Well, let's start off with a few updates since Fall. Probably the saddest news is the loss of our bees. We had an odd Winter and with the mix of weather changes, I believe the bees population got too low and we lost our queen at some point. While we were unhappy about the loss, people need to understand that most commercial bee keepers may lose up to a third or more of their bees over winter. There are a lot of reasons and unusual suspects for the underlying cause, but the result is the same. We did pull a gallon of honey off the hive, but it was not very tasty at all. I spoke to Jim, our bee specialist and he advised us to "get deeper down." He said that some bees will fill up the hive with whatever they can at the end of the year, but put in good stuff down closer to the hive. As Spring came and other bees became active, we pretty much gave away the rest of the honey to the cause of other hives. I'm not too disappointed on this as it went to viable colonies.
I did make up some peach wine, some pluot wine (the fruit is a plum that tastes a bit like an apricot). The peach was a bit watery, but the pluot was light and not too bad. While good experiments, I probably will not try those ones again and I'll drink just about anything. The blueberry turned out fantastic. It had almost a red wine taste to it with a decided blueberry taste on the tongue. We are going to pick more blueberries this weekend to start another run.
Robin piped up again about wanting a still. Well...we contacted Mile High Distilleries and purchased a 3 gallon reflux/pot still. It is a real beaut and works wonderfully. We are using it currently as a pot still and have been playing around with rum. We have done a couple gallons (after distillation) of rum. Even with the pot still setup, it came out at 140 proof and hot enough to get a rocket in orbit. To lower the octane, I put back in distilled water and got it to 100 proof after adding in a bit of molasses and some Jamaican rum essence. The end result was tasted like Meyer's rum with a mule kick at the tail end. We shared some samples and have a bunch of folks pestering us now and then for a smackeral more. Right now, there is about 14 gallons of rum "wine" percolating and will be ready to distill in week or so. We will likely get about 3 gallons of rum, possibly a bit more after distillation and adjustments.
Here is a shot of Ol' Miss:
Here is a shot of 7 gallons of rum wine being transferred (I have 7 more that went into the emptied plastic container):
About a week ago, my sister Sharon called and said her currants were ready for picking. We had some conflicts in scheduling and were unable to trot down to Mabton for the picking. I was pretty sad about it, but guess who showed up yesterday with about 6 1/2 pounds of red currants? Oh Yeah! We pressed out almost a gallon of juice off of them and have just under 2 gallons of currant wine a perkin' in two small carboys. I think we will get about 24 splits this year and I am excited!
I have a recipe that called for 3 pounds of currant that made one gallon of currant wine. Here is a shot of the double batch on the scale--too pretty!:
While pretty, it is not as efficient as I would have liked. Last year, I think I must have been stronger, or perhaps did a smaller amount of berries. I found much of the berries did not get a good crush. What to do, what to do? My sister Sharon (my blessing) loaned us out a juicer that will make the strongest of fruit shake in their skins. Here is Bertha augering out the juice:
Once done, here is the juice with the plugs beside. It's pretty amazing how little fluid was in the plugs to the right. Any remaining bits in the juice get separated in the distilling and racking process. I am well pleased:
On other news, Robin went out and purchased me a trailer. We have been talking about making a teardrop camper. I have plans I purchased from Kevin Hauser (Kuffel Creek) years ago and now am in the process of building one. The trailer frame is done as is the flooring, rough wiring, water tank, and spare tire. It is ready for the walls and will be one of my Summer projects.
We've been busy cleaning up around here and while finding the back of the barn, I ran into an old friend. It was the 11 1/2 strip built canoe I finished a few years ago. It had a bit of fiberglass on the bottom that had pulled away from the cedar and I never got around to fixing it. Here is a picture of me testing out the results of the repair and updated varnish:
This is a good spot to stop for the moment. You now have the updated pics.; I will do best efforts to do a post on the rum run. It is quite a bit different than just bottling and Robin has designs on mixing some fruit in the rum this time. We shall see. Take care and until next time--regards,
