Recent content by AlbertaGuy

Maybe it's just your variety but otherwise make sure you wait long enough for them to properly ripen. They should be purple for a few weeks and when ripe they are purple all the way through and extremely flavorful. They taste kind of like concentrated raspberry blueberry juice when ripe, just a...

We have them growing in Southern Alberta. A few purple fruit already, second year planted. I think they would make an amazing wine (great on ice cream). Only problem with them is they don't like hot weather, I know they grow them with great success in the Yukon though so very cold hardy. Should...

Chokecherries make a really really good gallon of second wine. It seems to mature much much faster so is drinkable well before the initial batch is ready for bottling. Just add another gallon of water and 2 lbs of sugar on top of the pulp and it makes a great tasting wine.

I just rented a filter after a long secondary. The flavor has continued to improve, i opened another bottle here a few weeks ago and it's a very nice dry wine. Kind of hard to guess the parent fruit now so i would say the flavor is becoming more complex. I really enjoy it. Cleaning the equipment...

I have had great luck making pumpkin wine but simply cubed the pumpkins and froze them prior to primary fermentation (my recipe is simpler than this one, just a basic fruit wine recipe with some raisins for body). Frozen pumpkin is placed in a straining bag during fermentation then gently...

I did that last year and it turned out wonderfully! The cherries gave it an awesome color and just a hint of sour cherry. I have 2 batches of normal rhubarb wine going this year, one is taking a really really long time to clear but the other is looking just fine. I'm going to try a rhubarb apple...

Is this stuff ever good! The chokecherries are in full bloom around here right now, hoping for a wet summer so we can make another batch.

It does smell very nice. I'm eagerly awaiting the aging process to see just how the flavor develops. Opened a small bottle the other night and it hasn't changed much, its a nice dry (and sour) wine but basically just tastes like the berries, no subtle flavors or real character at this point.

This wine starts off with a color resembling fluorescent orange nuclear waste. The berries are very high in acid, protein, and fat so making this wine will require some extra care and attention. Sea buckthorn/Seaberry Wine Recipe 2.2 lbs fruit (plus or minus 0.5 lb is fine) 2.0 lbs sugar...

Front jug is sea-buckthorn mead. Back one is just wine. This is my favorite mead so far, honey comes out nicely with a slight hint of citrus.

Well, I was starting to worry about the fat being in there as nightmares of rancid off-flavors were running through my head. I rented a wine filter and ran it through, what a different it made. I had a quick sip and the sour has really subsided, its definitely a dry slightly sour wine but...

The kits are great for the money. We bought 4 different kits last year to try out and found the 60 bottle white and reds were great as an everyday wine. I did add extra grape juice to the reds (about a gallon/ kit) which added some body, the whites were tasty as is but I'm sure a pound of...

The last mead I finished was a sour cherry, it sat on the cherries and some yeast for 6 months and still did not take on any off flavors. I was a little light on the cherries with that batch (1.5lbs/gallon) but it still came out really nice. I would say it needs at least a month just for all the...

So, I ended up bottling mine this weekend (dry weather is evaporating air locks, solid bung makes me nervous, and its 6+ months old anyway) and it's improved considerably since I last checked. It did not drop any more lees following the last rack but there was a fair amount of crystalline...

I was searching this topic trying to figure out just how long this wine needs to age. I started a 6 gallon batch with 28 lbs chokecherries (and 0.5 gallon grape juice) in September and it looks great but wow are the tannins heavy. I made a second wine with the leftovers from that batch plus a...