- Sunday, 7/26: Bill and I started a batch of blackberry wine. The recipe calls for 4 pounds of blackberries, which amounted to 5 quarts. It also called for 2 1/4 cups of sugar, but we had to go to 3 cups of sugar to take the specific gravity to 1.090, which is the specific gravity that the recipe suggests. We figured that our wild blackberries aren't as sweet as homegrown berries. Mary picked a bowl of blackberries and said it was extremely hot on Bramble Hill. The 5 quarts in the wine dropped our freezer total to 24, but Mary's picking added 2, bringing our total up to 26. We enjoyed smoked scrambled eggs with pork meat added for flavor. We watched 2 movies selected by Bill...Galaxy Quest and The Proposal.
- Monday, 7/27: Something new...I picked more blackberries, adding 3 more quarts for an updated grand total of 27 quarts. Bill made 3 very delicious pizzas. A census taker showed up, even though we sent in information electronically months ago. Mary talked to her. She was an old hag, no teeth, smelled of cigarette smoke, had a cigarette hacker cough, and wasn't wearing a mask...what a dingbat! I added yeast to the blackberry wine must and it started fermenting immediately. The specific gravity dropped a point to 1.089 in the 24 hours since we first made it. I take an extra hour when starting the yeast and add a quarter cup of wine must heated to 95° to the yeast after it sits 20 minutes once the powdered yeast is added to water and that really gives the yeast a kick-start when added to the must in the bucket.
- Tuesday, 7/28: Bill did his laundry in the morning. Mary made a 2-bird chicken dinner. Bill left to go back to St. Louis around 4:15 pm. The blackberry wine is bubbling away, with a specific gravity of 1.080. I picked another batch of blackberries. They're showing signs of dwindling, but I still got a full bowl, which equates to another 3 quarts, giving us a grand total of 30 quarts in the freezer. I heard a deer snorting while picking berries. Mary also saw a bright red doe running north to south, east of the house. It might have been the same deer. Mary made a food menu for the upcoming month and created a shopping list. We watered plants in both gardens. We have the start of a pumpkin, tomato plants are blossoming, and a few hot peppers are showing up. We went to bed extremely tired.
- Wednesday, 7/29: It rained in the afternoon, something we really need. I caught up on my wine dairy, entering information on the watermelon wine and the blackberry wine. We made a decision that remaining unpicked blackberries we will let Mother Nature have. At 2 pm, the specific gravity of the blackberry wine was at 1.055. By 11 pm, it was at 1.042, just 0.002 higher than the mark for the first racking, so I decided to go ahead and rack it. The wine must was filled with what looked like pink cottage cheese, or as Bill said, "It looks like after someone drank way too much wine while eating chunky soup." YUM! I got Mary's help and we strained the wine through a wire strainer, covered with a flour sack towel into my 5-gallon wide mouth carboy. Next, I siphoned the wine into a 1-gallon jug, added spring water to "top off" the wine level to the neck of the jug, and added an airlock. When I went to bed, the wine looked fine (see photo below), but there was no fermentation and I saw white spots on the top of the wine, which worried me that it might be starting to mold. We went to bed real late, or really, early in the morning.
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| Blackberry wine after 1st racking. |
- Thursday, 7/30: We had heavy rain throughout the night. I woke 5 hours after putting the blackberry wine and myself to bed, and looked at the wine. Foam filled the airlock and even started showing on top of the airlock (see photo below). I texted Bill, asking how to make a blow-off airlock. He didn't answer right away, so I looked it up, started making it, then compared texts with Bill on what I made (see video below). I reviewed the blackberry wine recipe. It advised to fill the carboy to the first curve of the jug's shoulder and then only top off to the jug's neck when the threat of foaming stops...OOPS! It helps to read wine recipes, thoroughly. Last night's white spots were obviously the restart of fermentation. It tastes wonderful, even with a strong yeast taste, which goes away with aging. By 2 pm, the specific gravity on the wine was 1.032. Mary found small, immature apples that are red with yellow/green color near the stems on what was supposed to be a crab apple tree from Arbor Day Foundation. It's planted south of the house. After a bunch of internet research, Mary determined that tree is a Stayman's Winesap apple tree. They are supposed to be very good. Who knew! Thank you, Arbor Day. It was a free apple tree.
- Friday, 7/31: It was shopping day, today. Prior to going, I spotted a 2004 GMC half-ton pickup with a V-6 engine for sale in Quincy. I messaged the owner and arranged a 2 pm meeting time. We shopped at Aldi, ate burgers, pulled cash out of our bank, then checked out the pickup. It has rust around rear wheel wells and the back bumper that I wasn't going to accept in a pickup. But a test drive proved it is mechanically sound. It has 89,000 miles, year-old Michelin tires, new fuel lines, new heater fan motor, a month-old new battery, and a new drive shaft. We bought it for $3200 (see photos below). The pickup's pluses, more than outweigh the rust issue. I can fix rust. Shopped at 8 stops. The Cadillac was stuffed. I drove the pickup, with Mary following in the Caddy, and the former pickup owner behind her. In Illinois, you can move plates from one vehicle to another. Once we crossed the Mississippi, we pulled into the Ayerco gas station in West Quincy, MO, and he removed the pickup plates...didn't want to meet a Barney Fife Quincy Police squad car while driving through Quincy. We discovered that the guy I bought the truck from went to Truman State the years Bill went there, that he majored in accounting, and that he heads the business department at Culver Stockton University in Canton, MO. On the drive home, the pickup handled excellently. We ate nachos and watched the 2001 movie, Ocean's 11.
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| Foam pushing through airlock with blackberry wine. |
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| Our "new-to-us" 2004 GMC Sierra 1500 pickup. |
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| Rear fender and bumper rust that needs replacing. |
- Saturday, 8/1: With several of the onion greens bent over and drying out, Mary harvested all of the onions and shallots. First, she pulled them, then cut off the greens and laid onion bulbs on the ground in the shade of the house to dry (see left photo below). I went into the cobweb-filled basement to get more old plastic milk crates for onion storage. First, I swept debris off the stairs, including a snake skin. Several minutes with a shop vac took care of dead and alive spiders and their webs. After removing 10 milk crates, I cleaned them all with a brush and the hose connected to the outdoor spigot. We ended up with 88 pounds of onions and 13 pounds of shallots stored in milk crates (see right photo below). My blackberry wine is still fermenting.
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| 2020 onion and shallot crop after cutting off tops. |
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| Left to right, Ed's Reds shallots (a cross from Montana), Patterson onions, Red Bull onions, and White Wing onions. |
The wine sounds like it'll be awesome ! It's got me thinking about our picking next year. We put up enough preserves in May to last a long time. I'm thinking Blackberry Brandy next year !
ReplyDeleteBlackberry brandy sounds terrific. The wine tastes wonderful, so far. It's supposed to get better with age, too. You should try making something. It's fun!
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