bin o' zin

Time to get the syrah started.  I met Dave at the office, and he set up the “server room winery” with plastic sheeting while I revved up the yeast.  I heated up some water and dissolved in go-ferm, then added ICV-D254 yeast and let it wake up for about 15 minutes.  Then I added some must to let it acclimate to the sugar and acid levels for another 15 minutes.  While that was hanging out, we checked the total acidity with our quick test, and it read around 10, which fit with the pH.  We stirred in some pectin enzyme and then the yeast, then let it sit for the night.  The must was a little cooler than desirable (~65 degrees F), but it should get going anyway.  I had weighed out everything at home before heading over, and I realized there that I probably overestimate the must volume by using weight since I did not discount the stem weight.  Oh well, we’ll see if it foams over I guess!

Since it was Labor Day, I continued my laboring at home.  I bottled the Cellar Craft 5-week Old Vine Zinfandel kit.  I thought the kit might benefit from blending with a little bit of my barrel merlot, and did a little trial with 1:6 or 1:3 merlot:zinfandel.  My hubby and I agreed that the kit was pretty good on its own, so I bottled it as it was.  Should be a good house wine, it was already really good — only a slight kit taste, very fruit-forward with light spice. Very likely this wine will be outstanding in as little as 6 months of aging, and probably won’t last long!

I was racking off my Cellar Craft 5-week Old Vines Zinfandel kit today and noticed this yucky-looking white residue at the top of the wine, sticking to the side of the carboy as it was racked off.  There was a lot of lees at the bottom, too.  I have an extra liter or so of that wine in a separate bottle, but that bottle also has a big layer of lees.  I guess I’ll have to wait to see if this residue is indicative of something bad, it smells OK today.  So, I added the sorbate, Kmeta, and stabilizing/fining agents, then topped off as much as I could with the surplus wine.  It wasn’t quite enough, I ended up adding about 200 mL of water to top it.  I did decide to keep about a liter of the lees from the bottom to see if it would settle out more, then I can add it when I rack for bottling.

I finished bottling the “Bahia Belle” blend and Merlot B (“Embarcadero” merlot) today.  Then I finally started another “easy drinker” red kit that I’ve been excited about, a Cellar Craft Lodi Old Zinfandel.  I wanted a good, easy house zin to have around for grilling and whatnot, so I did a lot of research on winepress.us to see what other people thought were a good pick.

I was excited to see the crushed grape pack included with the kit.  I’m sure I read that this kit had it, but I forgot.  The instructions said to warm up the crushed grapes and then “pour” (I squeezed) them into the mesh bag, included with the kit.

So, I get to stir this every day for the next week to extract all of the goodness out of the grape mess.  As I was finishing up, I was pushing the airlock into the hole in the lid of the bucket, and the black gasket around the hole fell into the bucket.  You would think something rubber might float, but no, it fell to the bottom.  So, I had to plug this one with cotton.  I hope the ants don’t find the shower, they’ve been a problem lately.  At least it should be a little easier to pull the lid off to stir.