Tinned Fruit wines

[fatbloke]

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.

Oh, OK I'll do that.

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

Presuming that mine has "stuck" then Bob, I'm guessing that I should re-start it with champagne yeast (got some redstar and some lalvin available).

That way, it should (in theory) ferment it to dry and then I can back sweeten (Ha! got a bag of lactose as well).

It could also be that it's a bit too cool in our dining room, which could also explain why it's not "doing much", but would that have caused it to stick ?? I don't know.

regards

John the fatbloke

[lockwood1956]

It's not just a case of pitching another yeast in, that won't startup because of the alcohol content of the must, look in the tutorial section there is a thread on stuck ferments, it will give you a step by step guide to getting it going again.

But are you sure yours has stuck? is the SG staying the same over a period of days (airlock activity isnt a good guide to fermentation activity)
or has it just stalled?


what is the current S.G.?
what is the temperature of the must?
what yeast did you use (some are more temperature sensitive than others)

if it hasnt finished and is indeed stuck, give it a good stir, and perhaps warm it up, by moving it to somewhere warmer, or adding a heat belt/pd

regards
Bob

[jamiedodger]

Tinned strawberry is method B

1 15oz tin of strawberries
2 1/4 lb sugar
3 teaspoons citric acid
1/2 teaspoon tannin
1 vit 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
Boil 4 pints of water and dissolve the sugar in it, place fruit pulp into primary and pour over the sugar syrup.

Add water to 1 gallon, allow to cool to 70 F add the acid, tannin, pectolase, yeast energiser and yeast, leave enough room for a head to form during ferment and fit airlock
stir daily, when S.G. reaches 1.010 strain into a clean demijohn.

ferment out racking and bottling as normal.

My strawberry wine was made with 2 X 411g tins of strawberries to the gallon (approx 20oz)

my next batches will be done without boiling the water


hope this helps

I have a book full of recipes, if anyone wants one I will post the ingredients and whether it is method A or B

regards
Bob

regards
Bob

hi there, i have just started this one today, this being my first ever wine. it is sitting in one of those huge plastic buckets and i have followed the recipe above

a couple of questions i hope you dont mind helping with...

ferment out... what does this mean?

how does the wine go from cloudy to clear?

sorry, but im a complete novice!

many thanks,
jamie

[lockwood1956]

ferment out... what does this mean?

ferment till its finished...around SG 0.990

how does the wine go from cloudy to clear?

once the ferment is finished, gravity will make the solids fall out of suspension, sometimes though we need to help a little if it wont clear on its own, by using finings, but gravity and time will normally work for you.

sorry, but im a complete novice!

No apologies necessary at all

regards
Bob

[lockwood1956]

Sorry how rude of me.....

welcome aboard the forum, I hope you enjoy it here, we like questions so ask away

Are you trying the new winemaker series of wines?

you should find that they will help you build the skills necessary (I hope) to attempt different types and styles of wine
but I would love feedback from newbie winemakers such as yourself as to if these tutorials were useful


regards
Bob

[jamiedodger]

thanks ever so much for that. how long does it roughly take for the ferment to do its thing?

should i be looking for any signs that it is fermenting?

i guess there is a lot to learn!!

[jamiedodger]

i havent tried the newbie wines, only found them today, but will certainly be trying them out. someone has promised me some demijohns they no longer use so i will be waiting for those

im hoping i havent totally mucked up this strawberry wine!! i love strawberries

[Duffbeer]

thanks ever so much for that. how long does it roughly take for the ferment to do its thing?

should i be looking for any signs that it is fermenting?

i guess there is a lot to learn!!

It can take anything up to 24 hrs for a ferment to kick in properly, visible signs of fermenting is foaming when stirred, fruit pulp being pushed up to form a cap and a fizzing noise.


Oh and welcome to wines at home.

[jamiedodger]

thanks i will keep a look out for those!

[fatbloke]

hi there, i have just started this one today, this being my first ever wine. it is sitting in one of those huge plastic buckets and i have followed the recipe above

a couple of questions i hope you dont mind helping with...

ferment out... what does this mean?

The numbers that Bob quoted refer to the hydrometer readings i.e. water is 1.000, must/wine makings (without the yeast) will be, for example 1.050 - numbers higher and it's quite normal for wine to finish fermenting and for you to end up with a reading below e.g. 0.990 - it's about how easy it is for the hydrometer to pass through the liquid - it will pass through an alcohol/water mix (yes, thats the wine) easier than it will just water or water with fruit/flavouring/sugar etc thats the "must".

That magical word "ferment" is the actual process of where the yeast fungi is consuming the sugar and leaving the waste product, which is alcohol (ha! funny to think that it's all about recycling )

how does the wine go from cloudy to clear?

sorry, but im a complete novice!

many thanks,
jamie

As Bob said, normally, gravity will work it's miracle and the sediment will drop to the bottom of the jar/bucket/whatever. Though sometimes it might not - there's a couple of reasons why that might be, but that can be cured by "finings". The only thing to take into consideration would be the type of finings used - if you happen to be a vegetarian, some of them are gelatin based (animal derivative), some are clay based (bentonite and similar - I believe). These materials don't cost much so there's no real money issue.

Of course, you might need to know, that there's other reasons why the finished wine might be cloudy, even if the sediment seems to have dropped out of it OK.

The biggest one with fruit/country wine (as opposed to grape wine) is pectin haze (there's also a haze that can be caused by starch - bananas and root crops + rice of course).

You often find recipes that use fruit include an ingredient called Pectolase, or just pectic enzyme. You get it from the HBS and add it when the recipe states (yes it can be used after you've made a wine like that).

I dunno if there's a chart or something about which fruit has the most pectin - just remember, it's the pectin that sets jam - plus if the fruit used in a jam recipe hasn't got enough pectin to make it set - then most of the available pectin products are based on apple pectin.

You want it in jam, you don't want it in wine (well not the hazing anyway).

Oh and of course, welcome to the forums.

regards

John the fatbloke

[Old Thumper]

Strawberry recipe?

Hi guys,

Should the tinned strawberry recipe use pectolase or not? Method B apparently does not use pectolase but the instructions for Method B say to add pectolase, even though pectolase is not in the list of ingredients

I don't know if tinned strawberries contain much pectin but there should be no harm in using pectolase. Does it matter if pectolase is added 24 hours before the yeast or at the same time? I usually wait 24 hours after adding the pectolase to allow the pectolase to do its work. The yeast is then added.

Anyway, I just bought 2 x 410g tins (32p each!) of strawberries in syrup from Morrisons so I will use both of these in a 1 gallon batch and see how it goes. CJJ Berry's Wine making from tinned and canned fruit says to use Method A, which is confusing!

thanks

[lockwood1956]

Yes...add pectolase, I will Amend the recipe, pectolase will do no harm at all, in fact will likely extract more colour, i have also been thinking about this for some time, and have stopped using hot water to process ingredients as I believe it can be harmful, by either releasing too much pectin, or by driving off Esthers (flavour boquet and colour compounds)


but well spotted old thumper.....cheers

ammendments to recipe made
regards
Bob

[Old Thumper]

Great

I will follow Method A for Strawberry. CJJ Berry states this recipe for Strawberry wine:

1 15oz tin of strawberries
2 1/4 lb sugar
1 tablespoon citric acid
1/2 teaspoon tannin
1 nutrient tablet
wine yeast
Water to 1 gallon

He says a minimum of 1 tin of strawberries should be used hence why I went for two tins.

There is a mistake here as he forgets to mention pectolase but says to follow Method A (add pectolase and wait 24 hours before adding yeast).

There is much debate over whether using boiling water actually extracts more flavour from the fruit (rather than cold soak method). I have always used boiling water and not had any "haze" problem yet, but I am just a newbie to this winemaking excitment.....

BTW: I noticed that the tins of Morrisons Strawberries have colour (E129) listed amongst the ingredients. I hope this does not affect the wine in any way. For 32p a tin I cannot grumble if it does not turn out too well

[Duffbeer]

The heat treatment method was originally used before the camden method to rid the must of foriegn yeast and bacteria, the result is a semi cooked stewed taste in the wine which many people prefer and continue to do. The heat treatment releases more than normal pectin which is why the use of pectolse began. Hence why Cjj berry does not mention pectolase when cold soaking.

As Bob has stated It pays to use it in all wines, better to be safe than sorry, also boiling water will destroy pectolase so be sure to add it once the must has cooled if following the heat treatment method.

[jamiedodger]

it has started fizzing i must be doing something right and the SG has moved from 1.13 to 1.10, hopefully that is good too....