Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Woozie Review and Givaway

This is another great product and review from my wife's blog. Don't forget to take a chance at the giveaway. http://www.mysocalledbalancedlife.com/2012/08/woozie-review-and-giveaway.html

Woozie Review and Giveaway



Woozie


I am a big wine drinker and often give it as gifts. I love to find other unique items to pair with my wine gifts. I found a great company that offers the most unique wine themed items I have seen it is call Woozie. Here is some information about Woozie taken off of their website:
Woozie is the original wine glass sleeve made from top quality neoprene which insulates your wine glass and feels soft to the touch! It is fun, functional, and fashionable. Woozie flaunts the “cute” little drawstring that assures the perfect fit on your glass. Woozie is stretchable, washable, foldable and reusable.
No more warm wine to tolerate or wet glass to hold. The perfect answer for your white or red wine…keeps the temperature constant summer or winter, inside or outside.
I received the Perky Paisley Woozie (4 pack) and a Perky Paisley Bottle Bag. As you can imagine I was thrilled with these items. Being a wine drinker, as well as, a wine maker I love all things that are wine themed. I love these items.
Perfect fit and super cute!

The Woozie fits perfect on my wine glass and keeps it from getting warm. It is also super cute! The Bottle Bag fits perfect on my wine bottles and keeps the wine at a perfect temperature. Woozie offers an array of products such as; Napkins, Stoppers, Coasters, Bottle Bags and of course the Original Woozie to name a few. They have an array of designs and styles. I love these products! They make a perfect gift to pair with your favorite bottle of wine or a great item for yourself. You can find out about Woozie and their products here, as well as, follow them on Facebook. If you would like to enter to win a Bottle Bag and a 4 Pack in Perky Paisley Woozie enter the giveaway
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Saturday, August 25, 2012

Ozeri Nouveaux Electric Wine Opener

This is from Wife's Blog and it's pretty cool. You can check this out and more; as well as taking the chance to win products during her giveaways.

http://www.mysocalledbalancedlife.com/2012/08/ozeri-nouveaux-electric-wine-opener.html

Ozeri Nouveaux Electric Wine Opener Review



Ozeri Nouveaux Electric Wine Opener


I don’t know about you but when I open a bottle of wine I hate fumbling with a corkscrew. I find the average corkscrew to be difficult to operate effectively and I have been known to break the corkscrew while I attempt to open a bottle of wine. I found a fast, effective way to open a bottle of wine without any struggles. It is the Ozeri Nouveaux Electric Wine Opener; yes you read that correctly ELECTRIC wine opener. I can’t even begin to tell you how incredibly happy this wine opener makes me. This unique wine opener features:
· Features a European inspired curved design with ergonomic grip that stands vertically without the need for a separate base stand.
· Ships with a wine pourer & stopper and a patent-pending removable lid that converts into a foil cutter.
· Newly designed motor now opens up to 60 bottles on a single charge, all with the single push of a button.
· Unique transparent shell makes the entire cork removal process visual.
· Illuminates with a soft blue light when in use and while recharging.

I no longer struggle to open a bottle of wine using the old corkscrew. Here is my husband opening wine using the Ozeri Nouveaux Wine opener.
Easy as 1,2,3

Done
As you can probably tell he is pretty happy with this little gadget. The wine opener is fast, easy and effective in opening a bottle of wine; because it is electric there is no awkward fumbling or endless turning. I also love the wine pourer & stopper that come with this wine opener; it makes pouring and storing clean and simple.
Wine pourer and stopper
Not only is this a great product for your home it also makes a great gift. If you would like to learn more about this product it can be viewed and purchased here on Amazon. You can also connect with Ozeri through Facebook to stay up to date with their products and sales.
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Degassing Wine


Degassing wine can be a cumbersome task depending on the tools or techniques you use. I have tried a few things and I found that I always go back to the basics. I have tried drill mounted devices that use a bung to center it. The problems I found with it was the rubber on the bung will crumble and leave little floaters in the wine. Then someone will say just lube the center with something to keep that from happening. Well I am sanitary freak and I fear that microbes will contaminate the wine, or give it an off flavor. I also worry about the dust, dirt and electrical dust expelled from the drill finding its’ way into the wine during use. I stick to the basics of swirling the carboy and using the backside of my brew spoon to remove unwanted carbon dioxide gasses.
I did however find a new technique that seems to fit into my world not contaminating my wine with microorganisms from various devices. I saw a video clip from Scott “the wine making guy” at YouTube (an ingenious way to degas wine) that uses a wine bottle pump. The pump preserves a partial bottle of wine by creating reverse pressure vacuum removing the oxygen that can cause oxidation, discoloration and bad taste in the wine. The pump he used is quite common and requires the use of an oversized bung plug. It was very cool and simple to set up. I started to think about what he said and used and I realized I had a Houdini wine saver set in my bar. I went digging to find it as I have yet to use it, because it seems when the bottle is opened it gets drank fairly soon thereafter. I looked at the Houdini and I thought how I could make this work the same way; so I grabbed an air-lock and saw the outer diameter of the neck was close to the inner diameter of the Houdini plug. My first thought was to cut the neck off with a fine hacksaw blade and attach the plug to the existing bung. Then I thought why waste an airlock (I am cheap), it fits in the top of the airlock just fine and the seal was great. Now that I had my new setup I was eager to try it. Today just happens to be the day for me to degas my World Vineyard California Trinity Red.
Degassing the Trinity Red:

I started by adding the clearing agents and swirled the carboy around with the bung removed and a paper towel wrapped around the top to prevent splashing during the whirlpool stir. I then used my brew spoon and stirred it vigorously for a few minutes. I then put the Houdini set up on it and pumped it about 50 times until I saw the bubbles rise. I burped it a few times and repeated the process about three times. I left the Houdini on it and two hours later I burped it and pumped it back up again.  As I look back on the Houdini degassing process I did not see any real benefit using it to degas 6 gallons of wine. I did see some bubbles rise up and it did look like it worked to some extent, but not like I had hoped. I am sure it needed a much larger type of vacuum device to be more effective. I then burped it and removed the Houdini and stirred it vigorously again with my brew spoon. I placed the normal air lock back on and plan on stirring it one more time.
So the idea sounded good and looked good on paper, but the basics are what worked best for me in this situation.  The Trinity red turned out great; it had nice color and was very clear. So for now I will stick to the basics and see what the next G-whiz thing has to offer.
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Friday, August 3, 2012

Cherry Ale

So I decided on brewing my first fruit flavored beer. I have always wanted to brew nice cherry ale, after having one years' ago called Cherry Rail. I did a lot of research and I figured I would find my base beer to infuse my cherry flavor. I went with a Kolsch recipe that I came up with. Although I have never brewed a kolsch beer, it alone caught my interest. I researched the history of the kolsch and found it more intriguing, so I just had to brew one. I figured I would brew 10 gallons and use 5 for the cherry and 5 for traditional Kolsch. It seems a Kolsch or a wheat is a good base to balance the fruit flavors during the secondary fermentation (according to many brewers). I racked the kolsch after one week, it tasted great. I added a 3lb can of Vinters Harvest sweet cherry puree during the rack into the second 5 gallons. Another week went by and I kegged the Kolsch; its’ a really good beer and I am happy with the base recipe. I tried the Cherry Ale during the second rack off the puree and it did not have hardly any cherry flavor. The color looked like cherry ale and a slight hint of cherry smell. After the third week I tasted the cherry ale and it still looks the same and does not have any real cherry flavor. I am going to think of a few things to infuse some cherry flavor without ruining the beer. I guess I will try something different next time. Like I said I do like the Kolsch recipe and I will brew it again soon.  I guess I can’t check this one off my bucket list yet.
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