I've recently started in on making wine, with a Cabernet Sauvignon; right now its sitting at a specific gravity of .998. I'm really excited about making wine, as I've recently been on a trend of trying to make as much as I can (food, beer, wine, crafts, etc) from scratch.
Yesterday Megan and I had a bottle of a Gewürztaminer-Eiswein, a dessert wine. Most dessert wines are slightly higher in alcohol than their mainstream counterparts. Also, usually the prefix Eis- (German for ice) means a form of freeze distillation where you chill your fermented beverage, and remove the ice (the water will freeze out of solution), leaving a higher percentage of alcohol and more intense flavors left in the wine/beer.
This particular Eiswein introduced me to a new concept in the world of Eis-. It was 7% ABV and very sweet. My guess is that they started fermentation in the Gewürztaminer, taking periodic Brix measurements, and at a certain point (with quite a bit of fermentation still left), chilled the wine to kill the yeast. This would leave a slightly alcoholic wine, with quite a bit of fermentable sugars left over, making it very sweet.
I may have to try this sometime, it was quite delicious.
Also on my list of wines to make is a port, as I am a big fan of them. Port wines (Vinho de Porto) are from Portugal, and can be described as "fortified wines." A particular grape harvest is used in two ways:
1) The grapes are made into a wine, and then distilled into a grape brandy (note that this is always done with the same grapes)
2) A second wine is made, and as above with the Eiswein, readings are made, and a a certain sugar content, the grape brandy is added. The high alcohol content in the brandy is too much for the yeast, so it stops fermentation at that point. The wine can be sweeter or drier depending on when this step occurs.
This is a simplistic description of the making of port wine, I'll get more into it as I get closer to making my own, specifically the differences between Tawny ports and Ruby ports, late bottle vintages and much much more.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Environmental Protection Ale
So a while back, my girlfriend applied for a research grant from the EPA for a grad school fellowship. At the time, I brewed a beer to commemorate that (guess what style, hyuck); it turned out pretty successful, and became one of my flagship beers, I had the recipe set in extract, partial mash and all-grain, and came up with some pretty similar results across the board.
People would often ask me, "well, what does it have to do with the environment?" I would always have to laugh and say, "nothing at all."
At the time, I had never had an organic beer that tasted as good as a non-organic alternative in the same category, so I had no interest in brewing organic. However, in the interest of trying to make that beer a little more true to the name, I think I am going to try and dip my feet into the organic mash.
Briess malting out of Wisconsin, produces a wide range of excellent specialty malts, and has quite the organic selection. I like local, and I love Briess (for the most part). They supply all of the malts necessary for my recipe, except for brumalt (I used Gambrinus' Honey Malt), for which I will try to use real honey instead (I'm pretty sure all honey is organic, unless they pump steroids into each bee, I will have to research this).
Hops will be a challenge, there are a couple small organic hop growers in the US, but not nearly enough to make them very easily available. I may have to cave on this, I think I can be comfortable doing this, since organic beer didn't need to be made with organic hops (although I remember hearing that the USDA was thinking about eliminating hops from the allowable ingredients for organic beer, last fall. I'm not sure if that passed or not).
With regards to yeast, I am absolutely sure that I want to stay away from "organic," as I would be surprised to hear that many organic brewers use yeast that is not from lab conditions (I think organic would mean putting your unfermented wort in the woods, opening the top, and letting mother nature do her thing).
Either way, if it turns out, my stock recipe for a pale ale will indeed be more environment friendly. I'll post a recipe when I have one made up (or maybe once I think its not going to suck, I've got most of it down already).
People would often ask me, "well, what does it have to do with the environment?" I would always have to laugh and say, "nothing at all."
At the time, I had never had an organic beer that tasted as good as a non-organic alternative in the same category, so I had no interest in brewing organic. However, in the interest of trying to make that beer a little more true to the name, I think I am going to try and dip my feet into the organic mash.
Briess malting out of Wisconsin, produces a wide range of excellent specialty malts, and has quite the organic selection. I like local, and I love Briess (for the most part). They supply all of the malts necessary for my recipe, except for brumalt (I used Gambrinus' Honey Malt), for which I will try to use real honey instead (I'm pretty sure all honey is organic, unless they pump steroids into each bee, I will have to research this).
Hops will be a challenge, there are a couple small organic hop growers in the US, but not nearly enough to make them very easily available. I may have to cave on this, I think I can be comfortable doing this, since organic beer didn't need to be made with organic hops (although I remember hearing that the USDA was thinking about eliminating hops from the allowable ingredients for organic beer, last fall. I'm not sure if that passed or not).
With regards to yeast, I am absolutely sure that I want to stay away from "organic," as I would be surprised to hear that many organic brewers use yeast that is not from lab conditions (I think organic would mean putting your unfermented wort in the woods, opening the top, and letting mother nature do her thing).
Either way, if it turns out, my stock recipe for a pale ale will indeed be more environment friendly. I'll post a recipe when I have one made up (or maybe once I think its not going to suck, I've got most of it down already).
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