Parfait pour le Vinaigre

I have a new piece of equipment today, which is always fun.  This time it is in the form of a 3 liter Le Parfait Super Jar.  As you can see, it makes a quart jar look like a chump and is now the new home to my first batch of red wine vinegar.

The vinegar is all moving along well, and as much as ma femme likes it and likes having lots of different vinegars, she rightly points out that it's getting a little ridiculous.  Never fear, dear reader, I have a plan.  Vinegar seems like the kind of thing that can easily be corked and  bottled, then stored indefinitely and/or given away.  It just needs to be well finished and aged.

In truth, there is wine.

Time has passed.  Time to pass the wine from one vessel to another.  

I transferred two reds this weekend.  A Pinot Noir that's been going for a while, and a Cabernet Sauvignon that's only just coming out of primary.  The Pinot is getting there: it's starting to flatten out and clear up, and it has a really clean flavor; no lingering, syrup-y, jammy aftertaste.   

The Cabernet is still very young.  This was my first kit with grape skins, and I hope that I never try to mash them all into a carboy again. That was a mess, as was "racking" it to secondary.  A tortured ordeal, but it is done now.

So good.  So easy.  Makes me want to start more.

Wine in Line

Second Malbec bottled: 

Cabernet Sauvignon begun:

I've learned a few things, and got a few good tips at a Northern Brewer mead class.  Number one: I think I leave my oak in too long.  After 6 weeks it starts to impart a woody flavor.  In a bad way, like actually sucking on a piece of wood.  So I'm going to rack it out of there before that happens.  Also, more racking, more better, so I'll probably try a tertiary, quaternary, whatever-five-is-ary, until it's as clear and well-aged as I want it to be.  I think a little exposure to oxygen is a good thing for wine, too.  It helps keep fermentation going, and you actually want it to oxidize a little, apparently, especially for reds.  And shaking is a good thing for wine.  It helps degas and keeps things well mixed, which also supports strong and complete fermentation.  In later stages of racking, I will probably also degas with my whip-on-a-drill mixer.  Wine is pretty great.

Wine Sheves

The first one, with space for 16 bottles in 48 inches.  It's a little crowded, so for subsequent shelves, I made space for 15 bottles, and that makes a huge difference.  There are still some bottles that clink together, or don't quite lay flat, but you can usually arrange them to fit.  The bottles I used for my Port are the worst offenders.

I would have liked them to fit a little closer vertically, but between the unit spacing on the shelf rails, and the space you need for the bracket itself, that's as close as they get.  Perhaps I could have been a little more strategic matching the spacing of the rails with the spacing of the bottles to squeeze things a little closer.  In the end I am happy with them.  They are the same style of construction as the beer shelves, so theoretically, I can stack beer over here, or wine over there, and they are totally modular, so I can remove them and reconfigure to whatever I need.  

The vertical spacing thing doesn't really bother me either, since as you can see, if I make a few more shelves, and can store ~120 bottles of wine, I should just stop.

The Never-Ending Story

As ma femme often points out, brewing is not my hobby.  Bottle washing is my hobby.  Taken in manageable chunks it not really ever difficult or tiring, it just consumes a lot of time and it seems like I am always doing it.  At least I get to drink beer while I'm at it.  I am getting close to being caught up with empties in my basement... then I remember the ones in my trunk.  I should bring those in.

In fermenting news, I have transferred the Belgian and started another Pinot Noir:

The Tripel was very cloudy after 2 weeks in primary; it also still tasted pretty sweet.  I'm not in the habit of measuring gravity, but that certainly would have told the tale.  Perhaps a beer this big at temps this low should have had more time.  It just seemed ready to go based on airlock activity.  After just 24 hours in secondary, it is dramatically clearer, there's already an inch of trub on the bottom of the carboy, and there's an inch of really clear beer at the top.  Previous iterations of this beer have been hazy at bottling, but poured very clear from bottles (initially) with lots of loose sediment.

My previous batch of Pinot Noir is apparently a big hit at get-togethers this holiday season, and while I still have plenty of it, good results with wine take 6+ months, so I started another today.  Wine is so much easier than beer, it almost seems like cheating.   I do like all the mixing steps at the beginning, it makes it seem like you are really doing something, and I like all the little packets that come with the kit.  I always just toss the preservatives and clarifying agents, so I could do without those, but all the kits I've had seem to come with bentonite clay and oak chips or powder.  I'm not exactly sure what the clay does, and I think I read somewhere that adding oak in primary helps take out "vegetative" tastes in the juice.  It's worth some more exploration.  For this kit, I put in the Lalvin EC-1118 yeast that came with it, and also supplemented that with two packs of Red Star Montrachet.

To Port, Mr. Sherry

The Port is in bottles:

It is a syrupy delicious mess.  The original label file had January 2013 on them, so I've thinking about bottling this for at least 11 months.  I tasted it once before when we transferred it and added the oak spiral, and it's even better.  Maybe I would say it's a little sweet, but hey: it's Port.  I don't get much of the oak, but it definitely tastes well aged, and I think it will just get better.  The thing I am most impressed with is the color.  In the glass it's nice and burgundy purple, but when it you tip it or get down to the last bits, it has a gorgeous brown tone.

Moving on, the Belgian looks wonderful in primary: 

with a golden honey color and a kreusen like a cloud.  About 12 hours after this picture, it had pushed a bunch of foam up and out of the blowoff hose and had started to settle back down.  So I added a pound of sugar.

No Dearth of Beer

The shelves are well stocked.  A little too well.  I like going down to pick out a beer that suits my mood or meal, but geez-loiuse, things have gotten out of hand.  For about 50% of my beers, this is not actually an issue, because the gravity is high enough that they will just keep getting better for years.  I do have some low-gravity lagers and other things that just aren't going to be awesome forever, so I try to drink them first; it keeps me out of the good stuff.  Also, I should stop buying beer.  And making beer.  And wine.

After setting another case and a half out on the shelves, I set the carboy of Malbec pictured here up for transfer.  I don't remember if I've oaked it yet or not.  I'm going to bottle my Port soon (soon...) and when I do, I'll transfer this wine, taste it, and if it needs oak, then oak it shall have.   Otherwise, it will be degassed, and bottled shortly thereafter.  Or I'll leave it indefinitely...  house rules.

If my wine shelf project goes well, then I will need to purchase some wood soon for more shelving over there, and I'll probably get some more shelving for this side as well.  The set on the right is in need of an additional upright and to have the outermost ones moved in a little bit.  It's a little precarious.  I try to make it a little cleaner every time I go down there, but that does not always happen.  When I do clean up and get rid of some junk I've been hoarding, it starts to look really nice.

Wine Shelves

So last night I worked on my wine shelf project.  I've got a little nook of the basement that's set back about a foot in the block wall and just a hair over 48" wide.  I've got adjustable shelving rails anchored to the wall, and last night I started making pieces for shelves.  I'm going to do two 48" rails with 3/4" slats on 3" spacing.  I should be able to get 16 wine bottles/shelf; not sure yet how many shelves I can get, until I make at least two and measure the vertical spacing.

I had to stop because my table saw was making a lot of smoke for some reason.  I think it was some thicker poplar that I was ripping down, or maybe the fence is not well aligned.  I'll give it a shot again tonight or tomorrow and see if it still does it on the thinner pine boards I have.

This has been one of those projects that I get stuck on, and everything else kind of gets hung up because of it.  It feels good to get started, and hopefully it will go much faster now that I am started.  At 16 bottles per shelf, I already need like 5 shelves before I am caught up with what I have bottled, not to mention the Malbec and Port waiting to be bottled...