Oh, wow, has it been a while . . .

So I have actually been doing stuff with my brews over the last two months. I just haven't blogged them, unlike last time I was "long time, no blog". We'll go chronilogically:

9.25.06
Started a new brew, and is this one going to be a doozy!
Ginger Capsimel
2.5 pounds clover honey
3 serrano peppers, split and seeded
2 jalapeno peppers, split and seeded
1 inch of fresh ginger
4 T. lemon juice
dried lemon peel
Fleishman's bread yeast

Following a recipe by palecricket1, put 1/2 gallon water on to boil. Meanwhile, I sliced the ginger. When the water is boiling, I dropped in the ginger. while this is boiling away, I split, seeded and removed the ribs of the peppers - HOLY COW!!! I am not, nor have I ever been a chilehead, but I am married to one and have another as a roommate so I thought I would give this whole capsimel thing a try. I'll give you the warning I didn't get:
GET A HAZMAT SUIT!
Fresh peppers are insane! I think that all the chileheads in my life will be purring when they drink this stuff. (0:10)After the ginger had boiled for 10 minutes, I added the chiles. Then I proceeded to clean EVERYTHING. No lingering chile oil to destroy my eyes or my DD. (0:20)After 10 minutes of boiling, remove the chiles but leave in the ginger. (0:30)After 10 more minutes, I removed the pot from the heat. (0:45)After 15 more minutes, I mixed in the honey and added 1/2 gallon more water and the lemon juice. I poured it into a primary and covered. I placed the primary in a pot of soapy water to cool overnight.

9.26.06
I pitched the yeast in the Capsimel and aerated. I used bread yeast because I want to keep the alcohol somewhat low and the honey flavor and sweetness level somewhat high (I don't want it to go to dry!!).
O.G. 1.085

9.27.06
Prepped to bottled the JAO. 5-6 gallons. This required an emergency trip to LHBS to buy bottles because I was about 3 shy of what I might need. Then washing all the bottles, sanitiziing all the bottles, prepping the corks, cracking open the bucket and seeing . . . . really really not clear mead. I looked at my assistant mazer, and we both kind of sighed heavily and sealed it back up. We decided to ease our pain by starting a couple of new batches:

Cinnful Apple Wine
1 gal Whole Foods Organic Apple Juice
1# granulated sugar
1.5 t. acid blend
.5 t. pectic enzyme
.25 t. tannin
1 crushed campden tablet
3 cinnamon sticks
Red Star Cote des Blancs yeast

mixed everything together except the yeast.
O.G. 1.097

Cinnful Cyser
3 pounds clover honey
1 gal Whole Foods Organic Apple Juice
4 cinnamon sticks
.5 t. nutrient
.5 pectic enzyme
D47 yeast

mixed everything together except yeast. This is following a recipe created by DeltOgre, who as far as I am concerned is a Cyser God. His recipe also inspired the Cinnful Wine recipe (obviously)
O.G. 1.132

9.28.06
Pitched yeast on Cinnful Apple Wine and Cinnful Cyser

10.02.06 (Rack and Roll Day!)
Racked the Capsimel to secondary and airlocked it. I really do like the idea of making a tea with the peppers and then taking them out. I'm hoping that it will not produce the oily scum a lot of people have talked about getting with their capsimels.
S.G. 1.028

Racked the Ginger Peach Wine.
S.G. .985

Racked the Ginger Peach Mead (there was no white stuff this time - yay!)
S.G. .996

Racked the Cinnful Apple Wine over 4 more cinnamon sticks.
S.G 1.066

Racked the Cinnful Cyser over 4 more cinnamon sticks.
S.G. 1.060

Well, The Cinnfuls have been smelling and looking so good that it's been killing us. My assistant and I ran out to get more honey and more apple juice. We modifed the recipe a little, adding some nutmeg and changing the yeast we used, since I didn't have the original yeast from the recipe on hand, to make it:

Cinnful Cyser for the Holidays
1 gal Randall's O Organic Apple Juice
4 cinnamon sticks
2.5 pounds of clover honey
3/4 c. clover honey
.5 t. pectic enzyme
.5 t. nutmeg
.25 t. nutrient
K1V-1116 yeast

we made two batches of this, exactly the same, called part I and part II. Today we mixed everything together except the yeast.
I O.G. 1.123
II O.G. 1.127

10.05.06
Pitched the yeast for Cinnful Holidays.

10.11.06
Racked the Cinnful Holidays to secondaries over 4 cinnamon sticks each.
I S.G. 1.065
II S.G. 1.067

11.2.06 (Bottling Day)
Bottled JAO. 10 375mL bottles, 21 750mL bottles
Bottled Ginger Peach Wine 5 750mL bottles
Bottled Ginger Peach Mead 4 750mL bottles, 1 375mL bottle

Before I do anymore bottling I need more corks. I used 100 corks in almost exactly one year (since I got the corks and corker as a birthday present last year). I didn't bottle 100 bottles, but it was close.