I'm going to make this Mojito wine this weekend most likely. It's in the skeeter pee tradition of making a high acid citrus (traditionally lemon) wine using the lees from a more traditional wine that would normally just get dumped.

The reason for using the lees is that its sort of a super starter of tons of yeast cells that are (for the most part) still active. Thus you have a better chance of getting a highly acidic must to start (and continue) fermenting.

6/17/2010 Update:

I made the wine and it is fermenting away quite well. I tweaked the recipe posted by Wine Making Fool. After making his recipe I felt that the lime and mint flavor were too light, especially in the face of the cherry rhubarb yeast slurry that was lending it's own flavors to the wine. I added an additional 8oz of ReaLime juice and a few drops of Mint Extract when the gravity had gotten to around 1.05, we'll see how it turns out.

Since the house has warmed to a point that is friendly to microbes, I've been on a wine making kick. This weekend I put together a Cherry Rhubarb wine that is currently fermenting. With this years rhubarb plant threatening to take over the yard I figured it was time to use up the rhubarb from last fall that I had in the freezer, this cleared out quite a lot of space. I also had a decent amount of frozen and jarred cherries to use up, not enough for a whole batch of wine on their own but enough to add a touch of flavor. Additionally I had a very small amount of frozen mulberries that we harvested from a tree in the seminary (that has since been cut down :( ) and a few champagne grapes that I don't remember why we had but we did. So here is the break down of what I did:

Ingredients:

• Frozen Rhubarb: 26Lbs 10oz
• Frozen Cherries: 1Lb 14oz
• Jarred Cherries: 1Lb
• Frozen Mullberries: .75Lbs
• Frozen Grapes: .25 Lbs
• Calcium Carbonate: 4 Tbsp
• Sugar: 12 Cups
• Red Star Pasteur Champagne Yeast

Friday evening I placed all of the frozen fruit (and veggies) in the fermenter along with the calcium carbonate and 8 cups of sugar to thaw. The calcium carbonate is a mild base that neutralizes some of the acid in the rhubarb. Rhubarb is very high in acid and this is recommended when making wine from it. The sugar helps to leach the water/juice out as it thaws.

The next afternoon, things had mostly thawed pretty nicely and I gave the stuff a good stir, it was very thick as not a whole lot of liquid had been extracted, though it was still semi frozen. I added enough water to make 6 gallons and the remaining sugar. I stirred further to dissolve the sugar and checked the gravity which was 1.079. This seemed good to me as it would yield a wine with alcohol of around 10-11% if fermented dry, which is quite likely.

At this point I pitched the yeast and covered the fermenter. About a day later it was fermenting vigorously. I'll update with further events as they happen.

Update (6/6/2010): I pressed the wine and ended up with exactly five gallons of wine, funny how that worked out.

I discovered this band called Bond through my Takenobu station on Pandora. Bond is a band of four hot chicks that play stringed instruments over programmed beats. Some of their songs are really good and some of them are way too saccharine techno pop for my taste. Also the fact that they push the hot chick angle makes me want to not like them even more; though that really has no bearing on the quality of their music. So I'm kinda torn in my opinion of this group.

Anyway, have a listen below and let me know what you think of them.

the zinfandel is bottled, did I mention that? it's been bottled since before thanksgiving and it's improved in flavor since then.

I made some Sake this winter. Making Sake is a HUGE PAIN. I steamed 10 cups of rice, 4 separate times. Steaming rice (especially at this quantity) takes hours, it's not like boiling. The sake turned out well, but I don't think I'll be making it again just because of the amount of work involved.

I have a number of wines that are ready or nearly ready to be bottled:

• Plum Port, 5 gallons
• Rhubarb, 5 gallons
• Concord, 10 gallons
• Raspberry, 1 gallon
• Apple, 5 gallons
• Mead, 3 gallons
• Skeeter Pee (lemon), 5 gallons

I have a feeling I may not have enough empty bottles for all of these.

I also have a bunch of stuff that is waiting to become wine:

• Frozen yellow plums
• Frozen rhubarb
• Frozen misc fruits in minor quantities: apples, strawberries, cherries, mulberries, blackberries
• Blackberry concentrate
• Blueberry pancake syrup
• Merlot grape concentrate

I want one.

As you probably know, Anne and I went to Japan for a week in September. I've been a miserable slacker in getting all the photos off the camera and up online; though I do have some.

The trip was awesome. We are definitely going to be going back. We've already been thinking about that. Anyway, I wanted to get down some random thoughts about our previous trip:

• Everything was really clean. I don't know if there are huge fines for littering or if there are ninja clean up crews that take care of everything but it was a very clean country in general.
• People were very polite and friendly. On more than one occasion while consulting a map random Japanese people stopped and asked us if we needed help or directions. One lady came out of a department store where she worked, across the street to us and helped us, she even gave us a better map!
• The countryside of Japan is beautiful. The islands are on the edge of the ring of fire and thus have lots of steep mountains and hills thrust up from plains. Everything was very green.
• Japanese culture is obsessed with cute (kawaii!). Every TV station/news show seemed to have their own cute fuzzy mascot. Hello Kitty was, obviously, everywhere.
• The news shows also had a daily horoscope segment, that was kinda weird.
• The guy sitting next to us on the train back from Kyoto was reading porn. He later showed us pictures of his kitten on his cellphone.
• You should exchange some of your cash at the airport, even though it is a rip off. Not having money sucks.
• You can buy Sake in a juice box. That's pretty hilarious/awesome.
• Department stores sell awesome food.
• Crepe stands are awesome, I don't get why these aren't huge in the US.

That's all I can think of for now. I'm sure I'll have more later and I'll also post an update when I finally get around to load up the rest of the photos.

It's weird. I intellectually understand that aging wine makes wine taste better. Nearly a year ago when I was racking zinfandel and concord wine into carboys for the first time (and even at the second racking) I was, of course, tasting it as I went. And I've got to say, it tasted pretty bad; sour and unappealing. I had my doubts at that time about how it could possibly improve. After all, all it's doing is sitting in a huge glass jar for months and months. I mean, why would it change? Or better yet, why would it change for the better?

Experience has taught me that leaving most things sitting for months generally reduces the quality of the consumption experience. And it's true, if you leave most things sitting for months you probably don't want to eat them anymore. The reverse is true with wine (excepting infection by aceter bacteria). This was demonstrated to me in practice last weekend when I racked my wines and tasted them again. They had improved significantly! It was an exciting revelation, what I knew in theory, yet doubted, was proved true.

Now the question is, does this make me more patient in waiting for my wines, or less?
Probably less.

One of Anne's coworkers has an enormous apple tree growing in her back yard. By enormous, I mean it is HUGE, it's as tall as the three story house, it has three or four big trunks and it rains down a ton of apples on her yard every year. The apples themselves are small to medium in size and they have a decent flavor, and are moderately sweet.

After receiving three plastic grocery bags full of apples in three consecutive days, our arms and wrists were sore from all the chopping. We put the chopped apples in ziplock freezer bags and froze them, then last Thursday I took them out of the freezer and dumped them into my fermentation bucket to thaw, on Saturday I pressed the apples and got about 3 three gallons of apple juice out of them. I took measurements, the juice had around 5% sugar (~1.050 gravity). I pitched yeast and that cider is currently bubbling away merrily.
more photos

More is better?

Not content with a mere three gallons, I asked for more apples. Well last night I got my wish.

This is why they tell you, be careful what you wish for.

I took three baskets over and I cam back with three baskets, and three grocery bags, full to nearly overflowing with apples. HOLY CRAP!
First of all, there's no way we can process all of these apples the same way as the previous ones. There's simply not enough space in the freezer, also our arms would die before we'd be able to chop all of these buggers.

I recently read on the internets about a couple of different people making an apple chopper/crusher from a garbage disposal, I'd like to make one but garbage disposals aren't cheap and there currently aren't any used ones on craigslist. If anyone reading this has got one, please let me know!

The other alternative we've discussed is a divide and conquer strategy. Since we won't be freezing the apples to break apart the cell walls and release the juice, we need to do something that both chops the apples and releases the juice similar to the garbage disposal method. What we're thinking is to split the apples between us. Anne would man the juicer and the food processor to pulp (or juice) her apples. I would place my apples in a rubbermaid container and smash them with a hammer. In between this process we'd be loading the pulp into the press and squeezing the juice out. Anyone want to bring a food processor (or another press if you've got one!) over this weekend and help out? Cider will be a part of your future if you do!

From the Tenth Amendment Center:

Will Florida Ban National Health Care?

In response to what some opponents see as a Congress that doesn’t represent their interests, State Legislators are looking to the nearly-forgotten American political tradition of nullification as a way to reject any potential national health care program that may be coming from Washington.

...

HJR37 would deny the ability of any new law to impose demands, restrictions or penalties on health care choices on Floridians. Versions of proposed federal health care reform legislation have included insurance coverage mandates, and certain penalties on employers who fail to provide employee health insurance.

...

A similar measure, called the Health Care Freedom Act, has already passed in Arizona, and residents of that state will have the opportunity to vote on it in 2010. Sources close to the Tenth Amendment Center say that more than ten other states may see such proposals introduced in the coming session.

This is pretty interesting to me. I wonder if the states will be successful in nullifying national health care or the public option or whatever newspeak name it has. If the states can break away from the federal government in this way, in what other ways might they exercise their sovereignty?

How about a state passing a law that says no resident of that state has to pay federal income taxes, social security, or medicare taxes? That would be a very interesting development.

The only constant is change? This too shall pass.

It's been far far too long since I've posted anything here. This site was created to fulfill my need to communicate things about my life and my thoughts to my friends; sites like facebook have slowly taken over that role. I'm not sure how I feel about that, but I don't want to let this place die. I built this with my own two hands (ten fingers really) and I don't want to let it fade away so easily.

Anyway, I think this site will be changing or perhaps just becoming less tended as other things in my life change, priorities change, etc.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

I think I just realized that just about everything I love to do is essentially the same; it's all creating or learning, and learning is basically creating knowledge.

• Making beer and wine: creating, learning
• Making cheese: creating, learning
• Cooking and etc: creating, learning
• Home improvement projects: creating, learning
• Gardening/growing food: creating, learning
• Web design: creating, learning

My life sort of seemed like it was all over the place but really it's always been one thing encompassed by many many sub-things. A missing the forest for the trees sort of situation perhaps?