Ah–ahcronyms! That stands for Korean Natural Farming: Fermented Plant Juice and Oriental Herbal Nutrient. After weeks of prep, FPJ and OHN were ready to “decant” and use and store. FPJ On 5/2 (about a month ago), I went about in my garden in the early morning collecting the meristems of all the most vigorously growing …
Category Archives: ferment
Racking Day
Yesterday we racked DH’s two wines (3 gallons each of Cabernet and Malbec) and my four meads (one of which turned into vinegar).
Mead Adventures
I got a comment from Ashley about her mead. My apologies, Ashley, for responding so late, but in any case I can’t help much. I’m just a dabbler in mead myself, and do most mead making by the seat of my pants, eyeballing it and experimenting. I’ve not yet had to throw away any mead, …
Wine and the Birth of Song
Music is such a large part of our lives. Amie is playing classical pieces that truly ask the best of her. It is a marvel to see her small fingers dance on the fretless fingerboard, touching each note. Her playing folk with some of the kind folks of the 12 Georgia is a lot of fun. So …
Mead Clearing
The mead I made in September has cleared a lot. This is the bottle (front) in September: It’s much lighter now. Here’s the bottle next to the year-old, wholly clarified mead: The bottom is a moonscape of dead yeast people and quaintly coalesced beeswax. But something else in the yeasts must make them consume and …
Old, Clear Mead and Young, Sweet Mead
This mead is done! It was made with raw honey and champagne yeast. After more than a year in the carboy, I bottled it. It is quite dry, with that typical, somewhat surprising mead flavor reminiscent of honey. it can age some more in the bottle. Look how clear it is, compared to the next …
First Harvests
This is one of my favorite times of the year: the first harvests are coming in. For greens, we are eating kale, lettuce, chard and good king Henry, New Zealand spinach, mache, minutina, and celery. All the herbs – parsley, rosemary, sage, etc. are ready. The malabar spinach is almost ready and it’s a lovely …
Spring?
This has been/still is a hard winter. It’s been one snow storm after another, with long stretches of below freezing temperatures. Â Three weeks ago I caught a bug which developed into pneumonia – hence the silence here – and now that I’ finally up and about, Amie caught something as well. That’s how it goes. …
Homemade Wine Bottle Labels
 Some of these are inside jokes: PS. We’re not in Seattle. Far from it. The majority agreed that labels with castles on them lend a certain cachet to the wine: When the conversation turned to sulfites, the theme changed:  From there on out, it was a free for all: Some of them mention an expiration date:  Â
Bottling the Wine
We bottled the wine (which was pressed, see here, and racked, see here earlier). We ended up with 29 bottles,  8 of Cabernet Franc, 10 of Merlot and 11 of a 70-30 mix. My MIL, FIL and SIL were here, as well as our three NYC friends, and we put everyone to work. Drawing the labels: each label …