Trial Batches

[K&GB]

I'm so addicted to this hobby...I'ts warming up here in southern Arizona. Got into the low 90s two days ago. The desert is in bloom with all manner of wild flowers. The citris groves have all been picked and pruned back, except for what looks like tangelos. You still see groves of bright orange here and there. Huge fields of every kind of lettuce imaginable are now being harvested. These were the brown dirt fields that stretched as far as the eye could see and made this place look so ugly and desolate when Imoved here last summer. But they've been all shades of beautiful green ever since December.Little roadside fruit standshave beenpopping up all over. All manner of citris, dates,and strawberries can be purchased from the tailgate of any number of pickup trucks.


And so it happens that I was finally unable to resist temptation any longer. I stopped at a roadside stand and bought a half case of bright red strawberries. Looked up a recipe for strawberry wine on Jack Keller's website and plunged in with both feet. That was last weekend, and the strawberry is in secondary now. But I must confess, it didn't end there. Yesterday we were grocery shopping, and somehow three bags of mandarin oranges found their way into our cart. Well, I squeezed two of those bags last night and pitched the yeast on a batch of mandarin orange wine this morning.


But of course I have questions. I have a little bottle of pectic enzyme that I bought when I first started making kit winesthis pastOctober. I'd never opened it until I needed it for the strawberry batch last weeked. But now I read that it's very perishable and should have been refrigerated. Should Ithrow it out and get a powdered form? And I read Waldo's post about steaming strawberries to extract the juice. How does that work? I have a similar looking pot that I'm using for a primary on these one-gal batches. It came with a basket inside that has holes around the sides, but I didn't know what it was for. Is this a steamer pot? If so, how do I collect the juice? Finally, I've used Pastuer Red yeast for both of these trial batches, but I've been reading up on other yeasts as well. Apparently, you can use yeast that doesn't ferment completely dry, leaving a sweeter finished wine. Does this approach work, or should I just back-sweeten?


Sorry for the long novel and all the questions. Sometimes I get in the mood to write and I just can't seem to stop myself.


Ken

 

[NorthernWinos]

Sounds like your living in the 'Land pf Plenty'...So fortunate to have fresh produce this time of the year....and it will keep getting better....Up here this time of the year the grocery stores are filled with over priced rather shabby looking citrus....The 'greens' [salad fixin's] are nice tho.
The Steam Juicer is a 3 piece unit. The bottom holds the water, the second pot has a hole through the middle that lets the steam rise...the top basket holds your fruit...when the steam hits the basket of fruit the juice drips into the middle pot and and comes out of a spigot.....They work wonderfully....and last for probably a lifetime.

Sounds like the pots you have would be a blancher....would be good for cooking corn or other vegetables in...then you pull out the basket to drain...I use a blancher when freezing vegetables, to cook corn on the cob and to dip tomatoes into hot water to peel them....It is also a very useful set-up.


Enjoy your hobby and your access to such wonderful produce.


Here is a link to the Steam Juicing process....
http://www.finevinewines.com//Wiz/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=1632&KW=steam+juicer



Edited by: Northern Winos

 

[Wade E]

As far as the pectic enzyme goes, I am on my second bottle in 2 1/2 years and Just finished the the first bottle the end of last year. I never had a problem with it but must say that it is cheap enough that replacing it would not put a dent in your pocket. Why I used mine till the end was because I always forgot about it until the last minute when I needed it but it never let me down.

 

[Lloyd1]

NW - Upon digging thru my wine making stuff purchased 15 years ago, I continue to amaze myself!
I have the exact unit you have, but when we tried it back then, it did not work well for us.
It would not produce very much juice.
I have no idea what we did wrong, but I definately will be giving it another chance!!



It is the stainless version, in perfect condition except the hose and clip are missing.
They should be easy to replace.


Here is a couple of pics of the original magazine article that got us interested in it, and the cover of the instruction book.
The original receipt says we paid $106.40 in 1992.

 

[NorthernWinos]

Yep...that's my baby...Same booklet and all....Got mine sometime in the 80's...we are thinking mid 80's....I paid about $75 at that time.


I don't get much juice from apples...but it is very good. If I cut them in half or quarters they go a bit faster..crabapples go in whole. With some fruit, like the apples I sprinkle little sugar over the fruit and it seems to make the juice flow more freely.


Berries produce the most juice...and the fastest. Usually in an hour most of the juices are extracted....


I found that having the heat on high is almost a 'must'....works best that way for me.


You'll enjoy your juicer....

 

[K&GB]

So this is where I confess my sins, meaning that I didn't follow the ricipes for either of my trial batches of fruit wine. True to form, I dove in armed withlittle patience and no experience. (Maybe I'll develop some of thoseover the next44 years.) So rather than waiting six months to see if these experiments end in disaster (cause I'm sure to start a few more batches before then), I'm hoping the forum's panel of experts might offer some predictions on how my "deviations" might turn out.


For both kits I used more fruit than recommended because I wanted more color and flavor.I also don't have a scale, so I estimatedthe sugar and put in a bit much. The mandarin orange recipe called for 1 pint of juice per gallon. I used more juice, threw in several oranges worth of squeezed pulp, and tossed in 8 wedges of peel. Finally, I don't have citric acid or acid blend, so I used tartaric for both. Here are my initial readings.


Strawberry- SG 1.110 PH 3.24 Mandarin Orange- SG 1.100 PH 3.47. The ABV should be ~ 14.5 and 13.5.


Questions: Should I dilute these after fermentation and how much would that affect the color and flavor? Will the use of tartaric acid have any negative effect? I removed the orange peel after two days. Will the peel enhance color, and will it have any negative effect?


Thanks in advance for your advice.

 

[K&GB]

I racked the strawberry today onto a crushed campden tablet and 1/2 tsp of k-sorbate.I was surprised at how difficult it was to rack from a 1-gal jug, not to mention the 350 ml wine bottle. The lees were light and fluffy and wanted to come along with the wine. So I stopped the siphon early and strained the remainder through coffee filters. I still ended up with less than 1 gal, but that worked out well as I needed to dilute this wine because of the high alcohol content. I went ahead and added a sugar syrup to back sweeten it and then topped up with water.


The mandarin orange is in secondary for another week. It doesn't have near the accumulation of lees as the strawberry did.Edited by: K&GB

 

[Wade E]

I have had the same problem as the smaller the container, the harder it is to get the wine out without sucking up the lees.

 

[K&GB]

Racked the strawberry some time ago. It had a nice bouquet, but was a bit hot as I expected. Since I had some headspace left over, I sweetened with a sugar syrup.

I racked the mandarin orange more recently. This wine was almost completely clear and a pale yello-orange. It had the distinctive mandarin bouquet, but lacked the citrus zing on the nose. Tasted pretty good, but again too hot. I diluted and sweetened this with about 2 cups of white grape juice.

 

[Bert]

K&GB...Your wines look great....One thing, I sure hope you are making good notes, because when you make that super great wine, you will be able to repeat it....They are some fine looking wines..

 

[K&GB]

Thanks Bert. Good advice. I do keep a winemaking journal, but Ilack the vocabulary to descripe what wine tastes like. But at least I keep all the data, so a year or so down the road when I taste one of these and think "wow, that's good" I can maybe repeat the process.

 

[s.arkvinomaker]

Does anyone know where to purchase one of these steamers now?

 

[NorthernWinos]

Try eBay...

http://search.ebay.com/search/searc...d=m37&satitle=steam+juicer&category0=

....or just Google...Steam Juicer.

[ame]http://www.google.com/search?q=steam+juicer&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozillan-USfficial&client=firefox-a[/ame]

Then search for what suits you by price...etc. Try for a stainless steel one.

 

[Wade E]

If it is lacking the Zing then maybe it needs a little more acid. they look great!

 

[K&GB]

Thanks Wade. By "lacking zing" I was trying to describe the nose. You get the unique mandarin boquet, but nothing of the citrus like with the original juice. Almost makes it smell dull or flat- again I'm not good at description. The taste was actually pretty good. It was tart before the addition of the white grape juice, and now it's more in balance. I'll probably check the acid before I bottle it, but I'm going to try to leave it alone for a few months first.

 

[K&GB]

I bottled both these batches this past weekend.


First the strawberry

Then the mandarin orange

 

[whino-wino]

 

[whino-wino]

Does anyone know where to purchase one of these steamers now?

I got my juicer frm these guys:


http://www.costplusjuicers.com/

 

[grapeman]

Ken I know I must seem like the guy that crashes a party. I would worry about bottling straight fruit wines after only one and a half months start to finish. I know they look fairly clear at this point, but I'm betting they will throw out a bit more sediment on the bottom of the bottles within a few weeks. Straight fruit wines and many grape wines for that matter will take months to clear all the way.


I'm just trying to say - practice your patience. It certainly won't make your wine less drinkable, but if you get dust in the bottom you will be mad at yourself for rushing to bottle. It is easier to wait after you have some good reserves buit up!

 

[smokegrub]

The steamer choices range from about $40 for the less expensive versions to about $125 for the Mehu-Liisa. I bought the latter and I am extremely satisfied both with the steamer and with the wines I have made with the steamed juice. The price is easier to justify when you take into account that the steamer can also be used to steam fruits, fish and meats. The base makes a very nice, large stock pot.

One of the advantages of steam-juicing is that you can seal the juice in sterilized canning jars and do the wine when you want--frees up a lot of freezer space plus you will have no concerns about the fruit oxidizing.