I've been processing away all day today.    

I pitted the sour cherries and had about 4 gallons of frozen blackcaps in the freezer.  It is OFFICIALLY time to make Blackcap Jam and Wine!

Here's this years first small batch of Blackcap Jam!

Follow the link above to find my original recipes for these. 

This year I'm doing a variation on the Blackcap wine recipe that includes 2 lbs of pitted sour cherries.  For the fruit, you just add 2 lbs Blackcaps and 2 lbs Sour cherries.  Mash, add dried cranberries (or golden raisins) as suggested let set 24 hours, and carry on from there just as the instructions from the original post tell you!

First, you pit the Sour Cherries!

Put all of your frozen fruit (cherries and blackcaps) into a large pot, add raisins (or dried/sweetened cranberries), and top off with 4 quarts of water.

Cover with a hand towel and set sit 24 hours.  This is actually 2 different batches of wine. One plain Blackcap, and one Sour cherry/blackcap

See the original recipe here!
Have Fun, and Happy Fermenting!!!

Ok.  If you live anywhere close to apple country, or even have access to a store or market with fresh apple cider this is so, SO easy to make.

We took a trip to one of the local cider mills (Mark and I  went to school with the family who owns the place, so we're partial to their cider) and Honeycrisp apples were being pressed that day.  We bought 4 1/2 gallons of cider, and some cider doughnuts for the kids and brought the haul back home. 1/2 gallon went in the refridgerator for later, and the other 4 got to sit out on the table until they came to room temperature.

The Summer Solstice was a busy day around here! And the beer that resulted from my nettle harvest is ready (in just under 2 weeks).  It's carbonated, zingy with a large dose of citrus, and has the bitterness of mature nettle that is reminiscent of Cascade hops.

*side-note*    Mature stinging nettle, in our area, is bitter. Not completely unpalatable...but my kids and husband did not appreciate it in the soup that I made.  If you're using your nettle in a food recipe that you do not want to be mildly bitter, use young nettle early in the season.  I'll be trying this again next May, since I now know where there's a large patch of it.

And now, on to the beer!

We picked 6 quarts of strawberries on the Summer Solstice, as you may recall.  2 for eating (and pancakes), 2 for wine, and 2 for strawberry rhubarb jam. 

I got the wine going right away that day and it has been wildly fermenting ever since!  Yep, needed a blowoff tube again with this batch.  Never a dull moment around here!

So here's the recipe for preserving the flavor of the Summer Solstice, that'll be ready just in time for the Winter Solstice... when we can ALL use a little more sunshine (or at least a reminder of it).

Mash the sugar into the berries, then add 2 quarts of water.  Let the mixture stand covered with a kitchen towel for 24 hours. 

Stir mixture and then strain the liquid into a 2 gallon carboy (I actually put mine in a 3 liter carboy... and had to discard some of the liquid to make it fit). 

In a mason jar, make a yeast starter culture by combining the wine yeast, yeast nutrient, and orange juice.  Cover, shake vigorously, and let stand for about an hour until it gets bubbly; then add to the must.

Add the lemon juice and tea stir with a skewer or chopstick, and airlock the fermentation vessel.  Allow the mixture to ferment to completion.



When it has finished fermenting (no more bubbles are coming out of the airlock), bottle, cork, and cellar the wine.

Wait at least 6 months before sampling.

I have to admit, the sunny warm days over the last couple of weeks have made me manic.  Like the kind of manic where you can't stop moving and doing even to sleep.  So, I channelled the energy, had a fantastic birthday, Mother's day, and visit with my brother and his wife, and concentrated on the abundance of dandelions that have finally sprung up all around us!    I already wrote an entry on the how-to of Dandelion Wine making when I excitedly realized the 2013 batch was ready to try back in March during a late season snowstorm.  But I've been so preoccupied with dandelions lately I'm feeling the need to share a mostly picture entry documenting the creation of my 2014 batch of wine!


Spring has finally Sprung!



There are SO many Dandelions this year and the girls love to pick!

My helpers!


Filled up the under-seat compartment... pink wagons are SUPER handy...



6 cups of dandelion petals... my fingers were numb at this point!

Dandelion must at the bottom of our 5 gallon food grade bucket (it ended up being about 1 gallon of liquid/petals/other ingredients).  The bucket was then covered loosely with aluminium foil and left to ferment for 3 days...




Today I strained the liquid and racked it into a 2 gallon fermenting vessel with an airlock on the top.   It will be ready to bottle in about 3 months!

This has been so much fun! One of my very favorite hobbies!