critterhunter
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- Oct 29, 2010
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Here’s the deal…
After about 5 or 6 days of fermenting we just moved our wine from the 7 gallon primary bucket to a 5 gallon glass carboy yesterday. This wine was made from 30+ pounds of pears, 1 & ½ gallons of Juicy Juice Raspberry/Apple juice, 10 pounds of sugar, and used champagne yeast.
We didn’t put the pears in a mesh bag and when we racked it to the carboy yesterday we ran the juice through a kitchen screener. One day later as it stands right now about half the carboy is filled with sediment. I’m sure this sediment will compress over the next week or two.
However, we probably are going to make up for a good bit of lost volume when we rack it again in say a week or two. Perhaps a gallon to a gallon and a half let’s say maybe.
This batch should have a very high alcohol content that we wouldn’t mind watering down. Our prior batch also used 30+ pounds of pears, 10 pounds of sugar, and champain yeast, and turned out great…But with this new batch the pears were much more ripe (sweet) and the gallon and a half of Raspberry/Apple juice was also pretty sweet, so I expect this batch might have a good bit more alchohol content then we even want…Mobbing the taste of the wine somewhat.
So, with all the above in mind and the fact that we probably are going to lose a good bit of volume the next time we rack it, and as said we’d like to water down the alchohol content anyway, we were wondering if we could make up for that lost volume by pouring more of the Raspberry/Apple juice in along with Sorbate to prevent it from also converting that to alcohol? Also, since we already used one campden tablet per gallon in the primary and will only be two or three weeks removed from that do we need to put more campden in when we do this? If so, should that also be at a rate of one per gallon?
Are there any negative reasons to pouring juice in and adding Sorbate this early? What about perhaps a 50/50 mixture of juice/water to make up for the lost volume? As said, we don’t mind watering down the alcohol content and sprucing up the raspberry flavor because we don’t want the alcohol over powering the taste of the wine.
The last batch prior to this with the 30+ pounds of pears and 6 pounds of white raisins came out great. We had adding probably a gallon or more of water to make up for lost volume in that batch and didn’t notice any loss of pear flavor because just like this batch we had gone heavy on the fruit.
Our main objective is to water down the alcohol flavor and perhaps spruce up the Raspberry flavor. Also, should we boil the juice and/or water before adding it?
Thanks for any advice and input!
After about 5 or 6 days of fermenting we just moved our wine from the 7 gallon primary bucket to a 5 gallon glass carboy yesterday. This wine was made from 30+ pounds of pears, 1 & ½ gallons of Juicy Juice Raspberry/Apple juice, 10 pounds of sugar, and used champagne yeast.
We didn’t put the pears in a mesh bag and when we racked it to the carboy yesterday we ran the juice through a kitchen screener. One day later as it stands right now about half the carboy is filled with sediment. I’m sure this sediment will compress over the next week or two.
However, we probably are going to make up for a good bit of lost volume when we rack it again in say a week or two. Perhaps a gallon to a gallon and a half let’s say maybe.
This batch should have a very high alcohol content that we wouldn’t mind watering down. Our prior batch also used 30+ pounds of pears, 10 pounds of sugar, and champain yeast, and turned out great…But with this new batch the pears were much more ripe (sweet) and the gallon and a half of Raspberry/Apple juice was also pretty sweet, so I expect this batch might have a good bit more alchohol content then we even want…Mobbing the taste of the wine somewhat.
So, with all the above in mind and the fact that we probably are going to lose a good bit of volume the next time we rack it, and as said we’d like to water down the alchohol content anyway, we were wondering if we could make up for that lost volume by pouring more of the Raspberry/Apple juice in along with Sorbate to prevent it from also converting that to alcohol? Also, since we already used one campden tablet per gallon in the primary and will only be two or three weeks removed from that do we need to put more campden in when we do this? If so, should that also be at a rate of one per gallon?
Are there any negative reasons to pouring juice in and adding Sorbate this early? What about perhaps a 50/50 mixture of juice/water to make up for the lost volume? As said, we don’t mind watering down the alcohol content and sprucing up the raspberry flavor because we don’t want the alcohol over powering the taste of the wine.
The last batch prior to this with the 30+ pounds of pears and 6 pounds of white raisins came out great. We had adding probably a gallon or more of water to make up for lost volume in that batch and didn’t notice any loss of pear flavor because just like this batch we had gone heavy on the fruit.
Our main objective is to water down the alcohol flavor and perhaps spruce up the Raspberry flavor. Also, should we boil the juice and/or water before adding it?
Thanks for any advice and input!