Welcome to Checkuary! That’s the month where you write the previous year’s date on your checks out of habit, for those of you who aren’t familiar with the oeuvre of Rich Hall. And a very special hello to the visitor from Taiwan who hit the site sometime before 4 this morning… Sometimes I love checking the server logs.
Anyway, I kinda broke the vacation paradigm tonight. I was overwhelmed by a bout of industriousness and did some work. I racked last year’s pumpkin wine into a new carboy to clear before bottling, and did the same for the blueberry wine. In the process, I gained a new respect for the lowly mesh bag. In the absence of a big honking fermenting bucket, the mesh bag is your best friend.
Normally, you put the gunk that you make the wine out of into the mesh bag, then fish it out once it has broken down. Instead I wound up using it as a sort of rough filter, catching the worst of the seeds and skin. I’d pour the gunk though the bag, into a funnel to the new carboy. Then I’d wring the last remnants of liquid out of the bag, leaving a purplish, flaky mass. And a ton of seeds. Thousands upon thousands of the little buggers.
I’m not entirely looking forward to doing raspberry or strawberry wine this year. The seeds kind of freak me out…