy, the secondary
fermenter. See the "must" in the bottom!
That is dead yeast cells and cherry pulp.
I will rack it again in about 4 weeks.
I'll do this several times until the yeast
is no longer active. Right now the bottle is
bubbling like crazy. That's CO2, a by-product of
fermentation. The CO2 escapes into the airlock on
top which makes a plopping sound when the air escapes
into the liquid. When all the movement stops, I will
have cherry wine! Then I'll bottle it.

The wine will make great gifts! At least for the friends who gave me their empties :-)

More later....

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