We racked (siphoned) our strawberry wine into a glass secondary fermenter with an air lock. Here are some pictures of that process:
Joe got this handy dandy nifty tube thinger that siphons the liquid into the jar with the use of gravity. Kind of like how Mom and I used to change the water in the fish tank when we had one.
At the top of the tube that Joe is holding there is a pump which starts the siphoning.
The finished fermenter. We just watch it now and in about 4 weeks it should be good and clear (literally clear) to rack again. That means we leave all the yeast poop at the bottom and keep the good stuff. Joe texted me today to tell me the strawberry wine looks weird, but I'm not sure whether I should believe him because he has been threatening to send me terrifying texts about the wine that would make me have a neurotic episode.
Because apparently, that's funny.
We also spooned some of the strawberry gunk off the top before racking it. It looks like this:
And I swear it tastes about 5,000 times better than it looks. Very boozey though. I only took a spoonful of the pink water liquid, and then decided I really couldn't get past the looks of it to go for a second dip.After we were done with the strawberry, we began making the Welch's grape wine. We used 12 containers of concentrate, another 8 lbs of sugar, and some water. Soooo much sugar. I think it might end up producing a dessert wine of some kind. Joe's report tells me it smells great at the moment.
Here's the concentrate thrown into the primary fermenter. Mmmm. Grapey. That lump in the center is one which didn't quite thaw out properly before I tossed it in. Meanwhile, in the background, Joe was busy boiling 4 L of water so we can dissolve the sugar necessary for yeast noms.
The murdered concentrate containers. Why is it always my job to murder the fruit? I do it while laughing hysterically, too, which can't be a good thing...(I'm mostly kidding).
The chemical mixture of tannin, preservative, yeast nutrient, etc. This stuff smells disgusting. Seriously. Pungent and nasty. You put the concentrate in the primary fermenter, put in the water and dissolved sugar, stir, and then pour in this stuff, and you get...:
Tadaaaaaaa. The finished product, ready to ferment for the next week or two. You're supposed to stir it every day, but Joe's just going to stir it every other day on the presumption that too much oxygen is a bad thing. When it stops fermenting, we can rack it like we did the strawberry wine, leaving some of the sediment behind...though to be honest, I don't think we'll get as much sediment with this one since we didn't use solid fruit.So there you have it. Two developing wines hanging out in Joe's house, just waiting to be drunk a year and a half from now. Or so. Next wine: Cinnamon!
Yes, cinnamon. I know that sounds bizarre, but we are too curious to resist.
