Tinned Fruit wines

[Duffbeer]

Steam from a boiling kettel works perfectly

[Hippie]

A Wagner heat gun works very well for me.

[lockwood1956]

A Wagner heat gun works very well for me.

dry heat too eh?

so no trapped moisture?

[StockeyDAW]

YAY!!!

Here's my first ever brew, all bottled and labelled. Didn't quite get the shrink top right though - DOH!!!

So - what ya think!!??!?!??!

BTW, tried some of this last night - VERY NICE!! In fact, was so nice, am going to do another 2 1 gallon batches today (or a may just do a 5 gall batch and be done with it!!)

You are on the way now! It gets better with every batch. Cheers DAW

[Hippie]

yep

dry heat too eh?

so no trapped moisture?

Yep, just takes a little practice to keep the correct distance while slowly turning the bottle, after starting it by holding down the shrink wrap with a butter knife. Not nearly as complicated as it sounds.

Mine has 2 settings, low and high. I use the low, which is not much hotter than a blowdryer or hairdryer, but can melt the shrinkwrap if held in one spot too long.

Savvy?

[medpretzel]

Paranoid

so no trapped moisture?

Precisely why I do not use them.

I guess I'm just overly paranoid about that. But I guess since my wines aren't that good, I'm not too worried about presentation!!!

[Zebedee]

A Wagner heat gun works very well for me.

I'll try that with my next batch

my one and only attempt so far was with the daughters hair drier, but after little success I resorted to the kettle steam.

[Hippie]

Right. Hairdryers don't get quite hot enough.

[medpretzel]

I think this should go here.

I am making a tinned grapefruit wine. I had started with 2 gallons, but after racking, I lost about a good 2 liters. Considering that my demi-john was only "half-full" (or half-empty - you be the judge), I decided to blend a little. What to top up with was the biggest question. So I remembered that Martina was a presenter at WineFest '07, and decided to look at her presentation. Well, I followed her advice and looked for some good recipes that included grapefruit.

I eventually topped up with a sugar/anise/ginger concoction, and hope that this will turn out well. One is pure grapefruit, the other a mix.

I just thought I'd mention this for those who are making tinned wines and don't know what to top up with. Her tip was to look at food recipes, things that you like to eat, and also herbal possibilities. I googled "grapefruit pairings" and came up with some good alternatives. However, ginger/annise seemed to fit my liking the best.

I also did what she did. I made a "tea" out of the ginger and anise, added a bit of sugar, and tasted it. Not bad, not bad at all. The mix seemed right to me, so I added my "tea" into the wine.

I will keep you abreast of what goes on later with this wine.

[fatbloke]

Shrink caps in water ??? How bizarre.

Personally, as part of my working background is in communications/electronics, when I did my first bottling, the first thing I reached for was my partners hair dryer (only need a chamois myself ).

It was a "no-brainer", because having build/designed/modified circuit boards, electronic shrink tubing is excellent to tidy things up or to use as low level insulation for cable joints, unions etc etc.

and of course, with "lecky wigglies" you certainly don't take'm near the water.

Hence "bangin' 'em" with Clares hair dryer seemed obvious.

It depends on how hot the hair dryer gets, in my case, I set it on hot, with a slow fan speed and just hold it at the shrink cap (distance 2 to 3 inches) and as soon as the shrink starts to contract, I rotate the bottle.

A hot air paint stripper gun would be quicker, only because it's a damn site hotter than a hair dryer. Then it should take just a couple of seconds to shrink each bottle.

You could always just waste a couple on the end of a broom handle, just to be able to judge the required time/temperature.

regards

fatbloke

[lockwood1956]

You could always just waste a couple on the end of a broom handle, just to be able to judge the required time/temperature.

regards

fatbloke

Great idea

cheers
Bob

[yul]

I have now bottled my strawberry wine and I have to say very good indeed somewhat better than my blackberry one at this present time which has just been racked to a clean container to clear befor bottling.

[fatbloke]

I have now bottled my strawberry wine and I have to say very good indeed somewhat better than my blackberry one at this present time which has just been racked to a clean container to clear befor bottling.

yul, how does it taste ? because the gallon I made tasted rather like an alcoholic strawberry ice cream syrup when I racked it off the lees last weekend.

I'm thinking that it may have "stuck". So for the moment I've only added some nutrient to see if that starts it again.

I just need some sort of a clue so that I can "re-start" it properly if I need to.

regards

John the fatbloke

[yul]

I stopped mine slightly early so that I had some residual sweetness to bring the strawberry flavour through not so much though that it tasted syrupy, as you said you might have a sticky give it a check with the hydro.

[lockwood1956]

In my opinion its always better to ferment to dry, stabilise and back sweeten, that way you are sure of a sound ferment, and get more repeatable results, trying to stop an active ferment is not as easy as it seems.

Sweetening will bring out the fruit taste you desire.

so ferment to dry
stabilise
sweeten

regards
Bob