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Okay, guys. Here's a proper write-up of brewing day, because honestly it was a pretty long evening for me and I was so sick of it right afterwards that I didn't feel like writing.
So.
First, I found, when I got my fruit home, that my kitchen scale was out of batteries. Weights are approximate.
So I had just left the ~25 lbs kousa, bit of water, sodium bisulphite, and pectic enzymes to sit.
they sat, covered with the loose primary fermenter lid, for 24 hours. At this point everything smelled SUPER yeasty, which worried me since it wasn't supposed to have anything alive in it. Although my recipe involved leaving all the pulp and topping up to 23 L, I couldn't deal with the idea of leaving such a huge volume of pulp ('must'?) in there.
I did a rough strain through my colander, which involved a lot of juggling sterilized impliments and I don't recommend it.Lots of pulp came through the colander, but not a stupendous amount, so I left that in there, and took the squeezed-dry pulp and ran some boiling water through it to get out any more juice, then strained that water out and popped it in with the strained juice. That got me to maybe 10/15L of juice. (note: this is A LOT of pots/pans/bowls/strainers/spoons/buckets to juggle as sanitized implements. I basically kept a bowl of sanitizer and kept dipping hands/things in it when I forgot and touched something that hadn't been sterilized but I totally recommend a second person).
The recipe recommended putting in 12lbs of sugar, but again my scale was broken and the internet had varying weight-volume sugar measurements. I went with the most conservative. I mixed 24 cups sugar with as much water as my canner could hold, brought it to a simmery boil, then put that in. At this point I had about 21L of liquid composed of the first strained juice, the hot-strained second pressing, and the sugar water.
The hydrometer at this point said there was a specific gravity of 1.111 or potential alcohol volume of 14.5% but the liquid was pretty warm, and there was still a bit of pulp in it, so I'm taking that as a ballpark reading. It did accord with the recipe, though.
I didn't end up getting the acid testing kit, so just ignored that ambition.
At this point I started reconstituting my yeast (Red Star Cote des Blancs recommended for fruit wines) in warm water as per package directions and waiting for the fruit liquid to be cool enough to put the yeast in without killing it. That took a couple hours, which made me nervous for the yeast, but--
by the next day the pulp had formed a thick layer, floating on the surface of the wine-to-be, but I could hear fermentation occurring: lots of little bubbles were popping in there if I just listened. It's still doing that, set in my living room in an admittedly draughty/inconsistently-warm area.
It's starting to smell good.
Pretty soon I will rack it for the first time-- take the wine out from between the floating pulp and the settled yeast, stick it in a big glass carboy with an airlock, and let it keep singing.
[Note: I just racked it, and tasted it. It isn't close to clear. It's super tasty. It's still bubbling quite a bit, but this week's busy, so I wanted to teach myself this new skill while I could. Glass carboys need little lights inside so the hypnotizing bubbles inside are better lit].
[Edit Nov 04 2013: the yeast is bubbling away slowly but steadily, there's a lot of pulp on the bottom (doesn't look like yeast sediment exactly) that's not consolidates down, I'd lose a good gallon or gallon and a half if I tried to get it off that. Today for the first time it looks like it might eventually clear sometime in my lifetime. The carboy has been not entirely full, which I know is a problem, so tonight I'm boiling up another 1.25kg kousa fruit and a cup of sugar in some water to strain and add, topping it up. It smells much more alcoholic now, but really really really good.]
So.
First, I found, when I got my fruit home, that my kitchen scale was out of batteries. Weights are approximate.
So I had just left the ~25 lbs kousa, bit of water, sodium bisulphite, and pectic enzymes to sit.
they sat, covered with the loose primary fermenter lid, for 24 hours. At this point everything smelled SUPER yeasty, which worried me since it wasn't supposed to have anything alive in it. Although my recipe involved leaving all the pulp and topping up to 23 L, I couldn't deal with the idea of leaving such a huge volume of pulp ('must'?) in there.
I did a rough strain through my colander, which involved a lot of juggling sterilized impliments and I don't recommend it.Lots of pulp came through the colander, but not a stupendous amount, so I left that in there, and took the squeezed-dry pulp and ran some boiling water through it to get out any more juice, then strained that water out and popped it in with the strained juice. That got me to maybe 10/15L of juice. (note: this is A LOT of pots/pans/bowls/strainers/spoons/buckets to juggle as sanitized implements. I basically kept a bowl of sanitizer and kept dipping hands/things in it when I forgot and touched something that hadn't been sterilized but I totally recommend a second person).
The recipe recommended putting in 12lbs of sugar, but again my scale was broken and the internet had varying weight-volume sugar measurements. I went with the most conservative. I mixed 24 cups sugar with as much water as my canner could hold, brought it to a simmery boil, then put that in. At this point I had about 21L of liquid composed of the first strained juice, the hot-strained second pressing, and the sugar water.
The hydrometer at this point said there was a specific gravity of 1.111 or potential alcohol volume of 14.5% but the liquid was pretty warm, and there was still a bit of pulp in it, so I'm taking that as a ballpark reading. It did accord with the recipe, though.
I didn't end up getting the acid testing kit, so just ignored that ambition.
At this point I started reconstituting my yeast (Red Star Cote des Blancs recommended for fruit wines) in warm water as per package directions and waiting for the fruit liquid to be cool enough to put the yeast in without killing it. That took a couple hours, which made me nervous for the yeast, but--
by the next day the pulp had formed a thick layer, floating on the surface of the wine-to-be, but I could hear fermentation occurring: lots of little bubbles were popping in there if I just listened. It's still doing that, set in my living room in an admittedly draughty/inconsistently-warm area.
It's starting to smell good.
Pretty soon I will rack it for the first time-- take the wine out from between the floating pulp and the settled yeast, stick it in a big glass carboy with an airlock, and let it keep singing.
[Note: I just racked it, and tasted it. It isn't close to clear. It's super tasty. It's still bubbling quite a bit, but this week's busy, so I wanted to teach myself this new skill while I could. Glass carboys need little lights inside so the hypnotizing bubbles inside are better lit].
[Edit Nov 04 2013: the yeast is bubbling away slowly but steadily, there's a lot of pulp on the bottom (doesn't look like yeast sediment exactly) that's not consolidates down, I'd lose a good gallon or gallon and a half if I tried to get it off that. Today for the first time it looks like it might eventually clear sometime in my lifetime. The carboy has been not entirely full, which I know is a problem, so tonight I'm boiling up another 1.25kg kousa fruit and a cup of sugar in some water to strain and add, topping it up. It smells much more alcoholic now, but really really really good.]
