Image 1 — Update: What people should do with bad wine, and how I successfully rehabilitated 20 year old poorly made wine
Image 2 — Update: What people should do with bad wine, and how I successfully rehabilitated 20 year old poorly made wine
Image 3 — Update: What people should do with bad wine, and how I successfully rehabilitated 20 year old poorly made wine
Image 4 — Update: What people should do with bad wine, and how I successfully rehabilitated 20 year old poorly made wine
Image 5 — Update: What people should do with bad wine, and how I successfully rehabilitated 20 year old poorly made wine

Update: What people should do with bad wine, and how I successfully rehabilitated 20 year old poorly made wine

If you remember my last post; I inherited probably over 30 gallons of poorly made wine that had been sitting in a dead grandfathers wine room for 20 plus years. This is a write up of my experiment with the first 5 gallons that was a tremendous success. The 5 gallons in question was labeled "Bianco Bonanza," Likely a mixed varietal white. I just think that's cute. I asked the original owners if they wanted updates on the wines rehabilitation so I already have this all written out.

Tl:dr- I made it into 6 heavily intentionally complexly flavoured wine coolers, and a mulled wine. Below is my method of rebalancing and rehabilitating.

First racking and clarification. I just used sparkaloid. It did the job, didn't get rid of the autolysis note but it cleared up crystal. The goal for the 5 gallons was to split it into two separate parts, one which would be a series of wine coolers and the other which would be a more experimental mulled wine. I had a thought that since the wine more or less tasted empty other than the flaw, that it would take flavor from pretty much anything quite well. there are classes of wine that are becoming much more popular and modernity because they're funkier, orange wines for example, also Spanish sidra is their apple cider but they allow it to have a natural fermentation which makes it kind of unpredictable, and much funkier. I make a lilac wine every year, and this year's failed because I didn't actually pasteurize my syrup so it also kind of had a funky wild fermentation. I figured the acetic acid that was produced here would probably go far to round this out and make it much brighter so that was added first for both batches. it absolutely lifted the wine significantly and covered the major flaw quite well on its own.

I intentionally made flavour profiles that were quite intricate and leaned into savoury-ness for the wine coolers.

  • strawberry/mint/coriander/sumac/hibiscus
  • ginger/peach/cardamom
  • pumpking/mulling spices
  • cherry/rosemary and star anise
  • Black berry/summer savory/ lemon
  • plum/mixed field flowers and cinnamon.

The addition of herbs was very intentional along with the fruit syrups that I had made through the cheong method; luckily I just had all these sitting around I just had to make combinations that made sense. The herbaceousness should add an element that rounds out that flaw. The pumpkin cheong was made from the guts of a pumpkin that I hollowed out last october :D. The cheong syrups themselves also had dormant yeast that led to surprisingly vigorous bottle carbonation. Finally some acid correction with citric and malic acid. These were then pasteurized to finish them as a sweet, very drinkable treat.

Lastly I made my mulled wine, used quite a bit of spices that I had my cabinet to see if I could get something a little less pedestrian. Black cardamom along with green cardamom, Ginger, orange peel, long pepper, allspice, cloves, nutmeg, pink peppercorns, maple syrup, star anise, juniper, cinnamon, an old can of spiced apple cider I canned a few years ago, and a little bit of an older batch of maple wine that I made. It's pretty good. Less crushable, but very nice warm, and it will be a treat with some warm apple cider and a little orange juice added for some freshness.

To the people who said this was pointless, a waste a time or gross, please be more uncomfortable with waste in your day to day life. I think the work of a man should not be wasted. I think the fruits of the earth should also not be wasted. We have engendered a culture of waste. It is at the core of much of our social rot. Cookery as we know it is a matter of preservation. Almost all the beautiful food and drink you've ever had was originally made to make those ingredients go a little further for a little longer. That's literally what wine is. If I am to take something that was destined to be refuse and make it whole again, that is how I pay respect to this world we live in, and make it a little better. I am lucky to be in the position to have the will to do so.

Now if anyone has any suggestions for the rest, I'm all ears!

u/SpadesHeart — 9 days ago

Update: What people should do with bad wine, and how I successfully rehabilitated 20 year old poorly made wine

If you remember my last post; I inherited probably over 30 gallons of poorly made wine that had been sitting in a dead grandfathers wine room for 20 plus years. This is a write up of my experiment with the first 5 gallons that was a tremendous success. The 5 gallons in question was labeled "Bianco Bonanza," Likely a mixed varietal white. I just think that's cute. I asked the original owners if they wanted updates on the wines rehabilitation so I already have this all written out.

Tl:dr- I made it into 6 heavily intentionally complexly flavoured wine coolers, and a mulled wine. Below is my method of rebalancing and rehabilitating.

First racking and clarification. I just used sparkaloid. It did the job, didn't get rid of the autolysis note but it cleared up crystal. The goal for the 5 gallons was to split it into two separate parts, one which would be a series of wine coolers and the other which would be a more experimental mulled wine. I had a thought that since the wine more or less tasted empty other than the flaw, that it would take flavor from pretty much anything quite well. there are classes of wine that are becoming much more popular and modernity because they're funkier, orange wines for example, also Spanish sidra is their apple cider but they allow it to have a natural fermentation which makes it kind of unpredictable, and much funkier. I make a lilac wine every year, and this year's failed because I didn't actually pasteurize my syrup so it also kind of had a funky wild fermentation. I figured the acetic acid that was produced here would probably go far to round this out and make it much brighter so that was added first for both batches. it absolutely lifted the wine significantly and covered the major flaw quite well on its own.

I intentionally made flavour profiles that were quite intricate and leaned into savoury-ness for the wine coolers.

  • strawberry/mint/coriander/sumac/hibiscus
  • ginger/peach/cardamom
  • pumpking/mulling spices
  • cherry/rosemary and star anise
  • Black berry/summer savory/ lemon
  • plum/mixed field flowers and cinnamon.

The addition of herbs was very intentional along with the fruit syrups that I had made through the cheong method; luckily I just had all these sitting around I just had to make combinations that made sense. The herbaceousness should add an element that rounds out that flaw. The pumpkin cheong was made from the guts of a pumpkin that I hollowed out last october :D. The cheong syrups themselves also had dormant yeast that led to surprisingly vigorous bottle carbonation. Finally some acid correction with citric and malic acid. These were then pasteurized to finish them as a sweet, very drinkable treat.

Lastly I made my mulled wine, used quite a bit of spices that I had my cabinet to see if I could get something a little less pedestrian. Black cardamom along with green cardamom, Ginger, orange peel, long pepper, allspice, cloves, nutmeg, pink peppercorns, maple syrup, star anise, juniper, cinnamon, an old can of spiced apple cider I canned a few years ago, and a little bit of an older batch of maple wine that I made. It's pretty good. Less crushable, but very nice warm, and it will be a treat with some warm apple cider and a little orange juice added for some freshness.

To the people who said this was pointless, a waste a time or gross, please be more uncomfortable with waste in your day to day life. I think the work of a man should not be wasted. I think the fruits of the earth should also not be wasted. We have engendered a culture of waste. It is at the core of much of our social rot. Cookery as we know it is a matter of preservation. Almost all the beautiful food and drink you've ever had was originally made to make those ingredients go a little further for a little longer. If I am to take something that was destined to be refuse and make it whole again, that is how I pay respect to this world we live in, and make it a little better. I am lucky to be in the position to have the will to do so.

Now if anyone has any suggestions for the rest, I'm all ears!

u/SpadesHeart — 9 days ago

Update: What people should do with bad wine, and how I successfully rehabilitated 20 year old poorly made wine

If you remember my last post; I inherited probably over 30 gallons of poorly made wine that had been sitting in a dead grandfathers wine room for 20 plus years. This is a write up of my experiment with the first 5 gallons that was a tremendous success. The 5 gallons in question was labeled "Bianco Bonanza," Likely a mixed varietal white. I just think that's cute. I asked the original owners if they wanted updates on the wines rehabilitation so I already have this all written out.

Tl:dr- I made it into 6 heavily intentionally complexly flavoured wine coolers, and a mulled wine. Below is my method of rebalancing and rehabilitating.

First racking and clarification. I just used sparkaloid. It did the job, didn't get rid of the autolysis note but it cleared up crystal. The goal for the 5 gallons was to split it into two separate parts, one which would be a series of wine coolers and the other which would be a more experimental mulled wine. I had a thought that since the wine more or less tasted empty other than the flaw, that it would take flavor from pretty much anything quite well. there are classes of wine that are becoming much more popular and modernity because they're funkier, orange wines for example, also Spanish sidra is their apple cider but they allow it to have a natural fermentation which makes it kind of unpredictable, and much funkier. I make a lilac wine every year, and this year's failed because I didn't actually pasteurize my syrup so it also kind of had a funky wild fermentation. I figured the acetic acid that was produced here would probably go far to round this out and make it much brighter so that was added first for both batches. it absolutely lifted the wine significantly and covered the major flaw quite well on its own.

I intentionally made flavour profiles that were quite intricate and leaned into savoury-ness for the wine coolers.

  • strawberry/mint/coriander/sumac/hibiscus
  • ginger/peach/cardamom
  • pumpking/mulling spices
  • cherry/rosemary and star anise
  • Black berry/summer savory/ lemon
  • plum/mixed field flowers and cinnamon.

The addition of herbs was very intentional along with the fruit syrups that I had made through the cheong method; luckily I just had all these sitting around I just had to make combinations that made sense. The herbaceousness should add an element that rounds out that flaw. The pumpkin cheong was made from the guts of a pumpkin that I hollowed out last october :D. The cheong syrups themselves also had dormant yeast that led to surprisingly vigorous bottle carbonation. Finally some acid correction with citric and malic acid. These were then pasteurized to finish them as a sweet, very drinkable treat.

Lastly I made my mulled wine, used quite a bit of spices that I had my cabinet to see if I could get something a little less pedestrian. Black cardamom along with green cardamom, Ginger, orange peel, long pepper, allspice, cloves, nutmeg, pink peppercorns, maple syrup, star anise, juniper, cinnamon, an old can of spiced apple cider I canned a few years ago, and a little bit of an older batch of maple wine that I made. It's pretty good. Less crushable, but very nice warm, and it will be a treat with some warm apple cider and a little orange juice added for some freshness.

To the people who said this was pointless, a waste a time or gross, please be more uncomfortable with waste in your day to day life. I think the work of a man should not be wasted. I think the fruits of the earth should also not be wasted. We have engendered a culture of waste. It is at the core of much of our social rot. Cookery as we know it is a matter of preservation. Almost all the beautiful food and drink you've ever had was originally made to make those ingredients go a little further for a little longer. If I am to take something that was destined to be refuse and make it whole again, that is how I pay respect to this world we live in, and make it a little better. I am lucky to be in the position to have the will to do so.

Now if anyone has any suggestions for the rest, I'm all ears!

u/SpadesHeart — 9 days ago

I always forget to take pictures, but my infinite broccoli greens adventure is near its end

There is still a surprising amount in my fridge but here is the entire manifest as of yet:

-broccoli stem Chow Chow (classic pickling)

-Asian soy broccoli pickles (classic pickling)

-broccoli kimchi (ferment)

-dehydrated broccoli (dehydrated)

-broccoli greens powder (dehydrated)

-Gundruk (ferment and dehydrated)

-fermented broccoli greens Furakake (ferment and dehydrated)

-blanched broccoli greens (Frozen)

-blanched broccoli (Frozen)

-pasculinas (cooked food prep)

-broccoli greens and cottage cheese croquettes (food prep)

To the person who suggested gundruk, this is a fantastic suggestion that I think should be more common. The traditional Nepali recipe seems to be somewhat unsafe which is I imagine why it's not common, but if made like a salted lactic ferment, it's perfectly safe and delicious. Someone made another suggestion of furakake, which I used the Gundruk to make, and to be perfectly Frank it is by far the best outcome of this entire project considering how expensive that stuff is. Luckily I had many other ingredients I dehydrated myself that were congruent which I could infuse with MSG and soy: sesame seeds, dehydrated paprika, lamb jerky, dehydrated shiitake and button mushrooms. Honestly I checked the ingredients list of a few different furakake, the seaweed's pretty far down the list actually. honestly think my product is better. And I can use it with reckless abandon.

u/SpadesHeart — 22 days ago

I always forget to take pictures, but my infinite broccoli greens adventure is near its end

There is still a surprising amount in my fridge but here is the entire manifest as of yet:

-broccoli stem Chow Chow (classic pickling)

-Asian soy broccoli pickles (classic pickling)

-broccoli kimchi (ferment)

-dehydrated broccoli (dehydrated)

-broccoli greens powder (dehydrated)

-Gundruk (ferment and dehydrated)

-fermented broccoli greens Furakake (ferment and dehydrated)

-blanched broccoli greens (Frozen)

-blanched broccoli (Frozen)

-pasculinas (cooked food prep)

-broccoli greens and cottage cheese croquettes (food prep)

To the person who suggested gundruk, this is a fantastic suggestion that I think should be more common. The traditional Nepali recipe seems to be somewhat unsafe which is I imagine why it's not common, but if made like a salted lactic ferment, it's perfectly safe and delicious. Someone made another suggestion of furakake, which I used the Gundruk to make, and to be perfectly Frank it is by far the best outcome of this entire project considering how expensive that stuff is. Luckily I had many other ingredients I dehydrated myself that were congruent which I could infuse with MSG and soy: sesame seeds, dehydrated paprika, lamb jerky, dehydrated shiitake and button mushrooms. Honestly I checked the ingredients list of a few different furakake, the seaweed's pretty far down the list actually. honestly think my product is better. And I can use it with reckless abandon.

u/SpadesHeart — 22 days ago

I always forget to take pictures, but my infinite broccoli greens adventure is near its end

There is still a surprising amount in my fridge but here is the entire manifest as of yet:

-broccoli stem Chow Chow (classic pickling)

-Asian soy broccoli pickles (classic pickling)

-broccoli kimchi (ferment)

-dehydrated broccoli (dehydrated)

-broccoli greens powder (dehydrated)

-Gundruk (ferment and dehydrated)

-fermented broccoli greens Furakake (ferment and dehydrated)

-blanched broccoli greens (Frozen)

-blanched broccoli (Frozen)

-pasculinas (cooked food prep)

-broccoli greens and cottage cheese croquettes (food prep)

To the person who suggested gundruk, this is a fantastic suggestion that I think should be more common. The traditional Nepali recipe seems to be somewhat unsafe which is I imagine why it's not common, but if made like a salted lactic ferment, it's perfectly safe and delicious. Someone made another suggestion of furakake, which I used the Gundruk to make, and to be perfectly Frank it is by far the best outcome of this entire project considering how expensive that stuff is. Luckily I had many other ingredients I dehydrated myself that were congruent which I could infuse with MSG and soy: sesame seeds, dehydrated paprika, lamb jerky, dehydrated shiitake and button mushrooms. Honestly I checked the ingredients list of a few different furakake, the seaweed's pretty far down the list actually. honestly think my product is better. And I can use it with reckless abandon.

u/SpadesHeart — 22 days ago
▲ 25 r/noscrapleftbehind+1 crossposts

Anybody else do this for their stock of cooking wine lol

At the end of fermentation and processing, you usually end up with a lot of wine with suspended solids that just go into the garbage, especially if you use a fining agent like bentonite. You can kind of just filter it. It doesn't taste as good obviously as the rest of the wine but it is completely fine to cook with. In fact in some ways they might actually be better, a lot of things that are flaws in a wine are good in savory food.

u/SpadesHeart — 23 days ago

I have an.. interesting problem. Doctoring 20-year-old poorly made wine to taste good

Tl;dr- got an extraordinary amount of 20-year-old wine from an old dead guy. Rather than see it go down the drain, I figured I might be able to doctor it. It's still wine, but he didn't rack enough so it has off flavors. Looking for things to do with it or ways to fix it.

Near where I live, a family was moving and they were finally clearing out their grandfather's wine room. Apparently he died 15 years ago, much of the things in this picture were marked 2000. All of it was covered with a thick layer of soot and mold which I have now scrubbed off.

He was not a particularly good winemaker, as I don't think he was making wine for the long term, he was just making things to drink. Clearly wasn't racking enough. That being said, I did find campden tablets in his stuff so I figured if it was sealed and full, it might still be drinkable. The family assumed everything turned to vinegar because they weren't really read on the topic. Also because they probably tasted wine from the giant demijon that he likely used to siphon bottles from every so often when he wanted a bottle of wine so it just had a ton of headspace constantly. Out of curiosity, I took all the wine other than the giant 54 l demijons.

So far I've only tried the white wine in the 5 gallon carboy which looks like he never racked again. It is wine, it's not vinegar. Is it great wine? No. The perfume has obviously faded, and I think so much extended contact with the lees has led to autolysis, leading to a somewhat... Meaty taste in the wine. That being said, it is a balanced wine. Tartness and tannins were where they should be.

I'm going to tackle them one at a time, but I think this is rescuable.

My thought process for the 5 gallons is to add back what is gone. If it's lacking perfume, why not add some? If I make fruit wine coolers, or vermouth, or bottled mulled wine, I might be able to cover its emptiness. Sugar itself would probably do a lot of work. Wine coolers might be especially smart since they dilute and add carbonation.

The bigger concern is the meaty note. I think first order of operations would be racking it obviously, and then hitting it with some sort of fining agent. Probably sparkaloid. I bet that by itself will do a world of good. Once I have the neutral wine base, I can do things with it. If anyone has a strong suggestion on how to get rid of that extended Lee's contact note, I'm all ears.

A lot of these wines are named grapes, and he had a crusher and the juicer so he was doing that part holistically. I don't know if all of these wines will be good, if any are actually vinegar though probably reduce them into homemade balsamic. On the whole though, I think there's a lot of value here if I play my cards right.

If anyone has any other strong suggestions other than drinking, I'm willing to listen. It's a lot of wine.

u/SpadesHeart — 1 month ago

I have an... Interesting problem. Doctoring poorly made 20 year old wine to taste good

I'm guessing this probably won't be the best subreddit for this, but who knows.

Tl;dr- got an extraordinary amount of 20-year-old wine from an old dead guy. Rather than see it go down the drain, I figured I might be able to doctor it. It's still wine, but he didn't rack enough so it has off flavors. Looking for things to do with it or ways to fix it.

Near where I live, a family was moving and they were finally clearing out their grandfather's wine room. Apparently he died 15 years ago, much of the things in this picture were marked 2000. All of it was covered with a thick layer of soot and mold which I have now scrubbed off.

He was not a particularly good winemaker, as I don't think he was making wine for the long term, he was just making things to drink. Clearly wasn't racking enough. That being said, I did find campden tablets in his stuff so I figured if it was sealed and full, it might still be drinkable. The family assumed everything turned to vinegar because they weren't really read on the topic. Also because they probably tasted wine from the giant demijon that he likely used to siphon bottles from every so often when he wanted a bottle of wine so it just had a ton of headspace constantly. Out of curiosity, I took all the wine other than the giant 54 l demijons.

So far I've only tried the white wine in the 5 gallon carboy which looks like he never racked again. It is wine, it's not vinegar. Is it great wine? No. The perfume has obviously faded, and I think so much extended contact with the lees has led to autolysis, leading to a somewhat... Meaty taste in the wine. That being said, it is a balanced wine. Tartness and tannins were where they should be.

I'm going to tackle them one at a time, but I think this is rescuable.

My thought process for the 5 gallons is to add back what is gone. If it's lacking perfume, why not add some? If I make fruit wine coolers, or vermouth, or bottled mulled wine, I might be able to cover its emptiness. Sugar itself would probably do a lot of work. Wine coolers might be especially smart since they dilute and add carbonation.

The bigger concern is the meaty note. I think first order of operations would be racking it obviously, and then hitting it with some sort of fining agent. Probably sparkaloid. I bet that by itself will do a world of good. Once I have the neutral wine base, I can do things with it. If anyone has a strong suggestion on how to get rid of that extended Lee's contact note, I'm all ears.

A lot of these wines are named grapes, and he had a crusher and the juicer so he was doing that part holistically. I don't know if all of these wines will be good, if any are actually vinegar though probably reduce them into homemade balsamic. On the whole though, I think there's a lot of value here if I play my cards right.

If anyone has any other strong suggestions other than drinking, I'm willing to listen. It's a lot of wine.

u/SpadesHeart — 1 month ago

I have... An interesting problem. Doctoring poorly made 20 year old wine to taste good

Tl;dr- got an extraordinary amount of 20-year-old wine from an old dead guy. Rather than see it go down the drain, I figured I might be able to doctor it. It's still wine, but he didn't rack enough so it has off flavors. Looking for things to do with it or ways to fix it.

Near where I live, a family was moving and they were finally clearing out their grandfather's wine room. Apparently he died 15 years ago, much of the things in this picture were marked 2000. All of it was covered with a thick layer of soot and mold which I have now scrubbed off.

He was not a particularly good winemaker, as I don't think he was making wine for the long term, he was just making things to drink. Clearly wasn't racking enough. That being said, I did find campden tablets in his stuff so I figured if it was sealed and full, it might still be drinkable. The family assumed everything turned to vinegar because they weren't really read on the topic. Also because they probably tasted wine from the giant demijon that he likely used to siphon bottles from every so often when he wanted a bottle of wine so it just had a ton of headspace constantly. Out of curiosity, I took all the wine other than the giant 54 l demijons.

So far I've only tried the white wine in the 5 gallon carboy which looks like he never racked again. It is wine, it's not vinegar. Is it great wine? No. The perfume has obviously faded, and I think so much extended contact with the lees has led to autolysis, leading to a somewhat... Meaty taste in the wine. That being said, it is a balanced wine. Tartness and tannins were where they should be.

I'm going to tackle them one at a time, but I think this is rescuable.

My thought process for the 5 gallons is to add back what is gone. If it's lacking perfume, why not add some? If I make fruit wine coolers, or vermouth, or bottled mulled wine, I might be able to cover its emptiness. Sugar itself would probably do a lot of work. Wine coolers might be especially smart since they dilute and add carbonation.

The bigger concern is the meaty note. I think first order of operations would be racking it obviously, and then hitting it with some sort of fining agent. Probably sparkaloid. I bet that by itself will do a world of good. Once I have the neutral wine base, I can do things with it. If anyone has a strong suggestion on how to get rid of that extended Lee's contact note, I'm all ears.

A lot of these wines are named grapes, and he had a crusher and the juicer so he was doing that part holistically. I don't know if all of these wines will be good, if any are actually vinegar though probably reduce them into homemade balsamic. On the whole though, I think there's a lot of value here if I play my cards right.

If anyone has any other strong suggestions other than drinking, I'm willing to listen. It's a lot of wine.

u/SpadesHeart — 1 month ago

Easiest way to install a new shut off valve for a layman

I have to replace my water heater. The water shut off that connects to my water heater unfortunately also shuts off the water for my next door neighbor as we share the same well. My water heater continues to leak and it's quite literally impossible for me to continue to empty this water as it seems to get faster every day. I won't have the new water heater installed until August 3rd. It is truly idiotic that the water heater was installed without a shut off valve specifically for it.

I was looking at easy ways to install a quick valve, I do have a pipe cutter, and in theory I would be able to just get one of those SharkBite things, but is there a smarter way for me to do this? Is there something that I'm missing?

The piping is copper it looks like. Let me know if you need any other information.

reddit.com
u/SpadesHeart — 1 month ago

So... This water tank is a goner right?

I noticed water on my floor the other day, I just washed a bunch of stuff in my tub so I just figured it was left over water from there. And I noticed it didn't dry the next day so I wiped it up... And it came back. Surprise surprise, it's the water heater.

It's an electric rheem unit apparently from 2016 if that matters. You can see in this picture where the leak is originating from, it's behind the lower temperature setting thingy. Where the foam changes color is essentially where I can see sputtering water flowing.

Based on what I'm researching, this indicates a cracked inner unit? Am I correct in this? Is there a way for me to fix this or is this a whole new water heater kind of situation?

u/SpadesHeart — 1 month ago
▲ 62 r/Canning

As it turns out, three times a year, I will have an endless supply of certain vegetables. Right now it is broccoli greens. What do?

Last fall I posted about how I had hundreds of pounds of peppers. I was able to preserve most all of them and now that I understand how the farm behind me works, it turns out that there are three separate harvest seasons, the first being broccoli. They've already harvested the broccoli and there's an endless supply of broccoli leaves, stems and some immature broccoli florets.

Luckily I just got a pressure canner, but my limitations are similar. No fridge and no freezer. Has to be things that are shelf stable after canning or otherwise.

So far this is what I have:

Broccoli greens kimchi

Pressure canned broccoli leaves

Pickled broccoli stems

Broccoli stem and leaf Chow Chow

Broccoli stem and head giordanera

Dehydrated broccoli leaf powder

If anybody has any strong suggestions considering I have literally as much as this ingredient as I want and tons of canning space, I'm all ears.

u/SpadesHeart — 2 months ago

As it turns out, three times a year, I will have an endless supply of certain vegetables. Right now it is broccoli greens. What do?

Last fall I posted about how I had hundreds of pounds of peppers. I was able to preserve most all of them and now that I understand how the farm behind me works, it turns out that there are three separate harvest seasons, the first being broccoli. They've already harvested the broccoli and there's an endless supply of broccoli leaves, stems and some immature broccoli florets.

Luckily I just got a pressure canner, but my limitations are similar. No fridge and no freezer. Has to be things that are shelf stable after canning or otherwise.

So far this is what I have:

Broccoli greens kimchi

Pressure canned broccoli leaves

Pickled broccoli stems

Broccoli stem and leaf Chow Chow

Broccoli stem and head giordanera

Dehydrated broccoli leaf powder

If anybody has any strong suggestions considering I have literally as much as this ingredient as I want and tons of canning space, I'm all ears.

u/SpadesHeart — 2 months ago
▲ 212 r/foodhacks

As it turns out, three times a year, I will have an endless supply of certain vegetables. Right now it is broccoli greens. What do?

Last fall I posted about how I had hundreds of pounds of peppers. I was able to preserve most all of them and now that I understand how the farm behind me works, it turns out that there are three separate harvest seasons, the first being broccoli. They've already harvested the broccoli and there's an endless supply of broccoli leaves, stems and some immature broccoli florets.

Luckily I just got a pressure canner, but my limitations are similar. No fridge and no freezer. Has to be things that are shelf stable after canning or otherwise.

So far this is what I have:

Broccoli greens kimchi

Pressure canned broccoli leaves

Pickled broccoli stems

Broccoli stem and leaf Chow Chow

Broccoli stem and head giordanera

Dehydrated broccoli leaf powder

If anybody has any strong suggestions considering I have literally as much as this ingredient as I want and tons of canning space, I'm all ears.

u/SpadesHeart — 2 months ago

As it turns out, three times a year, I will have an endless supply of certain vegetables. Right now it is broccoli greens. What do?

Last fall I posted about how I had hundreds of pounds of peppers. I was able to preserve most all of them and now that I understand how the farm behind me works, it turns out that there are three separate harvest seasons, the first being broccoli. They've already harvested the broccoli and there's an endless supply of broccoli leaves, stems and some immature broccoli florets.

Luckily I just got a pressure canner, but my limitations are similar. No fridge and no freezer. Has to be things that are shelf stable after canning or otherwise.

So far this is what I have:

Broccoli greens kimchi

Pressure canned broccoli leaves

Pickled broccoli stems

Broccoli stem and leaf Chow Chow

Broccoli stem and head giordanera

Dehydrated broccoli leaf powder

If anybody has any strong suggestions considering I have literally as much as this ingredient as I want and tons of canning space, I'm all ears. 8

u/SpadesHeart — 2 months ago

As it turns out, three times a year, I will have an endless supply of certain vegetables. Right now it is broccoli greens. What do?

Last fall I posted about how I had hundreds of pounds of peppers. I was able to preserve most all of them and now that I understand how the farm behind me works, it turns out that there are three separate harvest seasons, the first being broccoli. They've already harvested the broccoli and there's an endless supply of broccoli leaves, stems and some immature broccoli florets.

Luckily I just got a pressure canner, but my limitations are similar. No fridge and no freezer. Has to be things that are shelf stable after canning or otherwise.

So far this is what I have:

Broccoli greens kimchi

Pressure canned broccoli leaves

Pickled broccoli stems

Broccoli stem and leaf Chow Chow

Broccoli stem and head giordanera

Dehydrated broccoli leaf powder

If anybody has any strong suggestions considering I have literally as much as this ingredient as I want and tons of canning space, I'm all ears.

u/SpadesHeart — 2 months ago

Bottle shock or should I be performing other intervention?

I made a mead that featured dates and figs, I blended the dates and figs into a slurry before straining it out with the idea that the extra tannins would add body and complexity. The mead also had a spice tincture soaked in rum with allspice, clove, and other baking spices. Predictably, the mead was unpleasantly bitter.

After a couple months of batch ageing and after it had been sweetened, that problem was not receding. I decided to do some egg white fining, and a week later, the issue was pretty much gone. It was actually well integrated, the honey note became prominent, so I figured hell yeah let's bottle.

From my research, egg white fining could dissipate some of the more gentle flavours from some of the spices like allspice specifically, so I soaked a couple berries in half a cup of wine in my fridge to add at the end.

Come bottling day, I add it, it tasted good so I figured everything was fine. I did add potassium meta this point as well. Now 1 week later, I'm tasting the little bit that's left in my fridge and it's back to that really unpleasant bitterness. I opened one of the small bottles that had been sitting and it's also unpleasantly bitter, not as bad as before, but not as perfect as it was at bottling.

I am seriously considering opening everything back up and refining again. The bitterness issue seems structural so should I or is there research indicating that waiting this out a couple months is the right way to go? I wanted to serve this to people in October so I wanted to make sure that it was good for then.

With the rum addition, The mead is probably sitting at about 17% If that helps. Sweetness is probably it 90/L. I was also considering upping the sweetness.

reddit.com
u/SpadesHeart — 2 months ago

Bottle shocker should I be performing other intervention?

I made a mead that featured dates and figs, I blended the dates and figs into a slurry before straining it out with the idea that the extra tannins would add body and complexity. The mead also had a spice tincture soaked in rum with allspice, clove, and other baking spices. Predictably, the mead was unpleasantly bitter.

After a couple months of batch ageing and after it had been sweetened, that problem was not receding. I decided to do some egg white fining, and a week later, the issue was pretty much gone. It was actually well integrated, the honey note became prominent, so I figured hell yeah let's bottle.

From my research, egg white fining could dissipate some of the more gentle flavours from some of the spices like allspice specifically, so I soaked a couple berries in half a cup of wine in my fridge to add at the end.

Come bottling day, I add it, it tasted good so I figured everything was fine. I did add potassium meta this point as well. Now 1 week later, I'm tasting the little bit that's left in my fridge and it's back to that really unpleasant bitterness. I opened one of the small bottles that had been sitting and it's also unpleasantly bitter, not as bad as before, but not as perfect as it was at bottling.

I am seriously considering opening everything back up and refining again. The bitterness issue seems structural so should I or is there research indicating that waiting this out a couple months is the right way to go? I wanted to serve this to people in October so I wanted to make sure that it was good for then.

With the rum addition, The mead is probably sitting at about 17% If that helps. Sweetness is probably it 90/L. I was also considering upping the sweetness.

reddit.com
u/SpadesHeart — 2 months ago
▲ 1 r/mead

Bottling shock or should I be performing other intervention?

I made a mead that featured dates and figs, I blended the dates and figs into a slurry before straining it out with the idea that the extra tannins would add body and complexity. The mead also had a spice tincture soaked in rum with allspice, clove, and other baking spices. Predictably, the mead was unpleasantly bitter.

After a couple months of batch ageing and after it had been sweetened, that problem was not receding. I decided to do some egg white fining, and a week later, the issue was pretty much gone. It was actually well integrated, the honey note became prominent, so I figured hell yeah let's bottle.

From my research, egg white fining could dissipate some of the more gentle flavours from some of the spices like allspice specifically, so I soaked a couple berries in half a cup of wine in my fridge to add at the end.

Come bottling day, I add it, it tasted good so I figured everything was fine. I did add potassium meta this point as well. Now 1 week later, I'm tasting the little bit that's left in my fridge and it's back to that really unpleasant bitterness. I opened one of the small bottles that had been sitting and it's also unpleasantly bitter, not as bad as before, but not as perfect as it was at bottling.

I am seriously considering opening everything back up and refining again. The bitterness issue seems structural so should I or is there research indicating that waiting this out a couple months is the right way to go? I wanted to serve this to people in October so I wanted to make sure that it was good for then.

With the rum addition, The mead is probably sitting at about 17% If that helps. Sweetness is probably it 90/L. I was also considering upping the sweetness.

reddit.com
u/SpadesHeart — 2 months ago