Mead and Wine

Sunday was racking day. I hadn't done much with our wines and meads since February. They've been aging in a pantry since then. It was definitely time to rack them, but supposedly mead is more forgiving than wine, so I was hoping my negligence didn't impact anything.

Orange Clove Mead: I started this mead in Jan 2011. The recipe came from Will Kalif's web site The Joy of Mead. He has a recipe link on the main page. I ordered his books back in January and were also pleased with them. They are worth purchasing if you are new at making mead. Anyway, this mead really got neglected since January, I racked it once after the initial transfer to the carboy. So for the most part it's just been aging in the pantry. We tasted it Sunday and it was spectacular!! Not too sweet and it did not have that overpowering alcohol taste you get with some young wines. It was a pretty golden honey color, more orange than yellow. Think honey diluted with water.

Orange Blossom Mead: This mead was started in August of 2010 after we attended a Mead Day Celebration sponsored by Alternative Beverage in Charlotte, NC. The Mead Day this year is scheduled for August 6th. We made this Mead with our friends Janet and Mike. Mike's been making wine for years and he turned us on to it last year. So we came home from Charlotte that day with 12 pounds of Orange Blossom Honey from Florida, mixed it up in the kitchen and divided it between the two of us. Janet and Mike also added pears to part of their portion, so I'm excited to see how their's turns out. Our's tastes really good, sweeter than the orange mead, so this will probably not be my favorite mead. I like them sweet, but not too much, this one is at the edge of being too much. This one cleared to a very pale yellowish color, like a chardonney. But, it's not completely cleared. I've been watching it for months trying to decide if I should intervene. I figured you can't learn by not trying so I racked it and added some Sparkolloid, a clearing agent. Will see what it looks like in a week, and no matter what will bottle it so it can rest for a few weeks before Mead Day!! If you live near Charlotte and are interested in Mead and honey bees, then plan to attend.


By the way, I used White Labs WLP720 Sweet Mead/Wine Yeast in both meads and Wyeast Labs Large Smack Pack. #4184 Sweet Mead in the blackberry wine. I'm very pleased with both, other than the orange blossom mead which is a little too sweet, the other two are at "my" perfect level of sweetness. It's funny how that works. I've tasted all of these wines/meads along the way and thought they weren't sweet at all. But, now that they are aging and finishing, the sweetness is coming out.

Blackberry Wine: This wine also got neglected. I started it in January 2011, racked it in February with my son. It was sort of a diaster, later that night I saw red stuff under the pantry door. We had moved two wine cooler into the pantry that same day and Jeff had plugged them in. I guess the heat and agitation from racking got the yeast going. I had a near explosion in the pantry and barely got the bung off (over the kitchen sink) before the whole thing blew. Had blacberry wine going everywhere. Can't remember exactly what I did, other than unplugging the wine coolers. We had started out with a gallon jug and a 1/2 gallon, when I got finished cleaning everything up and combining them, I was left with a gallon. In July, I wish I hadn't lost that 1/2 gallon. When I opened the carboy to rack, the whole kitchen smelled like blackberries. The wine still tastes young, a little alcoholly, but there is a lingering taste of blackberries on your tongue after drinking it and it is mildly sweet.

Strawberry wines: We had two strawberry wines (actually the first wines we made last years using two different recipes) we've been fooling with them and I racked them every month, multiple times according to stuff I read about wine making. Added stabilizers and sweetners at different points. Racking them as soon as I got a layer of yeast on the bottom of the carboy. Well these taste like crap and after waiting and waiting for them to develop (they are over a year old now) we finally decided to throw them out, so I can use my carboys to make something else.

What did I learn in all this: Leave them alone, wines and meads will do what they are supposed to do "age", just leave them alone.

French Style Goat Cheese and Yogurt

The yogurt, didn't yogurt. Will have to try that one again. But, the cheese was wonderful. I drained it in a bag for 10 hours and then put in the fridge. It turned out just like I wanted it to. Stiffer than cream cheese and it forms nice moist crumbles. Had it on toast with jelly on top for breakfast. Then Jeff and I had it on a salad at dinner last night. The flavor is very mild, no acid or sour taste. Next time I make it, I'm going to take half of it and not drain it as long to see what that's like. From what I've read, can't remember the source, in France this type of cheese is put in a soft goat cheese mold, looks like a 6 ounce tumbler with holes in it. The cheese is served up, still slightly warm, and probably drained for about 1/2 the time I drained mine. They serve it with croissants in the mornings.

I found another recipe for a modified mozzarella on the internet. You make the cheese like you would make mozzarella, but stop and drain it, before the last step in the normal recipes (heating and stretching). Looked good in the pictures.

Fourth of July 2011

We got up at 5:40 AM and started the coffee. Checked e-mail, played a game of solitaire and were in the barn by a little after six. Jeff took care of the equines, while I took care of the baby goats and milked Edna. Got everyone situated and went in the house, got the milk on ice and cleaned/sanitized everything for later tonight. Jeff hauled some brush down to the burn pile. Met him by the truck at 07:00 and we headed to town. He dropped me off at Wal-mart so I could pick up some stuff we needed for dinner (we thawed out some baby back ribs yesterday and I needed some spices to make a new batch of my "rib rub"). He headed to Lowe's to get something, to the gas station to fill up the truck, and also to get a new propane tank for the grill.

While I was at Wal-mart, I saw they had sundresses on sale. Talked to another customer who was looking at the same dresses for a minute. Saw a cute one, ran to the dressing room, put it on over my jeans and figured it was okay, threw it in the cart and headed to the spice section. Was side tracked along the way, looking for a new digital thermometer, finally got to the spice section, when Jeff met up with me. He had that look on his face, "What is taking you so long?" We picked up a few more things and got to the check-out. He left, said "I'll have the truck out front." Of course, today they had to do a price check on the stupid sun-dress. When I finally got to the truck Jeff was getting out and said, "I was coming into find you, I thought you'd been kidnapped by aliens."

Next stop, Vad-Du-Mar Park, Sadie got a short, very short 15 minute walk, while Jeff and I discussed the barn arrangement and whether we should add an open air run in on one side. Headed back home.

For the next several hours, I worked on finishing some cheese I started yesterday and making some yogurt. Then made the new rub for the ribs and got them rubbed down and marinating in the fridge. Jeff was out mowing the back, behind the main pasture, between moving the sprinkler around on the new sod we laid last spring. I stuck a veggie burger in the micro-wave but forgot about it and found it there several hours later.

Jeff finished the back mowing and started in on the dry lot, moved the sprinklers to the garden. I shuffled animals around so they would stay out of his way, then went back in the house and talked to a friend from Missouri (Sherrie) on the phone, called my mom (she's not home) left a message, then started calling the neighborhood people about the pool party at our house on the 16th. It was after 1 pm when I got outside.

Jeff was weed eating by that time and I started working in the garden. The horses were standing at the fence looking at me and I decided they needed some "mommy attention". So I got them up and sprayed them off with the hose, scrubbed off the sweat and salt. Then Jeff turned all the water tanks over for me (3 of them) and I bleached, scrubbed and refilled all of them. Somewhere in here, Jeff put the ribs on the grill on low.

I hate to use the "R" word, but I had some left over from last year and decided to spray it on the crab grass that's coming up in places around the pool. I was sweating so much that my eyes were burning, the water looked pretty inviting. Jumped in the deep end, swam to the shallow end and got out, started spraying again. At least I can say, that yes "On the fourth of July, I got in the pool". Jeff followed soon after and said it was time to relax, I was all for it.

We got in the kitchen and prepped the corn and zucchini for the grill. Jeff jumped in the pool, same thing, in at the deep end and out at the shallow end. So we both "got in the pool" on the Fourth." It was 4:45 by the time the veggies and ribs were done. We figured we had just enough time to scarf down dinner before we needed to do chores around 6 pm.

It was a lovely dinner, sat on the deck, listened and watched as a storm rolled in, thunder, lightening, wind, and at least it was cool. Jeff said he needed a nap, so I cleaned the kitchen and he was in helping in about 10 minutes, Jeff cannot take naps.

At 6 we were in the barn finishing the chores, milking, Jeff cleaned the goat stall while I got the milk on ice and everything prepped for tomorrow AM's milking. Came in showered, finished the cheese I made yesterday. It tastes good. The yogurt didn't turn to yogurt, so will have to try that again. Folded laundry, there's some left to do tomorrow. At 7:30 we locked the goats in the goat stall, came in and collapsed on the couch. We had a three day weekend for the holiday. We have to go back to work tomorrow, so it was time to relax.

Yogurt

I decided to try making some yogurt. I have fresh blueberries that need to be picked and some frozen strawberries, so want to make a little of each and also a honey almond version. I looked at several recipes and like all cheese recipes, it depends on whose you look at. My goal is to come up with my own recipes that work for me and my goats. Have to start somewhere, I sort of created my own and made two different basic versions.

I had 1 full quart jar of milk that was 2 days old and another quart jar that was 3/4 full. I stuck both of them in a stock pot on the stove and heated them to 176 and 180 degrees, respectively. This was a stupid idea, because I needed to rapidly cool the milk. Well you can't rapidly cool milk that's in a glass jar as hot as these were. So I sort of slowly cooled them in the sink over 15 minute period, by adding cold water to the sink full of hot water that came from the stock pot. It worked so we'll see.

I added 1 tsp of pectin to each jar of milk. To the 3/4 jar I added 1/4 cup of Stoney Farm Vanilla yogurt (they didn't have plain at the store, so I figured this is an experiment anyway). To the second jar I added 1 packet of direct set yogurt culture. Shook both of them and put them in a Styrofoam cooler I have. 2 jars fit perfectly in it (it came from a pharmacy, had shipped drugs in it).

The cooler is sitting on the dinning room table. Per Fiasco Farm, don't let it set more than 10 hours, all that will happen is it will get more sour. So planning on checking it at 4 pm, since I started this at 10 and see what it's like. If it turns out good, I'm going divide it all up in 1/3's and add different fruit/honey/almond extract. Jeff loves yogurt!

French Style Goat Cheese

Yesterday I started the first batch of cheese from Edna's milk. I picked a soft goat cheese because it was easy, no molds, no pressing etc. I sanitized my pot on the stove with boiling water and then dumped it in the sink and set my cheese pot in the sink. Heated 6 quarts of milk to 88 degrees, (supposed to be between 72 and 80 depending on whose recipe you look at, but it got ahead of me on the temp) so I cooled it to 78. Added 1 packet of direct set mesophilic culture. Let it set for 5 minutes, then top stirred very slowly and up and down. I added 1 drop calf rennet diluted in 60 mL of spring water, stirred and moved the pot where it wouldn't be disturbed. The room temp was between 69 and 71.

This AM about 5, I lifted the lid, smelled light and buttery with a hint of lemon. Let it go, had to go to the store and do chores. When I got ready to drain the cheese, it was 10:00AM, so the cheese set for 18 hours. It had pulled away from the sides and curds were nice a shiny solids. I used one of my cheese molds to scoop out the curds and drain in a bag. Hung it from the microwave handle over a cake pan. After most of the dripping was done, I moved it, to drip over a bucket and get it out of the way.

I looked a numerous recipes and came up with the formula above based on several. I'm going to let it drain 6-8 hours but can go up to 24 (again depends on whose recipe you look at). I want it to be thicker, so will probably let it go at least 8 hours if not a little longer.

Canning: Beets

Yesterday I canned 10 pints of beets. I've got the process down now after doing it for several years. I wish I had more time, maybe I'll be able to can some salsa in the next week or so. Here's my beet recipe.

3 pounds beets: clean, cut leaves off leaving 1-2 inches of the leaf attached to the beat (keeps them from bleeding while they cook). This will make 5 pint jars.

Cover with water, bring to a boil, then simmer for 30 minutes, till tender.

Drain in colander, rinse with cold water and remove skins and leaves, then dice. I make my dices 1 inch or smaller, so it heats adequately in the processing.

In a large sauce pan combine the following ingredients and bring to a boil:

2 cups sugar
2 cups water
4 cups apple cider vinegar
3 tbs pickling spice (I put the spices in a loose leaf tea brewer)

Add the diced beets, simmer 5 minutes.

At this point, use the normal canning procedures: Fill hot jars, leave 1/2 inch head space and process (at sea level) 30 minutes.

There's enough beets left in the garden for us to have some fresh beets a couple times. Going to plant and can more in the fall.