Usually, you can get some sort of an idea on how a wine will turn out after the first racking. I have no clue what this wine will taste like. I think part of the problem was that the cucumber slices were so think, and spread throughout the entire bucket, so the yeast didn't have a chance to settle all the way to the bottom like it usually does.
I used a large slotted spoon to get the gunk out, letting the juice run back into the bucket. I then siphoned the liquid off of anything that had settled to the bottom, which at this point I think was not much.
I still have a few seeds floating around in there, but I'm hopeful that those will take care of themselves through the rest of the process. The wine was a really nasty brownish greenish color, but again I think a lot of that was the yeast still being suspended throughout the liquid. I'm hoping that a lot of that will clear by the next racking. It smells and tastes very much of cucumber with a side of yeast. It certainly has potential to mellow out and be delicious, so I guess we'll see!
Just a side note, i tested the specific gravity before adding the yeast, and it was right around 1.090, so we'll see how the alcohol content turns out also!
So I decided to try something crazy as my first blog wine...and came up with this. I've ALWAYS loved cucumbers, we've always grown a million fresh cucumbers at my house every summer, and they're amazing. I have NO clue how this will turn out...but we'll see. I got a general idea off of the Internet, and then changed things around...so here's what I ended up with for a 5 gallon batch.
About 20 normalish sized cucumbers
6 oranges
3 lemons
About 7 thin slices of ginger root
White sugar
Brown sugar
I chopped up the cucumbers into equal sized slices....bwahahahahaha....just kidding. I chopped the hell out of them with a giant knife like a samurai...some pieces big, some pieces small...some cut in half, etc. The best is when you do a bunch of little slices, and then stack them up....then do a GIANT cleaving swing right through the middle of them. MWAHAHAHAHA (Make sure to throw away any that fall on the floor, gotta keep everything incredibly sterile. ) Then I peeled the oranges and lemons, getting all of the white junk off, because it apparently doesn't taste very good in wine...then squeezed them and threw the pulp into the bucket also. While I was doing all of the chopping, I boiled about 3 gallons of water, with the 7 slices of ginger root (they say about an ounce? and its optional).
The mess should look something like this...or not really...it doesn't matter at all what it looks like...because its all a personal made up guess of what might turn out ok. Thats what mine looked like though. I then added sugar...I didn't measure. If any of the "experts" read this, they probably just had a heart attack. I like my wine dry...sweet stuff sickens me...so I added 1 bag of brown sugar, and maybe like 6 or 7 pounds of white sugar. I'll check the specific gravity in the morning to see where its at. Should be somewhere around 1.090 and 1.100, so I can try to adjust tomorrow...or not...depending on how lazy I'm feeling. Due to possibly my elevation, or the temperature at my house, or variables I haven't thought of, my wine seems to turn out much more alcoholic that other people's, so I generally use less sugar. So you may want to test out a batch or 2 before really following any of my directions. So... then I took the ginger out of the water, and poured the boiling hot ginger water into my bucket....stirred to dissolve the sugar...then added cold water up to 5 gallons, which really didn't take much with all the cucumbers in there. I'll let it cool overnight, then add campden tablets, pectic enzyme, yeast nutrient, and a packet of yeast. Stir, seal with an airlock...and let it sit there until it pretty much stops bubbling, stirring daily...or every other day...or whenever I remember. This usually takes a week or two. (Most "experts" will leave the airlock off for the first stage, but due to the fact that I have pets, I dont trust it).
After it stops bubbling, I'll strain out all of the cucumber mess, and siphon all the liquid into a carboy. Next post will be at this stage. Thanks for reading!
Damn it, man, I'm a doctor, not a vinter! Ok...so I am a doctor, but I decided to start a blog about homebrewing. I mostly make wine, although I do make beer on occasion. When I make beer, it's usually from a pre-ordered kit, and generally turns out fairly well. Most of the wine I make is from fresh produce from my family's small "orchard" or from leftovers from neighbors and friends. It generally turns out anywhere from absolutely amazing, to something completely worthy of giving away as a Christmas present (bleh).
Although my favorite wine I've made came from sour cherries from a tree in my yard, I've also made: apple, plum, chokecherry, grapefruit, & teabag wine. I've also done cranberry, white grape, raspberry apple, and fruit punch from concentrate. The wines from fresh fruit have always turned out MUCH better than the concentrate in my experience.
I am very much an amateur, and have no real experience. I generally get recipes off of the Internet, and then change them drastically to fit my own needs. For example, I'll mix white and brown sugar when the recipe only calls for white, I'll use less or more fruit depending on whats available, etc. My general rule of thumb is: "just make crap up and see how it goes." Turns out that philosophy works out for most things in life.
