Wine Weekend

Wine Weekend



No problem!!
Just add yeast and sugar.
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Yesterday Bonnie and I went over a friend’s house for some wine making.  We bottled some of his finished merlot, start his new pinot noir and racked one of his red wines.

While we were their Bonnie made her first wine.  I went to the local homebrew store and bought her a 5 gallon Raspberry Zinfandel wine kit that she had fun putting together.  She plans on giving it away for Christmas at the end of the year.  One quality she will soon have to learn is patience.  Wine making takes lots of time before you have a drinkable product. J

I figured I would have some fun and try some experimental wines.  I decided to make coffee wine and a praline dessert wine (both 1 gallons).  I love 1 gallon experimental recipes.  The good thing is if they come out terrible you are only out a few bucks.  The bad thing is if are great you only have 4 bottles (but you have a recipe you can use later on).

The coffee wine required me to brew 1/2 lbs of coffee.  The house smelled fantastic.  The coffee I used was Joffrey’s Angel’s Kiss (“chocolaty coconut with a heavenly hint of nut”).  I am not into flavored coffees but it sounded like it would make a great wine and smelled AWESOME.  The recipe below is adopted from Jack Keller’s wine site. See here 

This should make for an interesting wine
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Coffee Wine

• ½ lb freshly ground coffee
• 2½ lbs dark brown sugar
• 1½ tsp citric acid
• ¼ tsp tannin
• 7½ pts water
• 1 tsp yeast nutrient
• Wine yeast

I also made a praline dessert wine.  It sounded good and was REALLY easy to put together.  Jack Keller has won a few awards with it so I decided “what the heck” and tried it out.  Its recipe can be found here.

Praline Dessert Wine

• 1 25-oz bottle Savannah Mixes Southern Praline Mix
• 2-3/8 lbs granulated sugar
• 1-1/4 tsp acid blend
• 1 tsp yeast nutrient
• 1 crushed Campden tablet
• 6 pts water
• Sauternes wine yeast

I will tell you in a few months if they have potential.

The coffee wine needs a name.  Does anyone have any ideas?