Pinot Noir Bottled

I bottled the Pinot Noir late last night. The Wine tastes very very good, though with some tart tannin which I assume will mellow out with age. The Pyment is AWESOME, and even my wife likes it, which is a good sign! I will age that one as well, but the fact that it tastes so good now is very encouraging.

I'll post a picture as soon as I can.

Strong fermentation

Both new batches are bubbling right along! They really picked up today, and my mead room has that great fermentation smell. I really like that smell for some reason, though I admit I like it much better when I'm making mead vs. beer.

I realized today that primary fermentation may go quicker than I had first thought, so I need to go out and get my oranges or tangerines pretty soon. I have my cinnamon and vanilla already.

Whew! That was fun...

I bottled the Grigio batches last night. Here's pic:

Pyment is on the left, Wine is on the right. There is BARELY a color difference between them, but as expected the Pyment is a bit darker in color.

I also started the group brews today. Both are going well, only I mis-weighed the gravity on the blended batch and didn't hit my target OG. I was going for 1.124, but hit 1.114. I was short some honey, but I don't have any to add, so I'll leave it as is. It'll be fine.

Busy time coming!

Tomorrow I'll be bottling the Grigio pyment and wine. Saturday I have two group brew meads starting at the same day! Look for a post tomorrow with pictures of the filled bottles, and a little more frazzled post Saturday once I emerge from the frenzy of mead making magic.

Bentonite

I've started a small Bentonite experiment to see if adding it to the primary help in clearing. You can see the beginning photo here:

Final Grigio Rack

Went out on a weekend trip Friday and forgot to post. I racked the Grigio wine and pyment into their "polishing" carboys Friday morning. Now I wait before bottling, which, following the kit instructions, I'll do in two weeks. The Noir instructions say four weeks, so even though the Noir went into polishing a week before the Grigio, I'll actually be bottling the Grigio first. Of course, that means I have some bottles I need to de-label.

Here's a picture of the Alfalfa mead in a Redstone reserve bottle. This is a reference bottle; the rest is bottled in blue cobalt swing tops (also from Redstone). Click on the thumbnail to see a bigger version.

The Joy of Sparkolloid

I bottled the flavoring experiments and the Alfalfa Varietal this weekend. With the exception of the Blueberry, I used Sparkolloid to clarify these batches. Mostly it went well. Two batches, though, gave me trouble. The worst was the Vanilla. Half-way through the rack the little 1 gallon carboy slipped. While it only slipped a little, it was enough to bump all the precipitate back into suspension. Rather than wait for it to settle again (another month or more), in my anger I just bottled it as is. I figured it was just a one gallon test batch and was meant to test the flavor, not be entered in a contest or anything. I'll settle in the bottle and I'll taste it in a few months. One of the others (I forget which, as I did the vanilla first, and spent the rest of the evening pretty upset) had a very little bit of stuff get into the bottling bucket, but not enough to be a big problem.

The full batch of Alfalfa Varietal went much smoother, thanks in large part to it being a full batch and therefore easier to get the bulk of it out without disturbing the fine Sparkolloid matter at the bottom of the carboy. I bottled this batch in the cobalt blue swing top bottles I got from Redstone.

So now I only have the Pinot wines and pyments in carboys. They are coming along, although the Grigio pyment isn't clearing as well as I'd hoped, even though I added more isinglass. Oh well. Redstone doesn't clarify their pyments (I asked and observed what comes out of the bottle) so I may let it go. Then again, I may use some Sparkolloid on it too.