The lamb shank stew with gremolata was a huge hit Friday. I threw in some random pieces of shoulder for more meat. This was seriously slow cooking two days and two separate stewing sessions, huge concentration.
The Cabrelas cheese lived up to its reputation. It arrived Wed express air and was packaged for the EU only for sure. The colorful metal foil that replaced the traditional leaves started to disintegrate and was a pain to clean off this would never be a hit in the stores here.
The Cabrelas cheese lived up to its reputation. It arrived Wed express air and was packaged for the EU only for sure. The colorful metal foil that replaced the traditional leaves started to disintegrate and was a pain to clean off this would never be a hit in the stores here.
I should mention my version of barley soup that I will serve to others starts with a full bottle of red wine, an equal amount of beef or lamb stock, barley, chopped onions, pepper and salt.
I put up my own wine both from the grapes that grow in my backyard and from purchased juice. The secret to making juice into a decent cheap wine is to save the empty bottles from a bottle of wine you liked and leaving it dirty with the dregs in it. That way you get a good yeast culture to start with as commercial juices are typically pasteurized and will not ferment nicely on their own. Just let it sit in a cool dark place for two years. Note don't over fill the bottles as some will break while aging.
I put up my own wine both from the grapes that grow in my backyard and from purchased juice. The secret to making juice into a decent cheap wine is to save the empty bottles from a bottle of wine you liked and leaving it dirty with the dregs in it. That way you get a good yeast culture to start with as commercial juices are typically pasteurized and will not ferment nicely on their own. Just let it sit in a cool dark place for two years. Note don't over fill the bottles as some will break while aging.
You mean explode? I'll pass on this to each his own. Generally commercial wine these days has no live yeast and few have sediment anymore.
Oh Ed, props on brewing from juice, but that is not the secret to anything. Go spend a buck on a package of Lalvin yeast, ferment in a large vessel with a fermentation lock, and when it is ready put it in sanitized bottles.
Was this another of your leg-pullers?
Who knows? IME the juice concentrates sold to home wine makers make at best very ordinary plonk. The fact that pasteurized juice won't spontaneously ferment should be obvious.
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Yes big difference between juice and concentrate. For red wine even juice won't do as you need to start the fermentation on the crushed fruit, the alcohol extracts colour, tannins, etc from the skins. There may also be wild yeast on the fruit but the results can be unpredictable, better to intruduce a clean yeast culture which will drive out other organisms.
Many of the finest wines are fermented on the indigenous wild yeasts.
Wild Fermentation Is the Sexiest, Least Understood Technique in Winemaking | VinePair
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What can I mention, very easy to try it. All you need is a recently used bottle and some juice. I find the same juice comes out differently depending on what was in the bottle. You will get an idea of what is happening in just a few months.
I know beer brewers who collect yeast specimens to get different tastes. Wine seems to also change with the starter culture. (Duh!)
Of course I had someone plant grape vines a few decades ago in my back yard, so juice is not an issue.
Of course before I share or give away a bottle I do sample it. Quite a variation in results.
I know beer brewers who collect yeast specimens to get different tastes. Wine seems to also change with the starter culture. (Duh!)
Of course I had someone plant grape vines a few decades ago in my back yard, so juice is not an issue.
Of course before I share or give away a bottle I do sample it. Quite a variation in results.
Correct, and those wild yeast strains developed in those vineyards, with near monocultures in a large area. Back yard vines are unlikely to be blessed with the same microflora. Nearby fruit trees etc will harbor other yeasts and bacteria that will drift on the breeze. Seriously, backyard home brewers should buy a few sachets of commercial wine yeast. The Lalvin strains, for example, were isolated from yeast fultures in wine producingvareas and are very high quality and cheap.
Yes Ed, I have cultured yeast both from my own brews (to keep an expensive yeast going for multiple brews) and from what was collected from the dregs of bottle-conditioned beer like Duvel from Belgium.
Now Belgian beers from a particular river valley region are fermented in open vats with the windows open, to encourage wild yeasts and bacteria to "infect" the brew, leading to unique regional flavors, often very sour and with hints of horse sweat. Mazing stuff, a well aged gueze is a wonder on the palate.
As Scott pointed out, what you find in the bottom of your empty wine bottle is unlikely to have come with the wine.
On our farm in NC we had a old grapevine in the yard (near as we could figure a Zinfandel/muscadine hybrid) that was producing about 10-15 gallons of grapes each year, after learning more about how to care for it we managed to get the yield up over 20 gallons in about a three year span.
We tried different methods over the years and The best was fully vine ripe unwashed with stems and mashed in a 35 gallon Rubbermaid food grade drum (garbage can type lid) no sugar,water,or yeast added. A yeast cap would form after about a 7-10 days, stir the cap back in set for another 7-10 days to work, then strained and to the carboys..... racked a couple times, last time settled out with a little bentonite. Ooh yah
We did come up with a high kick version by using something called ‘killer’ yeast and feeding it corn sugar till it died......just over 19% alcohol on the refractometer! Enough to label it 40 proof......had to add more sugar at the end to make it drinkable but it was still good and was responsible for quite a few dramatic events after consumption......
Needless to say we only made the ‘high kick’ once!
We tried different methods over the years and The best was fully vine ripe unwashed with stems and mashed in a 35 gallon Rubbermaid food grade drum (garbage can type lid) no sugar,water,or yeast added. A yeast cap would form after about a 7-10 days, stir the cap back in set for another 7-10 days to work, then strained and to the carboys..... racked a couple times, last time settled out with a little bentonite. Ooh yah
We did come up with a high kick version by using something called ‘killer’ yeast and feeding it corn sugar till it died......just over 19% alcohol on the refractometer! Enough to label it 40 proof......had to add more sugar at the end to make it drinkable but it was still good and was responsible for quite a few dramatic events after consumption......
Needless to say we only made the ‘high kick’ once!
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Keeping yeast is easy, I currently have a dozen beer yeasts on slants in the refrigerator.
One uses screw top test tubes with an agar media on a slant in the tubes. Take a sample of yeast from a bottle if you know the yeast is the primary fermentation yeast. For example, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is bottled with primary yeast in the bottle.
Many Belgian beers are also bottle conditioned and have primary yeast, although some use a bottling yeast which is neutral but good for high gravity to finish the beer.
I have done three Belgian Tart Cherry Lambic style beers using both purchased yeast and wild yeast. One took Southeast regional first place (Asheville competition) in it's style and second place overall against over 200 entries. A Barley Wine took first overall.
One uses screw top test tubes with an agar media on a slant in the tubes. Take a sample of yeast from a bottle if you know the yeast is the primary fermentation yeast. For example, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is bottled with primary yeast in the bottle.
Many Belgian beers are also bottle conditioned and have primary yeast, although some use a bottling yeast which is neutral but good for high gravity to finish the beer.
I have done three Belgian Tart Cherry Lambic style beers using both purchased yeast and wild yeast. One took Southeast regional first place (Asheville competition) in it's style and second place overall against over 200 entries. A Barley Wine took first overall.
That would be unlikely but there are plenty of dark skinned muscadines around.
Sort of getting a good sour dough going, we have friends with one over 50yr. old, but with wine these days you probably don't get any live yeast in the bottle.
My father did fruit and grape concentrate wine for years won a bunch of of ribbons including a few firsts at the WI State Fair. When my mother had to sell the house there were 100's of bottles in the basement and the estate sale folks said they couldn't touch it. My daughter and I spent an afternoon opening them and dumping them down the drain. They were fine at 1 to 2yr. but at 20 there was not much left to enjoy.
Wasn’t dark, they ripened light green to maroon color.....gave off pink juice.
Muscat was considered but the leaf pattern was more like a Zinfandel.....a local winery (biltmore estate) or warren Wilson agricultural college couldn’t ID it.
I suppose nowadays a dna test could be done but not sure I care enough to lay down the $$.
The problem is Zin has 40 chromosomes and the Muscadine 38 (or visa versa) so the hybrids are not easy to deal with if they work at all.