Winemaking

Yay! It’s the last day of these Mini Wine Pak things! I can finally drink my wine!

Yep. The bags still look that same as before.

You have to drain the fermenting pouches into the wine dispensing bladders.

I learned the hard way that the first bit of wine that you drain will be very clouding and gross, so my chardonnay ended up slightly cloudy. So, yeah, if you do this yourself, drain the first bit of wine into the sink until it isn’t cloudy anymore.

I’ve just realized that I put the glasses on the wrong sides in this photo. It should be the white wine on the right and the red wine on the left. Meh.

You insert the wine bladders into boxes for dispensing. You can drink directly from the bladders, but you’re classier that that, aren’t you? AREN’T YOU?

The taste of the wine is pretty meh. It’s slightly fruity. I find that I really miss the oaky flavour that isn’t there, because they weren’t fermented in wooden casks, as is proper. The internet says you can put wood chips in the fermenting pouches to give it a bit of that cask taste, if you really care about that type of thing.

This is the gross sediment that was leftover from the winemaking process. I think I’m going to eat it.

Hey, let’s look in on the Mini Wine Paks, even though they’re not doing anything, because, dammit, I committed to this daily update thing and I’m going to follow through with it, by gum!

Yeah, so, they look pretty much exactly the same as the day before. This was a productive use of my time.

Are you getting as bored of the Mini Wine Paks as I am? How do people manage to age wine for years?

I think the wines are clearing nicely. The merlot is finally looking red, but the chardonnay still looks like some variety of hobo urine.

They’re not fizzing at all, which is a good sign.

The sediment seems to have flattened out since yesterday. I think that I’m going to run the wines through a strainer when I’m draining the bags though.

This look likes a hobo peed in a bag of cocaine. Ew.

Well, today is finally the day, kiddies. The Mini Wine Paks have fermented long enough and it’s time to add the wine stopper and clearer.

Technically, though, they’re already alcoholic and I could drink them now, as long as I didn’t mind drinking bits of dead yeast and grape skins. Yech.

So, here’s how the bags looked before I added anything. There are of course subtle differences from previous days, but since I haven’t bother to have a controlled lighting situation throughout this process, you probably can’t actually see the difference.

I added the wine stopper and shook the bags vigorously. This killed the yeast and stopped the reaction and the bubbling in the bags. If the yeast isn’t killed completely, my bags could undergo a secondary fermentation and my wines will be fizzy.

I added the two clearers to  the wines. This cause the particles in the bags to start falling to the bottom.

Within minutes, there was a large amount of sediment forming on the bottom of the bags. Since the nozzles on the bags are also near the bottom, I’m wondering how I can drain the bags without any of this sediment coming with the wine?

Blah. Blah. Blah. Mini Wine Paks. Blah. Blah. Blah. Check in.

Why is this taking so long? Why are you torturing me by making me wait?

The bubbling in the bags seems to be almost finished, which is good because tomorrow is the day when I’m supposed to add the wine stopper and clearers.

Hopefully the wine clearer fixes the colour of these wines, because currently the merlot is purple and the chardonnay looks like the urine of a sick person.

You know what would make these Mini Wine Pak things better? If they made wine instantly, instead of ten days. Why with all our science and doohickeys can we not make that a reality?

The bags don’t seem to be bubbling as much today as they have previously. The yeast must be running out of things to eat. You can see in the photo that the bags aren’t as puffed-up as they once were.