Monthly Archives: May 2014

A Look at a Modern Paul Bunyan and the Wood Choppers Festival

Posted on May 31, 2014 by jolynnpowers

Living in a state where natural resources drive the economy, we see more than our fair share of loggers, forester, natural gas and oil drillers and coal miners. Many of us live off the land in more ways than one. Our families work farms, fall timber, mine coal, manage natural gas lines and wells. We hunt, fish, forage, farm and garden to support this way of life. Many live in tiny towns and hamlets that are lost to cell phone service and are more than an 30 minute drive to a shopping mall. It is in here in the Appalachian Mountains that the WORLD (yes, I do mean World) converges every year over Memorial Day weekend to see who is really the best at their chosen forest craft. The Wood Choppers Festival is a way for anyone interested in forestry, logging, milling and history to enjoy the company of over 150 men and woman who call the Logging life style a passion.

Competitors prepare for the Spring Board competition

This year is the 50th anniversary of the Wood Choppers Festival held in the remote town called Webster Springs, West Virginia. This festival is full of axes, saws and fun that show cases the very best of the logging world. Contestants travel from all over the world to spend the weekend competing and sharing their love. The front man in the above photo is a world champion in this event (Spring Board) and travels here every year from Australia. Many of them come from Canada and Europe to see who can really be a modern Paul Bunyan.

Christopher Powers with a Paul Bunion sign at the 2014 Wood Choppers Festival

Christopher Powers with a Paul Bunyan sign at the 2014 Wood Choppers Festival

This is for any one who does not know the American Folk Tail character Paul Bunyan and for those who remember seeing this as a kid. I think it is funny that in the song “Paul Bunyan” playing throughout the video Paul is only 6′ 3″ and the man in the above photo is the tallest competitor at 6′ 5″ and a leaner version of Paul.

The final day begins with an ax tossing contest and continues through out the afternoon with the standing log, Hot saws and the two-man cross-cut saw contests. Then after the competition many of the choppers visit with the fans, share hardy hand shakes and spend time telling tall tails to one another. At end of the long day the winners of the “World Titles” get announced and awards are given.

Ax tossing at world finals 2014

Spring Board comperitor from New York state at 2014 wood choppers festival

Spring Board competitor from New York state at 2014 wood choppers festival

Winner of Spring Board competetion 2014 Mike Cogar of Webster Springs, West Virginia

Winner of Spring Board competition 2014 Mike Cogar of Webster Springs, West Virginia

Standing Log Chop 2014

Australian World Champion wood chopper

Single man cross-cut saw competition 2014 Mike Cogar of Webster Springs, West Virginia

cross-cut saw finals 2014 Webster Springs, WV

3 cut Hot Saw competitor

Christopher watching with some of the competitors

Jack and Jill contest 2014

Norwegian competitor signing a piece of wood for Christopher 2014 age 5

Today the over all world Champion was actually a local young man from Webster Springs, West Virginia, Mike Cogar. He comes from a long line of wood choppers who were born and raised in the mountains here. Just like Tom and his Grandfather the love of the woods passes from one generation to another.

Thomas Benton Powers logger in Pocahontas county West Virginia

Thomas A Powers sharing his love of the woods with Christopher T Powers the 7th generation to call West Virginia home

Mike and his world-renowned family(both his father and grand father are world champions also) have been major supporters of this tiny town and this competition. It was such a pleasure to met them and share a day with all the wonderful people of this mountain town. It was wonderful to learn more about what it must have been like for my husbands grandfather who worked and lived in the timber camps at the turn of the century. Working with more axes then saws and trying to cut the big timber down to size.The spirit of Paul Bunyan is alive and well here in the woods of West Virginia.

Categories: Appalachian Mountains, back woods, family fun, logging, natural resources, Photos, Webster Springs, West Virginia, Wood Choppers Festival | Tags: appalachian mountains, family fun, Logging, Natural resources, Webster Springs, Webster Springs West Virginia, West Virginia, Wood Choppers Festival | 18 Comments

Wine Making part 3: Racking and Bottling the Dandelion Wine

Posted on May 27, 2014 by jolynnpowers

The final and best step of my wine making project is the racking and bottling ( and of course tasting) of the final project. This has really been the most fun thing I have learned in years and I hope that you try it too. If you missed the previous posts her are the links to see the entire process. Dandelion wine, and Wine Making part 2.

At the end of my last wine post we finished mixing the ingredients for making the wine and starting the fermentation process. The wine looked and smell sweet and we were waiting the ten days to taste test and check the alcohol levels.

So this short post starts at the ten-day mark and goes through getting the sediment out of the wine and bottling and ageing the wine. Working with about 3 gallons is the perfect amount of wine if you want to make just one case of wine. A case of 12 bottles is the most cost-effective way to buy your bottles either mail order or from a local retailer. You get enough wine to drink and share and can keep the box to store the wine in. I like to keep information on the box such as the kind of wine the date made and anything new that you try out on that batch.

case of wine box with information written on it

As you will see I bought screw cap bottles and there are pros and cons to this.. They do not store as well as bottles that are “corked” and need stored in a way that the tops do not become damaged. In my case storing them in the box takes care of this problem. I also bought these because I am a beginner and wanted to reuse the bottles and caps if I make a huge batch of dandelion vinegar. If that happens I could just open the tops and pour the vinegar down the drain and start a new batch. I also did not want to by an expensive bottle corking device and a hundred corks at a time. I spent about$ 1.50 more on the case to get the screw tops and can order more of the tops if they get broken or do not seal well. I got most of my supplies from Northernbrewer.com .

The first step before bottling is to rack the wine to help remove sediment that collects at the bottom of the Primary carboy while the fermentation is going on. Most wines need racking at lest three times, we did our two times and I am sure that in the future I will do all three racking processes. In our case we placed the carboy on the counter the night before we wanted to bottle so that anything we stirred up with moving the bottle would have time to resettle over the nine hours we slept.

The next morning bright and early I got up and washed all the bottles, lids, siphon hose, two buckets and hydrometer with hot soapy water and rinsed them all in a sanitize water mixture.

washing wine bottles with a large bottle brush

While letting everything dry, Tom and I got our siphon hose ready to use. The trick to racking the wine is that you do not want the hose to sit on the bottom of the carboy and suck up all the must that is left on the bottom of the bottle. We rigged up a way to keep the hose from moving loosely around the bottle. We attached the hose with zip ties to a piece of washed wood and placed the hose about 1/2 inch from the bottom of the wood molding.The bottom of our bottle has ridges and traps a large amount of the sediment makes racking quite easy.

Wood molding with hose zip tied to side

The next step is to siphon the wine from the carboy into a bucket to check the taste, alcohol content and remove the sediment. It does not take long to fill the bucket and do a taste and alcohol test with the hydrometer. The wine was running at about 10.5% alcohol at this point and was still fermenting and smelled yeasty. So Tom and I returned the remainder of the wine with out the sediment back into the carboy for about 4 more days.

carboy with wine, First stage of racking and checking alcohol

At 4 days we retested everything. The wine tasted better, smelled less yeasty, and the alcohol content was up to about 11.0% so we were pretty happy. I suggested that we go a head and bottle knowing that the yeast was almost done as the bubbling had all most stopped by day 14. If you plan to bottle at this point I suggest that you add two or three more campdon tablets to the wine to stop the fermentation process and make sure all of your equipment is sterile before bottling. I forgot this step and may regret it in a few months.

Next we took one bucket and placed it full of wine on the counter and placed one on the floor empty. Inside the empty bucket I placed one of the empty bottles that we washed and a sanitized. I siphoned a little wine into the hose and began filling the bottles inside the bucket to prevent a huge mess on the floor if I spilled. Pinching off the tube when the bottle was with in an inch of the neck ring. I repeat this process over and over until I had all twelve bottles full. Then I added twist tops and washed the bottles before storage.

finished Dandelion wine

I put a date on the top of each bottle and at some point will make labels for the wine that I plan to give away as gifts. The bottles will need to rest about 6 months to get the full flavor of all the ingredients blended. So these bottles return to their box case and head down stairs for the summer. I will also know how much more sediment will appear at that point and see what I can do better with the racking process. The wine should retain the cloudy yellow appearance even after aging. So this is one of the few non clear wines I will be making.

For memorial day we did open one of the bottles and share it with my son and his wife. I enjoyed the wine but found it almost to sweet even after using the Hydrometer to help control the dry/sweet mixture. I noticed that when opening the bottle that their was some pressure in the bottle that indicates that my wine was still fermenting in the bottles. This is the mistake I made not adding the campdon tablets. Hopefully in six months,it will taste less sweet as the yeast finishes up its job in the bottles and finish off with a nice 11.5 alcohol content.

The worry with bottling still fermenting wine is two fold. First the wine may continue to ferment and not be able to release the CO2 anywhere and may explode the bottles or caps( what a huge mess) and it is possible that this mixture may not stop at wine and may continue to change into Vinegar, wasting my efforts. I will let you all know what happens in about 6 months!

Thanks for following along on my journey to learn more about how fermentation works and what we can do with it. I have learned so much so far and hope to move on to pickled beets and pickles next if my garden allows. Then maybe around the end of summer a batch of water melon wine for New Years. Something is always cooking here at Mountain Mama so join in.

Categories: country cooking, Dandelions, fermentation, home brewing, Uncategorized, wine | Tags: alcohol content, Bottling wine, dandelion, Dandelion wine, fermentation process, home brewing wine, racking wine, wine | 7 Comments

Cream of Potato, Wild Ramp and Ham soup

Posted on May 22, 2014 by jolynnpowers

For anyone who loves spring in Appalachia there is nothing more defining in the spring then the smelly Ramp. A wild onion that many of us in the hills love and look forward too every year. The traditional way to cook a Ramp is to chop up the greens and all, frying it in bacon grease until soft and serve it with the traditional brown beans( pinto usually) corn bread and fried potatoes. I love this just like any hillbilly, but on occasion, I like to use ramps more like garlic and bring out more of their subtle flavor. I came up with this recipe last spring after we had a large amount of ham left over after Easter. Ramps are at the peak of their short month-long season during this time of the year and we loved this to use up left overs. I have other posts about Ramps if you want more recipe ideas.

Cream of Potato Ramp and Ham soup

washed, roots removed and ready to eat

These are ramps that we forage for and then clean and freeze every spring for summer and fall use. Sadly, they never make it to winter because our family likes to eat them to much. So here is another way to eat a small bunch of ramps without using all the greens. A great way to use up wilted ones or some with out the green stems.

Ramps and Potatoes

This very simple soup is ready in about 30 minutes and produces about 6 servings..

Cream of Potato,Ramp and Ham soup

1/2 stick of butter

1 cup chopped ramp bulbs and 6 to 8 ramps with tops chopped fine

2 gloves or garlic minced

4 cups water

3 chicken bouillon cubes

5 med potatoes

1 1/2 cups left over smoked ham

3/4 cup instant potato flakes

1 can condensed milk or 8 0z of whipping cream

1 bay leaf

1 teaspoon parsley flakes

1 teaspoon celery flakes

salt and pepper to taste

I started with 5 med white potatoes peeled and diced into medium-sized chucks and about 1 cup ramp bulbs and about 6 ramps with tops and about 1 1/2 cups diced ham. Make sure that the ramps get well washed to remove any hidden dirt and chop them fine. They are hard like garlic so mince well to make sure they soften quickly.

melt 1/2 stick butter in the bottom of a 5 or 6 quart stock pot add minced ramps with tops and garlic and season with about a table-spoon salt and a dash of pepper. Saute until soft and aromatic about 5 minutes. Add 4 cups water, 3 bouillon cubes and chunks of potato simmer with Bay leaf about 20 minutes. Until the crisp edges of the potatoes begin to soften into the stock. Then add parsley and celery flakes and about 1 to 2 cups diced smoked ham. The soup appears to have a light green cast to it at this point.

ramps, stock and potatoes simmering

Simmer again for about five minutes and then add 1 can condensed milk and about 3/4 cup potato flakes (you can substitute cream here, I usually always have canned milk on hand so I use it). This will thicken the soup and make it creamy without losing all the texture of the potato chucks in the soup. Make sure the potatoes are soft all the way through at this point, try to stab a chuck with a fork. The potatoes should fall apart or smash when stabbed, if not, continue to simmer for several more minutes. Remove the bay leaf and allow to cool and thicken. I wait about 8 to 10 minutes to thicken the soup.If it still seems to thin, add a few more tablespoons of instant potatoes and add more pepper if needed. Once you add the milk the color appears more of a light tan with the green floating in the soup. Beware, if you add to many greens to the soup it will turn a wonderful grass-green color. I made a batch this way and a couple of my friends felt put off by green soup, so you may want to limit that amount of greens you add.

soup with condensed milk added

This soup also brings out he aroma of the ramps so if you are not completely used to the smell of roasting garlic or of fresh ramps you may not find the aroma of this soup appealing. Our family on the other hand looks forward to the smelly little guys and knows that with that scent comes a wonderful taste of spring. I hope you enjoy and eat more Ramps.

Field of wild growing ramps

Categories: country cooking, Foraging, Ham, ramps, Ramps, soup | Tags: foraged food, Foraging, ham, Left overs, Potato, Ramp, ramps, soup | 5 Comments

The Undiscussed Complications Related to Strep Throat a warning to Parents

Posted on May 16, 2014 by jolynnpowers

This spring has been a long battle for me. I have had some health issue on and off for 5 weeks. Things just started off with a simple spring cold and cough, you know the typical stuff. Then about three good days and was sick again with a sore throat fever and chills. Classic symptoms of Strep Throat and I thought I would wait to see my Dr for a couple of days before running in to get antibiotics. So I did, waiting about 4 days before giving into the swollen glad and body aches that I had on the heals of the sore throat. Note that Strep is almost never seen in adults or teens over 16. It is strange at 45 to hear the clinic P.A. say yes, it was a real case of strep throat and I was actually quite sick. I never knew that there are complications that regularly occur from this bacterial infection. Most of them you would never ever know about until you Goggled the information.

Over they years I have become a little leery about using to many antibiotics and steroids. I was happy to find that my P.A. did not force the issue of a steroid treatment on my first visit but just causally said he would let me call him back if I felt that I needed them without having another appointment fee. We also discussed that with my age he would expect my case to develop into a sinus infection. OK, great! At that point he put me on a strong antibiotic to try to keep that from happening and to support the killing of the Streptococcus bacteria. I left the office feeling that this would be the end of all of my aliments. I was wrong!

After the 4 Th day of antibiotic treatment I was feeling really good. Spent some time with Tom outdoors hiking and mushroom hunting enjoying a wonderful day and spent a nice night playing with Christopher. The next morning was totally different. I woke up to pressure in both ears and a terrible ringing in my right ear. The combination was very disturbing. The ringing lasted several days but over about 24 hours the pressure in my left ear released on its own with a nice Pop! So being a little slow to worry, I weighted three more days before thinking that I needed the steroids . While these short days passed the symptoms got worse. My hearing was declining fast. The first morning was pressure and ringing but I could hear almost normally. By day 4 I had lost all of the hearing from that ear and the ringing had turned into a buzzing. The pressure was steady and very uncomfortable but not getting better.Things were looking like I was going to have to call and get the steroid medication whether I wanted it or not.

In the mean time a friend that I have known for about 15 years contacted me and asked me some serious questions about my situation and explained that her daughter, went deaf in one ear at 17 from a strep infection. Her symptoms acted just like what I had written about in a Facebook post. Well that started me looking up all the information I could on Strep Throat and what her daughter has (idiopathic hearing loss) and what other causes we could find. Not only did I have strep throat just before this but I was also recovering from facial cold sore that I have been fighting with over 20 years. All these factors added up to trouble. Karen explained that if her daughter had taken a steroids they think that they could have saved her hearing…but they waited to long. The period for treatment is less than a month and the hearing loss becomes permanent. I also discovered the more common complications while looking up the ones for my problem… the list is LONG and SCARY.

Strep Throat complications included sinus infections, ear infections,enlarged and damage to the kidneys and middle ear problems, Rheumatic fever that damages the heart,to PANDAS- and O.C.D. ( obsessive compulsive disorder). Holy Crap this is just part of the list. Just think of every kid you have ever known who has had this multiple times. I knew kids growing up that would get it every year or sometimes twice in a year. The risk of complications is real and as a woman who is too old to get strep, I was shocked at the amount of damage a sore throat can cause.

Lucky for me my friend encouraged me to call back to my Dr office and ask to get the steroids ASAP. I did call in for that prescription and began taking them the following morning. The wait was on and I was actually thinking that it would not work. I thought OK, at 45 I would be partly deaf and this was the price I was going to pay. I was wrong and I began to get relief over night.

The second day I picked up the phone and could hear a dial tone. The same one I could not hear the day before and I knew it was working. In about 48 hours the pressure was gone and almost all of my hearing had returned. I still have some issues with ringing but they are better than before. What I have experienced was an emotional roller coaster and has made me more aware of what our kids go through with just a minor cold. I would have never believed that 4 weeks of my life would be lost to a bacterial infection. That what we don’t know can really hurt our health and in this case my hearing. I don’t think it will ever be totally normal but I will take every song bird that I can can hear sing the rest of my life.

So when a child gets diagnosed with a simple case of Strep Throat for their sake take the time to really watch over them closely and make sure that if you see a rash, get complaints about ear pressure or pain, or issues with the stomach that you take it more seriously than before it could make the difference between them hearing your loving words or not hearing at all.

Categories: About me, child care, Healing, health, sickness, Strep Throat | Tags: colds, hearing loss, kids health, medical complications, sickness, Strep Throat | 4 Comments

Wine Making part 2: Dandelion Wine the Fermentation.

Posted on May 7, 2014 by jolynnpowers

As all of you should know by now my New Years Resolution was to learn more about and try to make fermented foods and drinks. So far, I have learned to make sauerkraut ( Toms family has made it for years so I had a lot of help on that one) and now wine. There are several others I want to do like brine pickles, pickled beets ( I love these and have made them before) and maybe if time allows yogurt and farmer cheese. The items I am making are in the order of availability. Dandelions are everywhere so this just made sence to use for my first wine project. I Have already posted about the equipment needed for this project and you can find them at preparations for Dandelion wine making part 1. In this post I will cover the ingredients and steps to get you through fermentation and the next post will cover racking and bottling and ageing.

After gathering your equipment and washing everything and sanitizing it (I use a store-bought cleaner that has a chlorine base but does not taste like it) your carboy, funnel and buckets are ready to collect the needed flowers of Dandelions.

just opening dandelion flower

Christopher picking Dandelions with a plastic kife

Christopher picking Dandelions with a plastic knife

We collected about 4 quarts of flowers that day,enough for my recipe that calls for 1 quart of flower petals to every gallon of wine. I was hoping to make about 3 gallons of wine this time.

After picking you need to remove any of the green that is still attached to the petals. Things like the stem and base of the flower. If you do not remove them they will give the wine a bitter after taste. I sat on the back porch cleaned the flowers for about an hour. This is the hardest part of the process and the most time-consuming. When finished I had Three quarts of very nice petals with very few green leaves mixed in.

Dandelion Petals

I rinsed the flowers and tossed them around to make sure I had no full flowers that Christopher had been playing with on the porch or any bugs or leaves in the batch. I then heated about two gallons of water on the stove until a slow boil. Then poured the hot water over the petals in a five gallon bucket. Letting this mixture sit covered for 2 or 3 days. Making the tea we will need to make the wine.

3 quarts dandelion petals with 2 gallons hot water. to make the “tea”

After three days I strained the tea throw a fine sieve that you saw in the top post getting almost every petal out. This made a nice yellow tea that is the base for the wine.

Strained Dandelion tea

To this tea, I added my fruit, spices, water, Campden tablets and sugar.

The first thing I added was a half a gallon of water…. I will be adding more later and some apple juice.

The fruit I am using are for flavor more than anything. Citrus fruit does not ferment fast or easy but it does add the acidity that you need for good flavor. My recipe calls for 1 lemon and 3 oranges . I add them and 1 box ( 2 1/2 cups) of white raisins to the tea. The raisins provide a nice flavor and a nutrient base for the yeast to grown on. I Also add 2 cups of 100% apple juice for the same reason as the raisins. At this time I also add spices to the tea. I use cinnamon sticks and whole cloves. I love mulled wine so I just thought I would save myself a step an add the spices into the wine, just a personal preference here.

Lemon, Orange and white raisins for a golden wine

100% apple juice as a nutrient starter for yeast adding more gold color

Campden tablets get crushed and added to wine mixture

cinnamon stick for flavor in wine

Now lets talk about the Campden tablets for a second, They stop wild yeast growth and lots of bacteria and sanitize your wine, they help to remove chlorine and other water additives. I used filtered bottled water for my wine but if you use tap water this will help remove the flavor. My easy to fallow rule is one tablet for 1 gallon of wine. I Crushed and added them to the tea and fruit mixture to kill any wild yeast that could be growing on the fruit.Wild yeast loves over ripe fruit so do not use it as it could turn the wine you are working so hard to make into a nice rotten batch of vinegar. Stopping the wild yeast also lets you introduce the type of yeast you want for wine making. You can certainly use regular old bread yeast to make wine but if you want to make the best tasting wine it is better to use a yeast for your type of wine. Also Campen tablets let you control the length of fermentation better. You know when you add the yeast and how much yeast, rather than letting wild yeast control you. So adding the tablets now stops any strange bacteria and yeast growth that you may have accidentally added to your brew and you start out with a nice clean fresh product to add the Montrachet yeast to. You should add the Campden tablets at least 24 hours before adding the yeast.

The next and most messy is adding the sugar that the yeast will have to convert into alcohol. The general rule is 4 cups sugar per gallon of wine. In my case I added twelve cups of sugar to the tea and then took a measurement with a tool for wine making called a hydrometer.This is a way to measure the sugar content in the wine and project alcohol level of the wine after fermentation. They are a complex tool and you may want to learn more about how to use all the things they can do. The tool is also used in beer and liquor making.

Hydrometer flouting in the tea mixture

Thermometer and Hydrometer

After taking the reading off the hydrometer I went to the included chart and 1.09 specific gravity = dry wine and we wanted something a little sweeter so I needed a specific gravity around 1.11 to 1.14, sweet wine runs 1.15 to 1.17. I measured in at 1.10 so with 12 cups of sugar I was low for the sweetness I was looking for.My projected alcohol count was to low also at about 8%. We need more sugar to make a product that was med-sweet and had an alcohol content of 12%. So I added 4 more cups of sugar, mixing them in two at a time and taking a measurement each time.My final product was 1.130 specific gravity and projected alcohol content a little high at 14%. I will adjust the alcohol content later at bottling by adding water to the mixture to reach the exact amount of alcohol in the batch if that is a concern. Since this is a home-made batch it will not matter too much as I am not selling this in the retail market.

Organges, Lemons, spices and raisins are added to the tea

Oranges, Lemons, spices and raisins added to the tea

Now that we have added all of our flavorings to the tea, the half gallon of water, the campden tablets, and almost ten pounds of sugar to the tea, we are ready to let this mixture sit for about 48 hours.This steeps the raisins and spices flavor into the tea/sugar mixture. This also gives the campden tablets time to kill any wild yeast before adding in the my wine yeast.

So two to three days later I open up my bucket and see this.

soaked raisins oranges and lemons floating in tea

The mixture is ready for yeast and getting the fermentation started.

To get the yeast ready I placed 2 cups warm water in a measuring cup with a thermometer and looked for a temperature between 100 degrees and 105 degrees. I opened the package of yeast and dumped it into the water, mixed and waited for the yeast to get frothy, around ten minutes. I then add it to my bucket of fruit and tea and mixed well. The tea will start to bubble very shortly after adding the yeast.

warm water with thermometer and yeast

I got my yeast off the internet from northernbrewer.com a nice med to dry wine yeast that can handle higher amounts of alcohol. Yeast will eventually die from too much alcohol.This one is good up to 13 % alcohol per volume, table wine is usually 12% and home-brew is usually about 14% if you like a sweeter wine higher if you like a dryer wine. We are hoping for an alcohol percent about 12%. I also bought my campen tablets, air lock, bottles and other supplies at this website.

This bubbly frothy mixture we now need to strain out of the “primary” ferment container into the “Secondary” or Carboy bottle. I just took a slotted spoon and pulled out the larger pieces of fruit and spices then strained the remaining tea mixture through a muslin fruit straining bag over my funnel. Get a large one if you hope to make other fruit wines or jelly this one is a med size and would have worked better if it was just a little bigger.

straining the fruit must from the new wine

Now remove the funnel and add a universal bunghole with an hole and the air lock itself.

bunghole and airlock in place

Fill the airlock half way with water to allow for the Co2 to escape and to prevent air from entering the bottle. Again you do not want any wild yeast or germs or bugs into the wine.With in just minutes of moving this bottle to its hiding place it began to move the water in the air lock into one side of the tubes and was bubbling out Co2 out the top.Within hours our home was about 72 degrees and the bubbling was constant.

carboy with airlock hidden away under my kitchen counter

I placed the “secondary” carboy under my kitchen counter. It is out of the families way and in the shade from the sun. Ten days from now I can taste a nip and do another check with my hydrometer to see if all the sugar is gone and to see what % of alcohol we have. If I hit 14% we know that we are at the end of fermentation.

The next post at the end of the ten days will be about racking the wine and bottling it. This is the final steps in the process and then ageing the wine about 6 months to a year in recommended.

Here is my recipe for Dandelion wine

16 cups of sugar ( about ten pounds)

2 1/2 gallons filtered water, two cups warm water for yeast

3 quarts dandelion petals. We picked about 4 to get this

3 oranges

1 lemon

2 1/2 cup golden raisins… or one box

2 cups apple juice

2 cinnamon sticks

20 whole cloves

1 packet powered wine yeast

3 campden tablets