Middle Daughter gave me a wine making kit for Christmas. The kit is going to yield four bottles of world-class, award winning, Chardonnay. I didn't start it right after Christmas because the first milestone happens 10 days after starting the process and I was going to be in Hawaii. I forgot about the kit until last night when I saw it on the shelf in the pantry.
Anyway, I used my lunch time while working from home to start the kit. I did all the mixing of the concentrate, putting it into the right container, adding nutrients for the yeast, and finally the yeast itself before putting on the air lock and putting it next to the baseboard heater in my office to keep it nice and warm.It would be warmer in the furnace room but since that's where the Litter Maid resides, I decided to pass on that idea.
The container is a tough, but flexible, plastic and I like the idea of an air lock that will let the carbon dioxide out so I don't have one of those "oh my God what was that" explosions in the middle of the night. Middle Daughter tried to make homemade rootbeer and it literally split a soda bottle open and flattened it when the pressure got too much.
We still like to tease her about her foray into making alcoholic beverages because the root beer had definitely fermented and was packing quite a kick. In fact you could probably call it Boot Rear, a popular beverage in the land of Xanth series written by Piers Anthony.
Posted by bbarton at March 16, 2004 02:49 PM