fabrictodyefor
Senior Member
- Joined
- Aug 29, 2013
- Messages
- 374
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My first time making wine...we have a shop in the nearest town, 40 miles away and did get some help, but.....The recipe: 13 lbs choke cherries, 5 campden tablets, 11 lbs sugar, 3 frozen cans apple juice concentrate, 1 TBS yeast Energizer, 3/4 tsp pectic Enzyme, 5 tsp acid blend, 1 pkt Red Star Pasteur Red yeast. Per instructions I covered the cherries with reconstituted apple juice and slowly simmered. I was told to simmer until the cherries burst, they never did. I mashed them often with a potato masher, then poured berries into a mesh bag into fermentation bucket and hung the bag overnight to drip into bucket. I then added the crushed campden tablets, sugar and additional water to make the 5 gallon of wine, and let set for 24 hours with lid on. At the same time I mixed the energizer, pectin enzyme and acid blend with 1 cup warm water, 2 tsp sugar and the yeast in a sterilized quart jar, also let that sit for 24 hours. Then mixed the yeast mixture into the must, tested with the hydrometer, replaced the lid, set the airlock and left it alone. The wine making shop told me to leave it for 10 days, then begin checking with the hydrometer and when the hydrometer reads the same for 3 straight days to rack it. So the very first time I checked it with the hydrometer...(right after I mixed everything together)it floated so high that the reading was no where close to a line, by that I mean all the lines on the hydrometer were above the "wine". I asked said wine making shop people about this and got a non-committal answer. So it has now been 2 weeks, the air lock is still very active. I tested again with the hydrometer and got pretty much the same answer....it floated too high to be close to a line. Should I still just rack into a carboy? Do I leave it for longer?