Tinned Fruit wines

[makum101]

Its been clearing for a week and its still a bit cloudy. How long should it take? (i chucked in some beer and wine Finings).

[wisp]

[goldseal]

Erm, I did one more blunder.... I just chucked the yeast in in powdered form. Since then I've read that maybe I should have activated it first by mixing it with some warm water.

Oh Well time will tell.

It'll be fine - rehydrating it in warm water is the preferred way, but with 8 g of yeast in a gallon, enough will survive (unless you NOW tell us that you have added a packet of Surf instead of a packet of yeast ).

Relax

[makum101]

Cheers for the info Goldseal. You have calmed my fears somewhat. I dont mind it a bit weaker for my first attempt. I'll just let it be now I know its not a total loss.

Erm, I did one more blunder.... I just chucked the yeast in in powdered form. Since then I've read that maybe I should have activated it first by mixing it with some warm water.

Oh Well time will tell.

[goldseal]

Not a problem.

Yeast - forget it, it doesn't really matter. You could have taken a couple of grammes from the 8g sachet for reasons of economy, but you'll be fine with the whole packet. The yeast will stop multiplying when they run out of oxygen anyway.

Sugar - 1.070 will yield a wine with around 1.3% less alcohol than one starting at 1.080.

1.080 is 208 grammes per litre of sugar, and 1.070 is 182.5 grammes per litre. If you have 4.5 litres of must, you could take some of the must and dissolve another 115g of sugar and add back to the main bulk - this should lift the sugar content by the required amount. Alternatively you could just let it ferment - I'm sure it'll be fine

[makum101]

Thanks Goldseal.
It helps but alas i think after your clear answer I may be starting over as I hoyed the tinned fruit in the dj and checked the SG of the sugar / water mix then added that to the dj. Ive just checked the overall mixed must and its at 1.070

I added a sachet of yeast for fruit and flower wines tonight too so i suppose its now too late to add more sugar??

A quick question regarding the yeast. it was an 8 gram sachet which I added in its entirety. However I then read the dosage and it said 8 Grams to 25 litres of wine

How much yeasty should I have put in?

[goldseal]

The SG of the must as a whole should be 1.080 ish, regardless of the ingredients.

I would do the following:

Dissolve the approximate amount of sugar in boiling water and allow to cool, in a jug (or two).

Drain the fruit cocktail juice/syrup into your fermenter. Rinse the fruit with water and add this to the fermenter.

If you are going to add grape juice, do it now.

Now add some of the dissolved sugar to the fermenter, mixing with plain water, bringing it up to the desired level, mixing thoroughly and checking SG regularly. The aim is to end up with the correct SG and the correct volume of must at the same time

There will be a small amount of sugar in the fruit, but not much - most will be in the syrup/juice, so the SG won't change much.

You can get a bit more scientific - an SG of 1.080 corresponds to 208 grammes per litre, so if you are OK at maths you can calculate the required sugar based on the sugar content of the tinned fruit (and the grape juice) - you must use your hydrometer to get to the required SG but this will get you pretty close.

I hope this helps.

[makum101]

Fruit cocktail

For 1 gallon (4.54 litres)
all measurements are UK imperial

2 X 15oz tins fruit cocktail
Sugar to SG 1.080
1 teaspoon citric acid
1 teaspoon tannin
2 teaspoons pectolase
1 vitamin B1 tablet (or yeast energiser)
Good quality yeast
Water to 1 Gallon

Pour the syrup from the can into the primary fermenter, liquidise or mash the fruit with a potato masher (remove any cherry stones first)
Boil 4 pints of water and dissolve the sugar in it, place fruit pulp into primary and pour over the sugar syrup.

Allow to cool to 70 F add the acid, tannin and pectolase, stir well and cover and leave for 24 hours (to allow the pectolase to work)
next day stir thoroughly and add water to 1 gallon, add the yeast energiser and yeast, leave enough room for a head to form during fermentation fit airlock
stir daily, when S.G. reaches 1.010 strain and rack to demijohn.

ferment out racking and bottling as normal.

I have started my first batch of the above and am confused over the SG measurements.

I made sure the 4 pints of water mixed with sugar was 1.080 and then added it to the fruit and syrup in the dj. It only took about 2/3rds of a bag of sugar is this right or should I check the SG of the must now its all mixed together? and if so should that also be 1.080?

Also I have been reading about adding grape juice. Am I right in thinking that if i do this i miss out the sugar and get the mixed must to a SG of 1.080?

[wingchun]

Tinned Grapefruit.

Hi All!
This is my first post as I am new to Winemaking.
Have started a couple of brews over the last few days but this one has me stumped.
My wife has a leftover 3kg.tin of Grpaefruit in a light syrup. I have looked in CJJ. Berry's book but the only reference is for whole Grapefruit, could anyone please suggest a recipe for a medium to sweet brew?
I also require a few more ingredients namely, Malt and Wheat. I have been to Holland and Barrets and they stock both but in different varieties. The wheat is in large packets but there are many varieties, which one do I go for? Sorry can't remember what they are, should have taken notes but I believe one was Maize? The Malt is in the form of a liquid, is this correct or should I look for dried?
Sorry for being so vague, if necessry I will pop back down to the shop and take notes.
Hope someone can assist!
Many thanks for taking the trouble to read this.
Wingchun

[Trish]

Thanks, yes it was 1.070 when I checked after
adding everything (except the yeast& nutrient).
Hopefully it'll start to ferment ok, now that I've added those today.

Thanks for your help, appreciate it

[goldseal]

If 1.070 is the SG you actually measured once your must was prepared, you'll be fine. Mine usually start off at 1.080 to 1.085, so you shouldn't have any problems at all.

[Trish]

Phewwwwww!
Thanks for that Goldseal, doesn't seem too drastic then.

Starting SG is 1070. Does that seem ok?

[goldseal]

Oooooops! How daft can you get ... I didn't think about needing less sugar, so didn't reduce quantity! Can I do anything to counteract the overload of sugar? Will it ruin the wine?

Thanks.

You should be OK. This is my reasoning ...

Tesco White Grape has 156g of sugar per litre. You have added 4l, so call it 600g sugar.

4 gallons is about 18 litres, so you have added about 33g/litre extra sugar.

This is roughly the difference of a starting SG of 1.080 and 1.090.

You might end up with a wine with just over 1% extra alcohol. This shouldn't make much of a diffrence, but it might take a couple of months to smooth out before it is really drinkable.

What was your starting SG, by the way?

[Trish]

Oooooops! How daft can you get ... I didn't think about needing less sugar, so didn't reduce quantity! Can I do anything to counteract the overload of sugar? Will it ruin the wine?

Thanks.

[goldseal]

Funnily enough, I started 5 gallons of tinned Strawberry yesterday.

I always use 1 litre Tesco White Grape per gallon now. It definitely improves the wine (obviously reduce the sugar accordingly).