Vino

Well we spent last Sunday making a new batch of wine and watching football - pretty good combo if you ask me! This is our first batch to be straight from nature to the bottle as it were. We picked, pitted and juiced somewhere around 60lbs of plums from our neighbors tree (they couldn't get rid of them fast enough and it was free fruit for us)! Everything (juice, skins, fruit) goes into the fermenter and then we test, and test and test again to determine how much sugar, acid, tanin, etc. to add to the mix then we put all of that stuff in there, added the yeast and hoped it would take off. Of course it did - by Monday night it was clear the yeast was in action full force. On Tuesday morning we woke up to discover the fermenter had overflowed! Yikes! the gases pruduced by the yeast built up under the thick foam head that is created from the fermentation motion and pushed the head up and out. At least now we know there is enough room for the rest of the process without another overflow and there are worse things that my kitchen could smell like besides fruity wine.