Home Cooking Gourmet Blog

Cleaning Stainless Steel Pans

dd — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 17:38:21 +0000

I bought a stainless steel dutch oven a while back. Eventually, it had some burnt food on the bottom which could not be removed. I tried hot water/dishwashing liquid, vinegar, and soaking overnight. Nothing worked. According to Cuisinart, stainless steel pans should not be subjected to steel wool or scraping with metal appliances. The instructions [...]

Racking Again

dd — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 15:13:31 +0000

I racked the wine again. There was sediment (lees) on the bottom so I had to be careful. The lees was noticeably less than when I racked in December. The wine is still a bit cloudy. I lost about 2 cups due to racking. I am going to bulk age another two months before bottling due [...]

Concord Wine Grape Adventure: Sweetening and Stabilizing

dd — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 04:19:52 +0000

The next major step in the Concord wine adventure, assuming the wine will clarify from racking a few times over several months, will be stabilizing and sweetening. The plan is for this to occur in Jan or Feb 2012. I have been researching the best way to sweeten wine, since Concord wine needs it. After [...]

Concord Grape Wine Adventure – Day 44

dd — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 17:51:11 +0000

It has been a month since I filled the current secondary fermenter. After sanitizing the necessary equipment (cubitainer, siphon, siphon hose, hydrometer, hydrometer test tube, airlock), on Dec 5th I racked the wine to a new container. The racking took out all but about 1/4 inch of the wine. There was some definite lees on the [...]

Concord Grape Wine Adventure – Day 28

dd — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 02:54:14 +0000

Overview Timeline Day 1 (Oct 26) – load primary fermenter with grape juice, additives. Measure acid, make adjustment. Day 2 (Oct 27) – A.M. stir in pectin enzyme. P.M. check specific gravity. Adjust, if necessary. Add yeast. Fermentation starts. 70 degrees. Day 11 (Nov 5) – fermentation mostly done. Rack into container with airlock (anaerobic fermentation [...]

Concord Grape Wine Adventure – Day 22

dd — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 15:42:51 +0000

Why rack wine every few months? Why not let it sit until ready for bottling? Autolysis. Yeast cells remaining will eventually feed on the lees. This induces bad flavors into the wine. Racking every few months will prevent this.

Concord Grape Wine Adventure – Day 21

dd — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 16:27:40 +0000

Bulk aging is better than bottling wine and letting it sit. The temperature variation is a lot less on a bulk of wine than individual bottles. I plan on letting the wine sit several months before bottling as quickly as possible. The drawback is the container is tied up aging wine rather than making new wine. Since [...]

Concord Grape Wine Adventure – Day 20

dd — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 16:16:26 +0000

Learned today that moving wine from fermentation environment (70 to 77 degrees F) to a cooler environment (60 degrees) helps clarify the wine. The temperature drop is the reason. I am fortunate to have a basement which is around 60 degrees. Hopefully this will help enough so fining agents do not have to be used, [...]

Concord Wine Grape Adventure – Day 19

dd — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 05:06:04 +0000

I hope I did not introduce metallic contamination. I used a metal soup pot for the primary fermenter. I’ll have to find out if it is stainless steel; I doubt it. Also, I used a sterilized metal soup spoon to stir the must; should have used a long plastic food-grade spoon or glass rod. The metal [...]

Concord Grape Wine Adventure – Day 11

dd — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 22:36:20 +0000

Nov 5, 2011 The yeast activity has definitely subsided. It has been about 6 days since fermentation started. The hydrometer I use is calibrated to read accurately at 60 degrees; note this is the temperature of the liquid being measured, not ambient air temperature. The liquid (i.e. must) is 72 degrees. According to the hydrometer correction chart, [...]