How much water do you add?

[Mike1]

For a fruit wine, the recipies tell you to add the frut, nutrients, enzymes, etc. and then add water up to a certain level, in my case 3 gallons. When you do this, do you add the water with the fruit in the primary? The volume of my fruit is displacing over a half gallon of the must. So, if I fill up to the 3 gallon mark, when I transfer to the secondary and pull out my fruit, I'll be left with a lot of water to add. On the other hand, during primary fermentation, I'm guessing the fruit will break down as the pectic enzymes go to work and if I add water to the 3 gallon mark before adding the fruit, then I won't know how much water to add.


Any insight would be greatly appreciated.


Mike

 

[nasv]

hey Mike, I'm not too experienced, but this is what I've done with my 1-gallon fruit batches.

I typically try to have all the fruit in a nylon bag and leave it in the primary (this will prevent too much "gunk" going into your secondary). I then dissolve some of other ingredients in the balance of water remaining. In the primary fermenter, I add usually add a little bit more water than needed to end up with a bit more volume of fluid than the batch I'm making. For example, for my 1-gallon batches, I might have 1.2 gallons of fluid (including fruit) in the primary and when racking I'll have enough to fill my 1-gallon carboy plus some extra. The key though is to watch your specific gravity, you don't want to dilute the must too much, so make sure when added your volume of water you work toward your goal SG.

Hope this helps,
-Nico

 

[grapeman]

When the fruit is squeezed out during primary ferment, you will gain about half of the volume displaced, so like Nico says I add a little extra water in the beginning, but watch the SG. This way you can control the alcohol level better and you don't dilute the alcohol after fermentation to bring up to the proper level for the secondary.

 

[Wade E]

I like to add juice of the same fruit from a health food store that
does not contain sorbate or benzoate or sulphites, this way it brings
it closer to the level you need and not have to add as much water or
sugar. I add water as needed before putting the fruit in and go about
1/2 gallon over so that when you rack you will be at the desired level
or with a little over to put in a 750ml bottle with airloch to use in
future racking and end up not topping up with other wines or water.

 

[Mike1]

Thanks for the quick responses.


On a related topic, how do you estimate how much the fruit will add to the SG? I'm guessing that the sugars in the fruit do not really register on the hydrometer. Is that a good assumption or bad?


I've left the volume of the primary low waiting for the responses and will have to add additional water and I'll adjust SG at that time. Should I just use the current SG and disregard the sugar content in the fruit?


Again, any help is greatly appreciated.


MikeEdited by: Mike

 

[Wade E]

I squeeze all the juice I can out of the fruit then set the fruit aside
and adjust SG and anything else such as acid from there. Are you using
a fermenting bag or something as the such as this helps drastically now
with getting the juice in there and afterwards with removing the fruit
without all the mess of bits floating and reducing alot of sediment.
Depending on which fruit you are using the brix (sugars within the
fruit) can raise the SG quite a bit. Remember that the smaller the
fruit the greeter the sugar almost always. When making a grape wine you
typically or always add no sugar. Grapes contain the most sugar of just
about all fruit size for size.

 

[Mike1]

Wade, thanks for the help, I think I'm going to do exactly as you suggest. I am using a fermenting bag and I'm making a kiwi wine. I've got kiwi and raisins in the bag. I know I can get a lot of juice out of the kiwi so I'll squeeze it good and set aside for adjusting the SG, and I'll be trying to check acid as well. I've got an acid test kit, but when I tried to use it before it was on a blackberry wine and it was hard to tell when the test liquid changed colors. Hopefully it will be easier with the kiwi.

 

[grapeman]

Mike I realize it is too late for this batch to get this(probably), but try one of the Accuvin Acid test kits. They are very easy to use and you don't need to fuss with color change.
http://www.finevinewines.com/ProdDetA.asp?PartNumber=217-10

 

[Mike1]

Anyone use the little strips similar to what you would use to test water in a pool or hot tub? I would guess that like the pool one, you just dip them into the must and compare to a color chart on the bottle. Of course I wonder if it works well with red wines. Since they are sold for wines, I would think somehow you would be able to see the difference in color.

 

[Wade E]

I had good results with the accuvin tests except for the PH test on a
blueberry wine. The acid test you speak of Mike (Titrate) will work
fine on this batch. I had the same problem as you with a dark
must.