Peach Wine with my sister

My sister has been visiting for the past week, and we've kept the schedule quite full between kayaking, Candace's softball scrimmages and all the fruit harvests needing our attention.

The one little bit of sewing that's been accomplished;  fixing up a split seam on Candace's sweatshirt.  Some darker thread was needed, and after digging around in my spare spool container, I found this gem. 

I wonder how old it is... I'm certain to have gotten it from Grandma Lee many many many years ago.

As planned, Sunday was the day we spent preparing the Peach wine, and taught my sister the steps along the way.   For anyone looking for recipes, the only book I keep on-hand:  The Winemaker's Recipe Handbook.  Just about anything under the sun is included in this book, and it's my goto for all of my wines now-a-days. 

It started with taking the frozen peaches out of the freezer the night before.  I purchased a steam-juicer last summer, so I elected to go that route with the Peach wine rather than ferment with the fruit pulp;  we'll see if there's a noticeable difference in the body of the final product (next summer).

I think dear sis was surprised at how much sugar is needed, specially when preparing a 6-gallon batch of wine.  Enough was added (about 12 lbs) to bring the hydrometer OG (original gravity) reading to 1.096 (resulting in about 13.5% once finished).  I also added the tannin this time around, but only at half the amount.  I've made wines without the tannin and most of them have resulted in nice, light wines.  I figured I'd give the tannin a try to see if there's a noticeable difference.  So far this spring, I've started 6-gallons of Strawberry and 6-gallons of Rhubarb, both with the full-recipe tannin included.  Four gallons of Lilac wine were also started;  THAT's a new experiment for me this year!  I'll dig up the photos from that day and post about it soon.


The Premier Blanc yeast was pitched just this morning, so now... it'll sit and ferment until about Saturday before getting transferred to the carboy.


The left-behind mash from the steam-juicer was then sent through our food mill, giving us about 10 cups of Peachsauce for freezing. 

Another fruit harvest that we are in the midst of -- Strawberries.  And the new patch is treating us WELL this year!!!  Since I already have a 6-gallon batch of wine started (from frozen berries we harvested last year), AND we've already made 2 batches of jam, AND have eaten (almost) our fill of strawberry shortcake, any remaining berries we pick this year will either be mashed with a little bit of sugar and frozen in 2-3 cup packages for winter-eating OR will be frozen in 3 lb packages for wine batches.

Although it's not much to look at right now, yesterday's GORGEOUS day of low 70s allowed me and my sis to weed the ENTIRE garden; tomatoes, corn, potatoes, sunflowers, peppers, broccoli, brussels sprouts, peas, carrots, pole bean, dill, more tomatoes, radish, cucumbers, watermelon, green onions ... The WHOLE garden has never been weeded in a single day before!  I was thankful for my sister's help.

And did you know..... 

It's Brussels sprout -- not Brussel sprout.  😲  Ya learn something new everyday.

And you know what else?.....

I apparently have a child with a sense of humor who felt it was important to request a new sense of humor for ME!  Does anyone else use an Amazon Dot (ie: Alexa) to create a shopping list?  It's a feature my sister introduced to us this week.  Slick!

Happy Tuesday