Will these grapes make good wine? Personally? I don't think so. But that hasn't stopped me from trying. And this batch may be the best possible example of what fox grapes can produce. Or at least the best possible that I am likely to come in contact with. What makes this batch special is that nothing was done to control the end result. The grapes were allowed to become the fermented version of themselves without any interference from the addition of yeasts, sulfites, or sugars. It is simply the juice pressed from the grapes, left to ferment under an airlock, which produced wine with an estimated 10% ABV which, it seems to me, is pretty solid for wine made from fake grapes!

Prior to committing to harvesting all the grapes, I made a small eight ounce test batch of wine. My notes from the test batch state, "It tasted very sweet and quite good actually. There was almost an inch of sediment even in this tiny bottle. I think it is worth proceeding with making regular wine out of this."

As harvest time approached, I tasted the grapes almost daily. Time got ahead of me and in my mind the prime time had passed by a few days, but I picked the grapes at the first opportunity. I was able to harvest one very large bowl of grapes, crush them by hand, and start them fermenting in a gallon jug. The wine fermented in the gallon jug with an airlock for just under one month. On 11/3/24 I transferred the wine from the gallon jug to a half-gallon growler for secondary fermentation.

There was also enough leftover to fill a 375ml bottle, which I corked and stored in the basement. The half-gallon growler was left for a proper secondary fermentation until 12/23/24 when I transferred the wine into bottles.

I was able to have a taste and taking into account the fact that the terroir is "my backyard in upstate New York" and the grape varietal is "fake grapes", it is totally ok! Pretty good even! It is slightly acidic and tart, but the end product is wine of its own distinction. It represents well the terroir of my backyard. And is quite drinkable. Pairs well with an antacid tablet.

I am happy to say I have a few 375ml bottles of wine that uniquely represent the native grapes of Clifton Park!

• No roasting - This produced very little color or flavor
• Light-roasted - Very nice but a little more roasting would probably add flavor
• Dark-roasted - This was very good, and the most coffee-like

No Roasting

Without drying and roasting, the resulting hot drink was almost entirely colorless and flavorless, making the process not really worthwhile. Roasting seems like the way to go!

The tea came out way too light and watery but we enjoyed a nice dandelion meal. Yes, the two of us split a dandelion for lunch.

Light-Roasted

I found some decent dandelions and pulled them by their roots, cleaned them thoroughly with a plastic brush, dried them on a baking dish by leaving them on a table overnight, then roasted them in the oven.

I boiled some in water for 20 minutes:

The resulting tea was tasty, but roasting it a little more would likely give it a stronger flavor which would be better:

Dark-Roasted

On vacation in Vermont there were some nice big dandelions growing in the garden. I pulled some as best I could. There was one nice big root that pulled up, and several clean small roots, as well as some that had a lot of embedded dirt. I cleaned them, and discarded the ones that still had dirt on them after cleaning.

I sliced them into thinner pieces so they could dry quickly in the sun:

Next I chopped them into BB-sized pieces and roasted them in a 350 degree oven for 20 minutes on a baking sheet. This roasted them very aggressively, so I would probably roast at a lower temperature next time. They came out quite dark:

The resulting hot drink had a tasty flavor resembling coffee with a pleasantly slight bitterness.

I really like this stuff. It would be nice to find dandelions in a large quantity. Meanwhile, the health food store (or Amazon) sells really good stuff.

Update: I tried making more by chopping the dandelion roots and putting it directly in a 250 degree oven on a skillet without drying it first. It roasted for almost an hour and still didn't get particularly dark. So I should try maybe 300 degrees next time.

7/7/23

Picked sumac with S, M, M, & M. We made a bunch of sumac soda. And added a little to a gallon jug with a bunch of table sugar and a bit of wine yeast. Enough sugar was added to give it a 5.2% alcohol potential.

10/6/23

Transferred from jug to mini-keg and added Hen of the Wood Mushroom. It will just sit in the keg with the mushroom at the bottom.

11/25/23

Bottled this from the mini keg. It has been chilling in the cold room and carbonating. Unfortunately the mushrooms in the bottom of the keg clogged the ‘out’ tube in the keg which made the cider barely come out and turned to fizz as it passed through the clogged tube. Under the circumstances it bottled pretty well, just a bit slow, and probably lost some carbonation.

It tastes pretty good at this stage. Mostly just has a bit of tartness from the sumac. I’m not sure I taste the mushroom much.

Volker brought over some apples from the trees in his backyard, and at the same time Joe let me know his concord grapes were "definitely ripe" if I wanted to grab some. I'd been wanting to make a concord grape apple cider, so the timing was perfect.

I thoroughly cleaned the 6 gallon carboy and the apple grinder with PBW, then sterilized all the equipment. I ground the apples and squeezed them with a strainer bag making about 3.5 gallons of cider. It is beautiful, tasty stuff and weighed in at a whopping 7% alcohol potential. The apples are harder than I’m accustomed to and near the end the grinder over-heated and automatically turned off until it cooled down. I pressed the already-ground apples while waiting for it to cool. The darkly colored cider was some of the easiest I’ve ever pressed. Absolutely ideal apples.

Next I pressed the grape juice by hand-squeezing then pressing through the mesh strainer bag. The grapes are very ripe. I tend to eat the bad ones rather than use them for the cider, and some of the overripe ones that I ate have a slight acetone taste (which is a taste I encountered in some of my very first grape-fermenting experiments). I added a bunch of skins and the juice to the carboy, added an airlock, and put it upstairs in a dark closet with no added yeast or anything. The grape juice also came out to 7% alcohol potential.

I’m a little worried that whatever is making the acetone taste will take over fermentation in the cider. I’m also kinda tired after all that work. In the end I have to accept that this is always a big experiment with the possibility of failure, and I had wanted to make cider this way, so I just have to give it a chance and see how it comes out.

9/26/23

It’s about two weeks later and the cider has fully fermented. The cider took a few days to get going, so after a few days I wrapped it in a down comforter to bring up the temperature. A few days later it was fermenting too aggressively and felt very warm so I opened up the comforter again to let it cool down. I cleaned and sanitized a 5-gallon keg and the auto-siphon. I siphoned the grapey cider into the keg. It smells amazing! Lightly concord grapey. That gives me great hope! Not a hint of an acetone smell. I’ll plan to let it sit for a while (weeks or months) in the keg as a secondary fermentation before bottling.

12/14/23

I filled thirty-eight bottles from the keg. The cold room was at forty-three degrees fahrenheit. I used the Tapcooler counter-pressure bottle filler to fill the bottles. It definitely didn’t work perfectly, but it did give me control, allowing me to stop flow and slow things down as needed to control foam. It will be interesting to see how well the carbonation holds on this batch. The bottle filling was very consistent, only one bottle ended up under-filled.

I tasted the little bit of cider that overflowed during the process, and I really like it. It is dry and and tart. I can't wait to try it (and share!) after it has had a chance to age in the bottles a bit. Thanks Volker and Joe!

While mountain biking with V last week, we got pretty off-trail. At one point we'd been thrashing around in the woods for a bit and were standing on an old and wrecked path collecting ourselves for the next thrash when I looked down to see a plant that I thought... Could it be? I pulled out the "Seek" app on my phone which helps identify plants, and sure enough it was the sought after Sweetfern!

I filled up my pack, and let it dry on a cookie sheet on the dining room table. After a week of drying, I pulled the leaves off the stems and filled a big jar with the dried leaves. I also made a batch to drink. It has a very tea-like taste with a pleasant bitterness from the tannis.

Then today, while biking again I found several big plants right next to the parking lot at Gurney Lane. I grabbed some of that. This time I used the fresh leaves, and steeped those for five minutes, and filled a bunch of bottles.

I found a dense patch of them next to some tennis courts near my house and picked a bunch. I took them home and steeped them for 24 hours.

Adding the resulting infusion to seltzer gave it amazing color:

And of course I had to add it to homemade cider, which gave it a nice color and added an interesting twist to the flavor:

I was initially torn. On the one hand I’ve been really dying to hang out with this good old friend. On the other I’m still not myself these days after getting COVID in May when it comes to engaging in activities. Also I got a vasectomy last weekend and it happens to be the first day that the doctor's ban on strenuous activities has been lifted. I have been good and haven’t really been testing out aggressive activities, so I have no idea if skiing will be totally fine, or it could be a bad idea.

I respond, “Sure, I’d love to! I will need to take it pretty easy”.

The next morning I wake up and get my stuff ready and S sends me a text that it’s currently -24°F where we are headed. This season has been like 30 degrees pretty much all winter long so there hasn’t been any opportunity to get used to spending time in this type of cold. I respond without suggesting bailing, nor that we should stick with the plan: “Crikey that’s chilly!”.

S responds: “We’ll get huffing and puffing and it’ll be good”.

“Sounds good”.

This is fairly standard practice in the lead-up to any challenging activity. There’s always some reluctance to get started. A certain amount of bluffing is what gets you through any moments of hesitancy.

I load up the car and at -12°F it really doesn’t feel as cold as it sounds. There is no wind and humidity is low. I put in contacts and hit the road and in a little over an hour arrive at the trailhead.

S brings a friend along named “A”, this will be his first time trying out cross country skiing.

Upon hitting the trail, I think we’re all like, “holy smokes”. The trail is pretty gnarly. We are climbing up relatively steep terrain. It’s manageable, but makes one nervous about the idea of coming back down on the return trip. Thankfully it levels out a little bit.

The trail is still gnarly. But it’s no longer steep. Instead it undulates. There is plenty of perfectly textured snow and the woods are open such that you can ski wherever you like, not being tethered to the trail itself. It’s never fast and smooth, but is perfectly suited to skill building.

After several miles of this, including several good stretches of glorious skiing, most of the nervousness dissipates and it starts to become really comfortable and fun.

It turns out A is an avid forager and has a lot to teach and share about foraging. S points to a burl on a tree and asks about chaga. We gather around the burl which was a very close resemblence, but may not have been chaga.

Along the way A identifies several actual chagas. He explains interesting facts like how the chaga we look for isn't the actual mushroom, its more of a storehouse for the mushroom. The mushrooms grow but *very* rarely, so much so that even photos are hard to find.

I’m amazed at how well my old garage-sale skis are handling the conditions. They have metal edges but are very light and agile. It’s like wearing sneakers except with all kinds of strange capabilities like sliding, bridging gaps between logs, and using the metal edge to confidently stay upright while skiing down off-camber slopes.

Skiing through the untracked open woods feels just like the best kind of downhill glade skiing through powder, albeit at a much slower self-powered pace. This combination of difficult terrain, perfect snow conditions, the right skis for the job, and good company are making this so much fun!

I have a bit of a curfew, so after a few miles we turn back. In some spots it makes for a speedy return, following our tracks back. In others we’re struggling to climb up or descend steep sections.

We enjoy some ciders in the parking lot, then head into the town of Northville and grab a really incredible lunch at J.F. Farm Store & Cafe, get gas, and head home.

I rode my bike to Hannaford and picked a bunch of nice apples from the tree in front of the supermarket.

I squeezed 3 gallons of juice from apples into the 3-gallon carboy. Specific gravity = 1.055 -> alcohol potential of 6.9%!! I tossed in some Red Star Premiere Blanc yeast. The juice was light-colored, and dropped an insane amount of sediment quickly (see the second photo, which was taken just after juicing):

9/24/21

I siphoned the cider from the carboy into a 5-gallon keg, filling the keg halfway. The keg is now sitting in the basement.

10/4/21

I transferred 1.5 gallons from the 5-gallon keg to a mini keg. While I was at it I poured a glass of warm, still cider. It's not bad. Definitely drinkable. Boring color. Hint of funk. Slight cloudiness. I’m interested to taste it once it’s chilled and carbonated!

10/6/21

The cider has chilled in the fridge, and is carbonated. I still need to work out some kinks with carbonating and serving, but the cider came out very good. It’s got a slight hint of something besides clean cider, B described it as clove, honestly it’s just enough to keep it interesting. I think this is the first time I’ve made a larger batch (3 gallons) of cider I’m happy with, as in cider worth sharing.