How do I strain a pulpy must?

[meadman77]

Hi everyone,
This is one of my first real fruit wines from scratch so sorry for the noob questions, but i;m a bit anxious about it. On the weekend I put down a batch of plum wine. 103lbs of plums. It is in 3 x 5 gallon primaries. I only had to add about 2 gallons of water to the whole lot as the fruit took up most of the volume, even after mashed up by hand.

Question 1: What is the best method for straining a PULPY must such as this. Needless to say I couldn't put the fruit on bags.

Question 2: I'm worried that i'm going to lose a heap of the volume after the first racking. If the volume does drop significantly after the primary fermentation, is there a set formula of how much water I can add to top it up? Many recipes say to top up with water, but to me this throws any effort to get a particular SG out the window. I have come to realise that it is a catch 22. If you need your secondary to be full to prevent oxidation then you may also need to water down your must which will reduce starting specific gravity unless you are very good at estimating the volume less the solids. My SG was 1.090 and I used K1V.

Question 3: When "knocking down the cap" should I give it a really good stir to get it all effervescing and releasing all of the CO2 or it that not important at this point.

Thanks for your advice.

 

[dralarms]

Pectic enzyme should have been added at the start to help liquify the fruit.

Stir it good, it won't hurt a thing.

Add no water. Plum is a light fruit anyway.

And welcome to WMT.

 

[FTC Wines]

MM77, I agree with Dalarms, as to straining, when the fermentation is almost done & ur ready to rack into Carboy I put a 5 gal paint straining in a clean pail & pour the must into it. Then squeeze the straining bag to get most of the juice out. That will usually take care of it. Have someone hold the bag in the receiving bucket, it will make ur life easier! Roy

 

[Bergmann]

Since you just put the must down it is still not too late to add pectic enzyme. Although not as effective as pre ferment it will help reduce the fruit to liquid. It may be a pain to check SG but you can draw off some wine and do so. When the sq gets to 1.015 or so I would strain the wine through a stainless steal collider and press by hand. Place the remainder in secondary vessels and attach airlock. When the wine reaches dryness rack, then follow normal procedure.

 

[jswordy]

I buy those 5-gallon paint strainers at Lowe's and Home Depot like they are going out of style!

I like to start out using a sanitized strainer bag to load all my fruit into. Just tie it off with sanitized string, or even with the top of the bag itself (which is what I usually do). Got a big batch? Use more than one bag.

Squeeze the bag(s) daily by hand or compress with a stirring spoon. When you remove it at the end, squeeze it out gently (twisting works well) or press the fruit inside, and then I just toss the whole mess unless I plan to make a second-run wine with the same fruit. It helps loads when it comes to getting rid of debris, and the bags are cheap enough for me not to fret with the hassles of dumping and cleaning them.

Another great idea is to freeze your fruit if at all possible before using it. Freezing breaks down the fruit cells and allows more goodness to be extracted. It also makes it a bunch easier to remove unwanted debris in the latter stages. Thaw it, macerate it in your chosen fashion, and proceed.

I use pectic enzyme, but never thought of it as a fruit breakdown agent but rather as a pectin haze preventative. I use freezing and the bags for breakdown and debris removal.

I even line my press with a strainer bag to prevent debris from getting in the free-run and pressed juice.

Your best bet on racking is to go to a progressively smaller carboy. If you get in a terrible pinch, you might try buying unpreserved plum juice and starting a second gallon or two batch now. Then use that as your topping liquid when the time comes.

I stir my musts twice daily, morning and evening. I stir them fairly vigorously to incorporate oxygen and to redistribute the yeast cells. You don't want to go hog wild with vigor, in my view, because that CO2 forms a layer over the must to seal it off from oxygen. Degassing is for much later, in the secondary process.

 

[meadman77]

Thanks for all of the helpful replies. I did add pectic enzyme - forgot to mention that. I added at a rate of 5 teaspoons 5 gallon. This worked out to be 10g on my scales per 5 gallon which surprised me. The packet of pectic enzyme said 1-2g per L which for 5 gallons would have been 20-40g which seemed like a lot plus I only had a 50g packet. I let it act for about 8 hours prior to pitching (I would have left it for about 12 hours but needed to go to bed!). It did seem to liquify the must somewhat but it is still very pulpy.

Volume was to high to consider freezing as I only have a domestic fridge/freezer which is full of food.

Those paint strainers sound handy. I might see if I can find something similar here in Australia. I have a stainless colander but it is quite small considering the volume of pulp and it would be a tedious process.

I guess I could do would be to line a bucket with sanitized muslin cloth and use this as a straining bag and then transfer to a secondary. From what it seems it is ok to give it a good squeeze (some recipes just state to let it drip and not to squeeze). This seems to me like it would make a big different in the volume of liquid that is reclaimed. My secondary is a 54L glass demijohn which has a 2" opening. Hopefully the volume will fill it completely with a little left over which I can put in a small container with an airlock for topping up after racking. The total volume that it is taking up int the primaries is probably about 65L.

 

[dralarms]

I usually use 4 to 5 TABLESPOONS of pectic enzyme per 6 gal. Since you added some you should be fine. I would keep it stirred and give it a few extra days on the pulp. (I've left mine 2 weeks before with no problems). It is still working, just slower since ferment has started