Home beer brewing and wine making with the Oakes family

This blog is about home brewing beer and wines. The Oakes family has been brewing beer and wine at home for a couple of decades now, and is happy to share our experiences with the rest of the world. Home Brew it, you can do it!

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Another Batch of Green Apple Riesling

Well I know it has been a while, but its to hot to brew beer in the summer, at least outdoors it is. That and the addition of a new family member, my daughter, who had been living with her mom all these years, has decided to live with us for a while.

Mead Update;

Well the Mead is still in the final clearing stages, etc, and hopefully will be clearing soon. But as Mead goes, it does take a while to clear and bottle, sometimes up to 12 months.

Now on with the latest batch, Green Apple Riesling;

I have purchased another of Island Mists Green Apple Riesling wines, because it was so wonderful. It was hard to keep in the house let alone in a glass.

Again following the instructions, and ignoring the instruction to make 6 US gal. I made the batch at 5 US Gals. It went through the primary fermentation, and I let it stand for almost 3 weeks, unlike the 7-10 days the instructions call for. It did not hurt the wine much and it had started clearing nicely by itself. I racked the wine into a 6 gal carboy, this way I did not have to remove any wine to get the f-pack (green apple syrup) to fit in the carboy. I did have a bit of head space at the top so I topped up with water, but no where near a gallon. I could have topped up with a nice German Riesling like I did last time, but felt it was not necessary this time, and it didn't dilute the flavor very much, or not enough I could taste it.

After adding the F-pack, and the clearing agent, Insoglass, and the sulfites, and topping up with some water, I let put the carboy up to finish clearing. Wow, in one day the wine was clear, and I am guessing this was because it had already started settling out while waiting for the first racking.

I am going to let this sit for several more weeks before bottling so check back in a few weeks.

Peace and Happy brewing