Thanks @Scrungee The 'stuck' load still hadn't restarted by tonight, and I was needing the fermenter for wine that is actually going to be drinkable (he hopes) so the lot was walloped down the sink tonight - - - you win some, you lose some I suppose, and if nothing else it has been a good learning experience. I cleaned and sterilised all the kit, and have just transferred the now finished strawberry jam wine into the fermenter and whacked a lid and air-lock onto it (not that it is releasing any gas now); the downside of the turbo yeast is that there is a hell of a lot of sludge and detritus to get rid of, and despite leaving the bulk of it behind in the bottom of the bucket, there is still plenty of murk in the wine, so I have also added the 'A' finings and will add the B in about three quarters of an hour. Hopefully, in a few days time, I will be able to rack it off properly into 5-litre water bottles for it to settle and mature a bit. The second batch of blackcurrant is still looking good - the large fermenter has all but stopped (only the very occasional little blub from the air lock now) and it smells fine. The 5 x 5-litre water bottle demijohns have all stopped completely and the sediment is now slowly gathering at the bottom, so I will leave them to clear for a day or two and then rack them off into the bucket so I can de-gas it and add finings if they are needed - thereafter, I am hoping I will be able to bottle it and start drinking it And then, I will move on to the next couple of batches - one will be the mixed fruit wine with Jiffy's wheat, and the other one is yet to be chosen......
By God, that turbo yeast throws a hell of a lot of sediment! I gave it a second racking off tonight, and there was nearly a gallon of sludge and crud in the bottom; it is now down to four gallons of fairly clear wine though, so hopefully not a lot more will come off it now. The colour seems to be a lot better than it was with the last batch, but there is time for that to change yet. I have half of the blackcurrant batch de-gassed and put the finings in last night with a view to giving it a final racking off into containers; we can either drink it direct from the containers, or it can be bottled after resting a while.
I find the flavour adversely affected immediately after using 2 part finings, but returns to normal after a week or so. See post #137 above.
Well, I've just started another batch - this time using both demijohns and will be chucking in the finings without decanting - on the advice of Scrungee . I was going to go for pineapple - but noticed that ASDA has some prune juice in - so it's plum wine this time. I shouldn't have mentioned prune juice when I got back to work - the comments kept coming in all that afternoon.
Pineapple juice is a far, far better winemaking ingredient than Prune juice, and it was 69p/L in Tesco when I last checked.
I had a shift from hell today, so got nothing done wine wise. I will rack it off into containers tomorrow, then after cleaning and sterilising I will rack the second half of the batch into the bucket and get it degassed and get the finings added. Then, I will fire up the next two 'quickie' batches - one more of blackcurrant, and another of Pear and Ginger. I might add some fresh minced ginger to it to add a bit more of a kick......
Have to say, the plum wine if bubbling away furiously - much more so than the raspberry/apple/grape. Pineapple next - might even invest in another demijohn or one of them massive 25l fermenting barrels. Got told off by my Mum today - warning me not to overdo it as I could become an alkey.
Ginger and pear is very reluctant to get going, and I am all out of yeast nutrient to give it a kick (although, I shouldn't need to as that should be all in with the Youngs compound). Frustrating.
One of mine was reluctant to start - so I blasted it with a fan heater - 5 mins later its bubbling away nicely.
Mine is sitting next to a radiator, so I will stick with it for a bit. If not, I can always throw a portion of a pack of the turbo yeast at it.
Well, I think the second batch of blackcurrant has turned out OK. Not much of a taste of blackcurrant about it, but it is dry, quite light and is nice and clear. There is a slightly acidic edge to it, which might be citric acid as I wasn't particularly scientific when I added it.
That does look good . Why did you add citric acid? This plum wine has settled down (assume primary fermentation is now complete) and strangely, there is no scum on the top of the wine - by this time the apple/grape/raspberry had a good inch thick crust on it. Looking forward to quaffing this one .
A 1L bottle of 50% High Juice contains 500ml/1lb 3ozs (allowing for SG) of pure Blackcurrant Juice, as Blackcurrants are approx. 80% juice by weight, that's the equivalent of 1lb 8ozs of whole fruit, probably about half what you'll find in recipes using whole fruit pulp fermentation, but it's impossible to match to juice content using High Juice because of the sugar content of High Juice plus it's overall Citric Acid content will make an overly sharp wine. I found Blackcurrants rather acidic and would add (low acid) elderberries to get a balance of flavour, colour and acidity. Something to think about next year when the elderberries are in season.
