How to "strain" fruit from primary into secondary?

[Mindscape100]

Hi All,

Ive been looking through some of the recipies and Ive noticed that the fruit needs to be strained before transfering from the primary fermenting bucket. What do ou guys generally use for this process? Is it just a case of a relativly fine sieve or do you use other material?


Regards
John

[goldseal]

It depends on the fruit and the individual.

Sometimes the fruit will float, and you can rack off the juice underneath with a syphon tube. Some people will place the fruit in sanitised nylon straining bags and simply remove the bag (letting it drip for a while, not squeezing).

What recipes have you been looking at?

[Mindscape100]

It depends on the fruit and the individual.

Sometimes the fruit will float, and you can rack off the juice underneath with a syphon tube. Some people will place the fruit in sanitised nylon straining bags and simply remove the bag (letting it drip for a while, not squeezing).

What recipes have you been looking at?

Thanks for the reply,
Ive currently got a 25litre with fruit cocktail and peach, the second is a rhubarb (tinned)

Cheers
John

[goldseal]

I reckon you'll have some floating fruit and maybe some which will have sunk to the bottom.

When you rack from primary to secondary, you'll be doing so when the SG has dropped to 1.020 to 1.010. By this time there will be some lees (sediment) at the bottom of the fermenter, and you'll want to avoid taking too much of this across to the secondary.

If you have a sieve and a syphon tube:

Find a bowl or a small fermenting bucket. Sanitise everything!

Skim off the floating fruit with the sieve and put in the bowl/bucket

Use your syphon tube to rack the juice from the primary to the secondary. you might want to rack via the sieve (place it in the top of a funnel) to remove any floating bits of fruit. Be prepared for the tube to block up occasionally

If the secondary isn't quite full, use the fruit you skimmed off - just put it in the sieve and let it drip into the secondary.

I'm sure there is a thousand other ways of diong it, but it works for me.

[Mindscape100]

Great stuff, that helps heaps!

Need to get a hydrometer today, my old one was cracked at the base! Cant really work without that!

Cheers
John

[goldseal]

You're welcome

[hedgerow]

A couple of things that I use are a fine sieve and if I need a muslin cheese cloth to which every thing can be poured through, worst case for me I use a large coffee filter paper

[Mindscape100]

A couple of things that I use are a fine sieve and if I need a muslin cheese cloth to which every thing can be poured through, worst case for me I use a large coffee filter paper

If i were to use the muslin though am I right in thinking your not supposed to squeeze out the material and if not could this take a long time indeed?

John

[fatbloke]

It's quite normal "not" to squeeze the fruit is it's been processed in some way as it can tranfer pectins etc and other problems.....

Some here frown a bit on using sanitised cloths, but I've done that sucessfully with nothing detrimental happening. I used clean cloth and soaked it in a sulphite sanitiser.

It doesn't take as long as you think, but it does depend on the kit you got available. A large sieve is helpful but if you're trying to get the must into a DJ, then you'd be better placed straining it into a bucket/bowl, as you probably haven't got a funnel large enough to sit a decent sized sieve into it.....

Have a search for Luc Volders wine blog (Wijnmaker - and you have to scroll down for his english translations). He has a handy tip about making a largish strainer from 2 food type buckets (like for catering size honey, cooking fat, etc etc). Then it's no problem strianing fruit etc.........

Regards

Jtfb