And therein is the problem with jam wine - keeping supply constant enough to keep up with demand! The batch I have going at the moment has been in for a few weeks now, and is still bubbling away gently - I am using a different yeast, as well as raisins in place of grape extract, so it will be interesting to see how those two affect the flavour.
Did you hot rinse them with boiling water before use to remove the (edible) wax/oil coating used to prolong their shelf life? (wax also used on citrus fruits).
Errrrr - that will be a no, as I didn't think the ones in the bulk packs were coated. All I did was mince them up in the food processor.
Apricot jam wine has just gone on. Took a slightly different approach this time. Poured boiling water into a large wok - added the jam - and let it bubble away until liquid (apart from the chunks of apricot that is). The strawberry went crystal clear about 2 weeks into fermentation without finings - if this happens with the apricot - I'm going to siphon off the clear liquid, stabilise and then decide whether it's worth throwing in some finings. I cracked a bottle of the pineapple wine yesterday - it's about a month old and improved greatly in taste. I was a bit surprised to be honest - it now tastes more pineappley.
Boiled up the last parsnips and now got 2 gallons fermenting in a brew bin. After 10 days or so into demi johns and then wait for it to clear.
I'm taking a bit of a punt here - I've been given a Wilko wine starter kit that has been stashed away in a wardrobe for some years. All of the equipment is fine and I've used a can of grape concentrate that came with the kit - with a bbe date of November 2011 - so well out of date - but is seemed OK when I cracked the can open. Also used the included brewers sugar with a similar bbe date. Put in fresh yeast as I'm fairly sure that the old stuff wouldn't work. We'll see what happens...
If you're not going to use yeast for a very long time, put it in the freezer, otherwise keep it in the fridge. You need to be careful with concentrates in metal cans as the tins can start leaking after 2 or 3 years.
For some strange reason I feel that using grape concentrate is a bit of a fiddle - and that I'm not really making home made wine - not really..
I only feel like that if I'm paying full price for it, because the expense of it undermines the whole cost saving purpose of homebrewing, but if bought when half price and even then if it's only used as an addition to just a few wines which will really benefit from it, then I consider it worthwhile.
@Scrungee - regarding the 6lbs of rhubarb, not yet started (but hopefully will do this weekend), would the following work to make 4 gallons (or so)? I have two 5 gallon fermenters and the 5 gallon bucket also, which I think will be easier to make one big batch. 6lbs rhubarb 3lbs frozen strawberries (defrosted) 3lbs of raisins Sugar (roughly how much?) @clanless - what recipe did you use for the pineapple wine, as I have two very large ones in the fridge at the moment that are a bit past their best, but should ferment nicely?
I cheated and used the pineapple juice approach - so 3 cartons of juice, one bag of sugar, topped up with water and a sprinkling of yeast on the top. Feedback so far is that the grape/apple/raspberry is the best, closely followed by the pineapple and then the jam. I'd be tempted to crush the 'real' pineapples and use them instead of or along with a carton of juice - worth a go rather than binning them . I think with 'real' fruit then pectolase is used to get the max from it - I may be wrong .
I would only use that to make 3 gallons. Are you going to use 3 x 5L or 3 x 1 gall (actually 4.7L) demijohns after straining? I could then let you know the precise water and sugar additions required to achieve the required amount of strained must (will be assuming 1.095 OSG).
I am going to whack the lot into a 5 gallon fermenter, to the level required. I can add more strawberries, raisins, or indeed other fruits as well to bring it up to the 5 gallons? EDIT - I still have those two big pineapples, but I thought they would be too acidic along with the rhubarb. I will need to do something with them before the weekend though.
Condoms ?? Sounds like a bit of a stretch but .... Cuban uses condoms, tropical fruit to make own brand of wine
