critterhunter
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- Oct 29, 2010
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We've made wine twice so far and haven't used a mesh bag to contain the fruit (pears). The first batch we made we ran the sediment through a mesh bag, but truth be known after squeezing the juice through the bag most of the sediment ended up back in it anyway.
This time we found something that seemed to work better, or at least went quicker. We used a huge funnel and a kitchen screener. We'd pour some from the primary into the screener, shake the screener, and the juice would slowly move through. Perioditicly we'd rinse the screener out with water to remove the crud that would slow things down. By using a big funnel we were able to wildly shake the screener to get the juice moving. Seemed to work well.
However, one day later the carboy we racked from the primary to has about half it's volume filled up with sediment. I'm sure this sediment will compress and settle over the next week or two but I'm just wondering if there is a better way to filter the junk from the juice? We are going to lose a good bit of volume by the looks of it when we rack the next time in a week or two, even if it compresses a good bit.
While I'm at it, I asked this in another thread but figure this would also be a good place to get input. Let's say in a week or two when we go to rack again we need to make up for a good bit of lost volume. This wine is going to be real high in alchohol content so we wouldn't mind watering the alcohol down a bit.
We had used 30+ pounds of pears and 1 & 1/2 gallons of Raspberry/Apple Juicey Juice juice in the 7 gallon primary. Can we pour more juice in there when we rack it to make up for the lost volume? We want to water down the alchohol content, enhance the raspberry flavor, and NOT allow it to convert the sugar in the juice to yet more alcohol.
Can we put in the juice and Sorbate to halt the fermentation? Any negative effects to pouring more juice in? Should it be boiled first? And, since we used 1 campden tablet per gallon a little over a week ago when we made the primary, do we need to add more campden along with the sorbate to halt it?
Or would you recommend adding say a 50/50 mixture of water/juice to make up for the lost volume along with the sorbate and (?) Campden? Also, should that be boiled?
This time we found something that seemed to work better, or at least went quicker. We used a huge funnel and a kitchen screener. We'd pour some from the primary into the screener, shake the screener, and the juice would slowly move through. Perioditicly we'd rinse the screener out with water to remove the crud that would slow things down. By using a big funnel we were able to wildly shake the screener to get the juice moving. Seemed to work well.
However, one day later the carboy we racked from the primary to has about half it's volume filled up with sediment. I'm sure this sediment will compress and settle over the next week or two but I'm just wondering if there is a better way to filter the junk from the juice? We are going to lose a good bit of volume by the looks of it when we rack the next time in a week or two, even if it compresses a good bit.
While I'm at it, I asked this in another thread but figure this would also be a good place to get input. Let's say in a week or two when we go to rack again we need to make up for a good bit of lost volume. This wine is going to be real high in alchohol content so we wouldn't mind watering the alcohol down a bit.
We had used 30+ pounds of pears and 1 & 1/2 gallons of Raspberry/Apple Juicey Juice juice in the 7 gallon primary. Can we pour more juice in there when we rack it to make up for the lost volume? We want to water down the alchohol content, enhance the raspberry flavor, and NOT allow it to convert the sugar in the juice to yet more alcohol.
Can we put in the juice and Sorbate to halt the fermentation? Any negative effects to pouring more juice in? Should it be boiled first? And, since we used 1 campden tablet per gallon a little over a week ago when we made the primary, do we need to add more campden along with the sorbate to halt it?
Or would you recommend adding say a 50/50 mixture of water/juice to make up for the lost volume along with the sorbate and (?) Campden? Also, should that be boiled?