Saturday, July 23, 2011

Homemade Pino Gris

Here are a few pics of my first wine creation! It's a Pino Gris from a kit. This kit makes 6 gallons, so roughly 30 750ml wine bottles. The process is extremely easy once you have the equipment. There isn't any brewing as in beer making. You simply mix the juice with water, add some nutrients, add the yeast, and wait. It's slightly more technical, but not much! The only struggle I have had is keeping the temperature relatively steady, given our crazy heat this summer. The pics here are after a few weeks of fermentation as I'm now transferring it to a secondary fermenter. The original gravity was about 1.074 and the gravity right now is 1.000. So, the abv at this point is about 9.5%. It's very light, crisp, and slightly fruity. It needs to ferment a bit more and age a bit, but this one is supposed to be ready earlier than other wines. So hopefully I can have it ready to drink before the heat dies down so we can enjoy it as a nice, light summer wine. And at $2/bottle, I can spare a few bottles to some worthy friends and family. Any takers?

Super Healthy Summer Smoothie

I know I just recently posted a smoothie pic, but here's another.
Sorry for the low quality shot. I'm sitting on my newly-sanded porch, so I sacrificed your viewing pleasure for my comfort. It's not the prettiest smoothie, anyway. But, it's good! Here's the recipe:

-About 1 cup organic Kale (from our CSA farm share with Red Fire Farm in Granby, MA)
-About 1 cup blueberries
-About 6 strawberries (fresh picked, frozen)
-1 frozen banana
-2 cups water

Needs something else but overall it's good!