Having received the yeast from Cellar Rat I decided to use it to make a Lychee wine to Rich’s recipe but also to conduct a comparison trial at the same time. Due to running out of Lalvin D47 I had to use KI V1116 but figured it would be adequate for the trial.
I doubled up Rich’s recipe as follows,
4x 550g tins lychees in light syrup
2x 250ml WGC
1100g Sugar (1.080 is what I aimed for with hydrometer, big mistake! See below)
4 tsp pectolase
1/4 tsp tannin
5tsp Tartaric acid.
2 tsp nutrient
4 tsp bentonite
Because I only have one small fermentation bucket I decided to ferment in demijohns and because of this I put the lychees in a food processor to chop them down small enough to fit through a funnel.
I added the finely chopped lychees, syrup, grape concentrate and remainder of ingredients to the bucket, added water and then kept adding sugar syrup until I got 1.082 on my hydrometer and 2 gallons. I was conscious of Richard S’s post in the same thread where he used the same amount of sugar as Rich and had an SG of over 1.100 so I added sugar a bit at a time to avoid this. The consistency of the must was like a soup and it didn’t occur to me that all the pulp could give a false hydrometer reading (newbie mistake to learn from) until a little later.
I filled both djs to the shoulders and then hydrated both yeasts as per Lalvin instructions. It was noticeable that Cellar Rats yeast didn’t hydrate as easily as the Lalvin but was reasonably well dispersed by the time came to pitch it in. Both yeasts were within a couple of degrees c of the must at time of pitching.
It was at this time that I had serious doubts about the accuracy of the hydrometer reading and remembered I had a refractometer. The refractomter confirmed my fears and it showed I only had an SG of 1.070. Topping up will hopefully rectify that.
The Lalvin lychee dj is at 20c and Cellar Rats lychee is in the coldest room in the house at 16c/17c.
Rob
I doubled up Rich’s recipe as follows,
4x 550g tins lychees in light syrup
2x 250ml WGC
1100g Sugar (1.080 is what I aimed for with hydrometer, big mistake! See below)
4 tsp pectolase
1/4 tsp tannin
5tsp Tartaric acid.
2 tsp nutrient
4 tsp bentonite
Because I only have one small fermentation bucket I decided to ferment in demijohns and because of this I put the lychees in a food processor to chop them down small enough to fit through a funnel.
I added the finely chopped lychees, syrup, grape concentrate and remainder of ingredients to the bucket, added water and then kept adding sugar syrup until I got 1.082 on my hydrometer and 2 gallons. I was conscious of Richard S’s post in the same thread where he used the same amount of sugar as Rich and had an SG of over 1.100 so I added sugar a bit at a time to avoid this. The consistency of the must was like a soup and it didn’t occur to me that all the pulp could give a false hydrometer reading (newbie mistake to learn from) until a little later.
I filled both djs to the shoulders and then hydrated both yeasts as per Lalvin instructions. It was noticeable that Cellar Rats yeast didn’t hydrate as easily as the Lalvin but was reasonably well dispersed by the time came to pitch it in. Both yeasts were within a couple of degrees c of the must at time of pitching.
It was at this time that I had serious doubts about the accuracy of the hydrometer reading and remembered I had a refractometer. The refractomter confirmed my fears and it showed I only had an SG of 1.070. Topping up will hopefully rectify that.
The Lalvin lychee dj is at 20c and Cellar Rats lychee is in the coldest room in the house at 16c/17c.
Rob
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