Oct. 8-14, 2023

Weather | 10/8, 40°, 68° | 10/9, 37°, 64° | 10/10, 36°, 67° | 10/11, 0.14" rain, 45°, 79° | 10/12, 0.41" rain, 50°, 76° | 10/13, 0.39" rain, 59°, 67° | 10/14, mist, 50°, 53° | 

• Sunday, 10/8: Mowing & Making Bartlett Pear Wine
  
  • Mary mowed the east and north yards. The mower kicked up lots of dust, since we're so dry. She came in looking like Pig Pen and gasping for a drink.
    
  • I started a batch of Bartlett pear wine. First, I cored, quartered, and cut the quarters of 106 pears into pieces. This time, I weighed the results. It equaled 36 pounds, 5.6 ounces of fruit. Three large stainless steel bowls filled with water and lemon juice held all of the pear pieces. Doing all of the pear slicing took six hours. Mary can do it in two hours, so I still have a ways to get to her speed.
  • Mary made a very yummy pork loin dinner, complete with dead-ripe garden tomato slices.
  • After dinner, I sliced up three 15-ounce packages of golden raisins for the pear wine. I juiced out 14 lemons and poured the juice into the brew bucket. Next, I filled two nylon mesh bags with pear fruit pieces and raisins, smashing the pears in the brew bucket as I filled the bags. This produced about two gallons of juice. I added 1.1 grams of Kmeta, six teaspoons of yeast nutrient, two teaspoons of acid blend to gain a pH of 3.3, five pounds of sugar for a specific gravity of 1.073, and two gallons of water for a total liquid content of four gallons. I'll adjust water and sugar levels tomorrow, after everything soaks overnight. I finished putting winemaking stuff away at midnight. It was a very long day. I still want to make perry (pear cider), but not tomorrow. If I lose some pears, so be it...we have plenty.
  • Mary noticed that we have juncos in the yard, today. They've arrived from the Canadian woods to their winter playground.
    
    
• Monday, 10/9: A Slow Day
  
  • We had a quiet day, due the late hours put in yesterday.
  • After working up a starter batch of Red Star Côte Des Blancs yeast throughout the day, I pitched the yeast into the Bartlett pear wine brew bucket around midnight. Just prior to adding the yeast, a hydrometer test showed the same specific gravity of 1.073, so I added a pound of sugar to the must to reach a 1.080 specific gravity. The pH was 3.2. A yeast smell immediately wafted from the brew bucket.
    
  • I put away all lights and extension cords used for butchering the deer on Friday night.
    
  • Today, Mary turned grass with a rake that she mowed, yesterday, in order to ensure it dries thoroughly.
  • She also watered gardens, which involves only parsnips, three apple rootstock saplings, winter greens, and potted herbs.
    
    
• Tuesday, 10/10: Making Perry
  
  • Mary picked up all of the dried cut grass and stored it in the second grain bin.
    
  • I started a batch of perry, or pear cider. First, I cored and chopped up 96 pears. It equaled 39 pounds, 6.5 ounces of fruit. These were big pears and processing them into three large bowls filled with lemon water took all day. I threw away 16 pears that were beyond ripe. I filled two nylon mesh bags with pear chunks, mashing them down with my fists after every five handfuls. That resulted in about two gallons of dark brown juice. I added nine crushed up cinnamon sticks to the two bags. Added to the brew bucket was 0.7 grams of Kmeta, four teaspoons of yeast nutrient, a tablespoon of acid blend to get a pH of 3.3, two pounds of sugar for a 1.048 specific gravity, and a gallon and a quart of water, giving me roughly 3.25 gallons of liquid with the mesh bags lifted out of the must. I left it sit overnight in the pantry. 
  • I cleaned up winemaking stuff after midnight, again. I was going to make a Kieffer pear wine. Now, I don't think so, since I'm so weary after cutting up 202 pears. We still have a bushel fruit box of ripe (or maybe rotten) Bartlett pears. When I asked Mary what we're going to do with these remaining pears, she said, "Pull," as in tossing them in the air for shotgun skeet shooting practice. We might eat a few, though.
    
  • The yeast in the pear wine is moving along, resulting in a specific gravity of 1.068. It smells very nice.
    
  • When we walked the dogs after dark, we smelled a skunk. We kept the dogs close to us, but never saw anything.
    
    
• Wednesday, 10/11: Pitching Perry Yeast
  
  • I worked up a starter batch of Lalvin 71B (Norbonne) yeast, recommended for ciders, and fed it heated portions of must from the pear cider brew bucket throughout the day. I squeezed the two mesh bags in the perry prior to pitching the yeast. This cider is a dark brown, chocolate  color (see photo, below). The specific gravity was 1.046 at the time I dumped in the yeast. I didn't add any sugar.
  • The pear wine is bubbling very well (see photo, below), with a specific gravity of 1.042, and a significant drop from 1.068, yesterday.
    
  • Mary cooked up a huge batch of veggie soup...enough for several day's worth of meals.
    
  • We walked the dogs north to the Cherry Deer Blind. They enjoyed the walk.

Dark brown pear cider.

Bubbling yeast on top of the pear wine.

• Thursday, 10/12: To the Quincy Book Sale
  
  • We drove to Quincy to take in the book sale at the Quincy Library. For $13, we bought 19 books and four movies. There were several history books of U.S. presidents. A book we bought was still wrapped in a new book plastic cover. It's the Guns of August, by Barbara Tuchman. Mary looked it up and it's $32. We paid 75 cents. This is why we go to the sale. While in town, we bought a few other items, including a couple of my medications.
    
  • After returning home, I checked the pear wine and the specific gravity was 1.013, or time to rack it into a carboy. Five hours later, after doing evening chores and eating supper, the pear wine's specific gravity was 1.007. The pH was 3.0. I squeezed both mesh bags. These pears are super juicy, because I gained an extra two gallons of juice, giving me a total of 6 gallons. I racked pear wine into a 6-gallon carboy and instantly installed a blow-off airlock into a jar of water. The CO2 gas release was hot and heavy overnight (see video, below).
  • The perry has robust yeast activity, with a specific gravity of 1.040.
    
  • While returning from dumping the pear wine waste into the compost pile, I saw bright yellow eyes reflecting back at me from the north yard, near the big pie cherry tree. I flipped on the brighter lights on my hat light and it was a very large raccoon, probably weighing about 100 pounds. That big boy could probably take down a small dog.
  Strong CO2 gas release after racking pear wine.
  

• Friday, 10/13: Wine, Wine, Wine
  • The blow-off airlock of the pear wine was significantly reduced in CO2 gas release, so I installed a regular airlock. About an inch of fines are settling on the bottom of the carboy, so I'll have to rack this wine, soon.
  • Specific gravity of the pear cider was 1.011, so I squeezed both mesh bags and gained almost two additional gallons of liquid. The cinnamon sticks added to this brew give it a yummy smell and taste. It reminded us of some kind of a spiced pear cake. The pH was 3.3. I racked the liquid into a five-gallon carboy and a gallon jug, allowing a good amount of head room. I put a blow-off airlock on the carboy, which was wise, since a little bit of foam came out of the tube after installing this system.
  • The cherry wine was due to be racked for the fourth time on Monday, 10/9, but with processing pear wines, it didn't get done, so I did it today. There was a small amount of fines in the bottoms of the containers, but the liquid was clear (see photo, below). Even so, I'm letting it sit another month, because the last cherry wine contains little "floaties" in the bottle that have to be filtered out prior to drinking. The specific gravity was 0.994, similar to the past two rackings, and the pH was 3.0. I was really efficient at leaving the least amount of liquid with the fines, so after adding one gram of Kmeta, the liquid went back into the same sized containers, a 5-gallon carboy and a half-gallon jug. Mary and I tasted a little of it. This batch has a good cherry flavor.
  • I reviewed several of the books we bought from the book sale. Mary started reading The Road to Monticello, by Kevin Hayes. I started reading What Happened, by Hillary Clinton. It has a signature of Allan W. Witte on the inside. I looked him up. He was treasurer of the Adams County Board and Illinois Senator Dick Durban put a piece about him in the Congressional Record, stating he was a consensus builder who consistently was reelected from a Republican electorate, even though he was a Democrat. I spotted an obituary. Buck Witte died last year.

  

  The clear cherry wine.

• Saturday, 10/14: Katie is in Saudi Arabia
  
  • We experienced mist in the afternoon.
    
  • Our activity level was low, today.
  • The pear wine and pear cider has slowed way down on releasing CO2. Both should be racked off fines, but they can wait another day. I need a winemaking break.
  • Mary picked enough pecans off the ground and from the bottom of tree branches to cover the bottom of a basket. Most nuts on the tree are still not ready.
  • She also broke open a few black walnuts that we collected years ago. They sat in milk crates in our porch entry room. Of four nuts, all but one was good. It's amazing how long a black walnut will last. There are several black walnuts falling off trees. We need to crack some of our existing walnuts and collect some more, since this seems to be a good black walnut year.
  • The winter greens are looking good, especially the arugula. I had a total crop failure in the two tubs of spinach. We're guessing temperatures were too hot for germination when I planted the seeds.
    
  • Katie texted that she and her Air Force Reserve unit from Anchorage finally made it to their deployment in Saudi Arabia. It was 8 a.m. Sunday morning, Saudi time, when she texted. The military shipped them all over the place prior to reaching their destination. Katie left Anchorage 17 days ago. She's overseas for six months.