Holy Cauliflower

I was recently in Wegmans and I saw some massive heads of cauliflower in their locally grown section. I was satisfied with my ~1.0 lb per plant yield, but these cauliflower put mine to shame. I measured one of them and it was around 4 lbs! I don't even know what somebody would do with 4lbs of cauliflower. Either have a cauliflower party or freeze it, I guess.

South Wedge Winery 2011 Apple Wine Review

It is cloudy, but quite a bit lighter in color than the cider that the initial cider.

The aroma isn't terribly enticing as it smells somewhat yeasty. There is only a mild apple smell. It has remarkably little flavor. Some fruit and apple flavor, but way less than I expected. Its actually kind of remarkable how little apple flavor there is. There isn't too much yeasty flavor, though its hard to get away from it since the smell is so strong. The wine benefits tremendously from an open-air rest as much of the yeasty aroma/flavor disappears. The sugar is almost entirely gone, and without the sweetness to mask it, there is a surprising amount of acidity.

I'd have to give this a 4 out of 10. Its certainly consumable, but not exactly good. I would probably only buy it if it was in the bargain bin.

There are a couple things wrong with the wine. The first is the yeastiness. I have no doubt that if allowed it to go through a secondary fermentation and fully settle and clarify, the yeastiness would be gone. In fact, it seemed to improve significantly between the day after fermentation stopped (my first taste) and 4 days later (when I'm writing this review). The yeastiness is probably going to be a fundamental problem with the quick and dirty ferment it in the jug method. The second thing that is wrong is the lack of apple flavor. Its kind of amazing how little it tastes like apple anymore. I think if I had used a yeast that got impaired at lower alcohol levels, it would have ended with some more apple flavor and a little bit of sweetness to balance the acidity. Just a hint of sugar, though. I still maintain that all commercial hard ciders I've drank have been too sweet.

The 2011 Harvest Summary

The 2011 growing season is clearly winding down at this point. There are only a few things left in the garden now including Kale, Pak Choi, Lettuce, and Carrots. Those veggies are still alive, but aren't really growing anymore. I've hacked up all the rest of the vegetation and put it in a new compost pile for the winter. The new pile consists of the recently cut up garden vegatation, the contents of the compost can from throughout the spring/summer/fall, the previous compost pile contents (stuff that was in the compost can but wasn't fully rotted in the spring), and leaves from my front yard on top. You can see that pile on the left side of the picture below.

With the majority of the harvest complete, I've "published" the 2011 harvest spreadsheet. It shows how much of each vegetable we produced here at the homestead and its approximate value. If you're too lazy to look, there was about 120 pounds of produce harvested, with an approximate market value of $300. That is a similar haul to 2010, which is surprising considering that the growing season (especially early) wasn't all that great. I'm consistently impressed with how much produce you can get from a pretty small area. The actual square footage of planted beds in the garden (not including paths) is probably around 160 square feet. Thats an average of 3/4 lb per square foot!

In terms of which crops did well, the best performers were:

• Peppers (all varieties)
• Kennebec Potatoes
• Pole beans, especially the Blue Lake variety
• Kale
• Garlic

On the other end of the spectrum, the disappointments were:

• Corn
• Melon
• Red Norland Potatoes
• Rapini
• Brussels Sprouts (again)

Introducing the 2011 South Wedge Winery Apple Wine

For some reason, the naming of apple-based beverages is unnecesarily confusing. This led to an awkward conversation between myself and a couple people at a local apple orchard. While trying a sample of their fresh apple cider, the following conversation happend (its very likely that this is not entirely accurate, but thats how I remember it):

Guy at the Cider counter hands me a little cup and I sip from it.
Me: Not bad. Do you guys sell just plain apple juice here?
Guy behind counter looks at me with a befuddled look.
Lady who was arranging produce nearby: I think you can probably get that from Wegmans
Me: I'm just looking for some fresh apple juice that I can use to make hard cider. You don't sell that here?
Guy: This cider will work for that.
Me: But doesn't the cider have spices in it?
Guy: No no. Its just apples pressed this morning and UV pasturized.
Lady: Mulled cider has spices in it.
Jaime: The hot cider is usually spiced, but I don't think cold cider is.
Me: So this cider is nothing but apples? No sugar or anything added?
Guy: Its just apples pressed this morning and pasturized with UV light. Nothing added. Most apple juice is heat pasturized so that is why it looks different from cider. Ours is UV pasturized so it keeps the extra flavor.
Me: Ok, thank you.
I purchase two gallons and meekly retreat away, ashamed of my lack of cider knowledge.

So after a little internet research, I have learned the following about apple beverages:
Apple Cider: Fresh pressed apples, only coarsely filtered, usually heat pasturized for contamination control
Apple Juice: Cider that has been very well filtered and pasturized. Hot Cider: Apple cider that has mulling spices added and then is heated.
Hard Cider: Apple juice or apple cider that has been intentionally fermented
Apple Brandy: Distilled hard cider
Apple Jack: Same thing as apple brandy, though, interestingly, it used to be distilled by fractional freezing and removing the ice crystals, which would make it technically not a brandy
Apple Schnapps: A neutral-flavored malt-based spirit flavored with apple juice or apple flavoring and usually has extra sugar added.
Apple Wine: Nothing is really called apple wine.....until now.

Maybe I'm the only one who is confused by all this, but it seems like a terrible naming scheme. After all, apple cider and apple juice are pretty much the same thing, and hard cider is really just apple wine. Ugh. Well, I'm going to call the stuff I'm making apple wine.

I currently have two different kinds of yeast. One is bread yeast, and I'm pretty sure that would make some pretty gross flavors in the wine, so I'm not going to use that. The other is a wine yeast (actually a champagne yeast) capable of fermenting to 14+% alcohol. Most commercial hard cider either uses a beer yeast which typically can't ferment past about 6% or (more likely) use a stronger yeast but shock it with a preservative to halt fermentation at the desired alcohol percentage. Most commercial hard ciders are also way sweeter than I'd like. The best ones I've had were considered very dry (less residual sugar), so I think the champagne yeast should work out well. It should convert nearly all of the sugar into alcohol.

I expected that my apple wine might be able to reach 7-8% alcohol, but to my surprise, the hydrometer reading (measuring the approximate sugar content) showed a potential alcohol content of 12%. Well, this could be some interesting wine!

I did add two things besides yeast. I added a 1/2 tsp of "yeast nutrient" which was described to me as vitamins for the yeast since they use up a lot of the stuff that they need in the grape/apple juice. Also, I added about 15 drops of a solution of pectic enzyme. Its often used to help break down fruit mashes and release more juice/flavor. It should also help to break down any pectin in the juice and help to clarify it. I've had the pectic enzyme laying around for the last couple years because I was at a wine making store and figured that I might want to make some fruit wine at some point in the future.

Rather than go through the whole ordeal of sanitizing a bunch of fermentation equipment, I decided to try a less formal fermentation process that I saw online a while ago. I fermented it in the one-gallon plastic jug that it came in. To make an airlock, I used a balloon stretched over the top. I put a pin-hole in the balloon, and as the fermentation produces CO2, the balloon stretches just enough to let the CO2 out of the pin-hole, but doesn't let any oxygen in. Seems like a pretty good quick-and-dirty type approach. Here is what it looks like just after putting the balloon on.


Here is what it looks like after about 12 hours. Fermentation is already moving along pretty good at this point. The airlock seemed to work pretty well.

The Root Cellar

A couple times I've mentioned my "root cellar". The root cellar is just an area of the basement where I store vegetables that don't need to be refrigerated. Like a real root cellar, its cool but not cold, moderately humid, and relatively dark. I've had mixed results with storage down there. Onions and garlic have worked pretty well. Carrots not so much. Some of last year's spaghetti squash (harvested in fall of 2010) rotted within a month, but there is still a 5lb specimen that looks perfectly fine. Some potatoes have been fine, while others went soft or rotted.

My recent harvest of 40+ pound of potatoes got washed, then put in a somewhat breathable satchel and put on the floor in the root cellar. A couple weeks after putting them there, I went to grab a bunch to take to some friends, and I found that quite a few of them were rotten. Like smelly juices soaking through the bottom of the bag and making a puddle rotten. Some of the potatoes had holes and blemishes in them when I harvested them, so I suspect that they were either already rotting inside or the water from washing them provided enough moisture to allow bacteria or fungus to thrive. I definitely should have at least let the potatoes dry out thoroughly before putting them in the bag and leaving them in the basement.

Between the potatoes that rotted, the ones that I gave away, and the ones that we've eaten, I'm probably down to about 15+lbs. In the picture below, you can see a three-tier wire rack that I'm using for storage. It contains the loose produce and still allows good ventilation. The top level is onions and garlic and the lower two levels are the remaining potatoes. In the bottom right you can also see the 13+ month old spaghetti squash.

2010 South Wedge Winery Traminette Review

Its been quite a while since I've posted about our 2010 Traminette. There are a few reasons for that. Lack of time and laziness played a part, but a big part of it was also due to me avoiding a review of the wine. I tasted it during each stage of production from raw juice to a few weeks after bottling, and I wasn't too impressed with the last tasting I did. I'm hoping that letting it rest for a few months improved it.

Here is what it looks like. Good color. The aroma has a nice fruity and floral scent(kind of like jasmine), but there is also a bit of a chemical scent. Not overwhelming, but its there.

The first flavor is definately fruity and floral again. Apricot and canned peaches, I would say. Also a bit of honey. I think the flavor of the grape comes through pretty well. A larger sip or several sips in succession produces somewhat of a bitter chemically flavor. Its got a moderate amount of sugar, and that is balanced nicely by the moderate acidity.

Overall, I'd have to give this a 5 out of 10. I don't think its particularly good, but I'd buy it if it was cheap...like under $8.

Knowing what I do about the background of this wine, I have a couple theories as to why it didn't turn out quite as well as I would have liked. As for the chemical flavor, I suspect that might be caused by potasium metabisulphite(heretofore called sulfite). That is the main chemical that is used to prevent bacterial contamination. Its also the stuff that people talk about in cheap wine that gives some people headaches. The vineyard that I bought the wine from sells the grape juice with an initial dose of the sulfite to kill of bacteria that were hanging out on the grapes. The instructions I followed this time said to add a dose of sulfite after each major step in the process, so I added it as directed after primary fermentation and then again after secondary fermentation, and lastly between cold stabilization and bottling. That means it got dosed 4 times. Afterwards, I realized that in the past, I've only dosed the sulfite once before bottling (in addition to the initial sulfite that the vineyard put in). I've read that if the wine has too much sulfite in it, you can taste a chemically flavor.

The other problem that this wine has is the inherent flavor in the grape. The grape's flavor is not really bad, but its not really good, either. It almost tastes more like mead than wine. Traminette is a hybrid of Gewurtztraminer and a more cold-hardy grape that produces more heavily in the finger lakes region. I chose this juice for two reasons. One is that I really like Gewurtraminers, and especially Gewurtraminers from the finger lakes. The other reason was that the Traminette was cheap. Gewurtraminer juice is over $20 per gallon, while the Traminette was $10 per gallon. Unfortunately, you don't have a chance to taste the juices before you buy them, you have to reserve the juice ahead of time. A limo driver for a wine tour I was on once told me that the more expensive juice is worth the money because you can't make good wine without good juice. While I wasn't really confident enough in my winemaking skills to spend $120 on 6 gallons of juice vs. the $60 for the Traminette, I think the next time I make wine, I'll go for the good juice....and also not put as much sulphite in it.