[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Fermentation on the homestead (Page 1 of 2)
Posted: 8/16/2024 5:31:51 PM EDT
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Lets talk about fermentation on the homestead. My goal here is to really focus on winemaking but we can talk about pretty much anything that ferments as far as I’m concerned. Maybe I’ll share my current attempt to make my own apple cider vinegar in here too. I’ve been sharing my progress off and on in the Homestead Hangout thread for a bit. I've been asked to start a thread about it so here it is. I have been making my own hard cider/wine for about 9 years now though and have learned a few things along the way. I'll happily share anything I can with y'all and help where I can. Of course, I'll also share my process and how I go about it. I won't claim to be an expert at wine making by any stretch of the imagination. First, what is fermenting? To steal it from Wikipedia: The process of fermentation in winemaking turns grape juice into an alcoholic beverage. During fermentation, yeasts transform sugars present in the juice into ethanol and carbon dioxide (as a by-product). More sugar in the batch to be fermented results in higher levels of ethanol in the finished product. Many factors play into the ethanol content as well, such as ethanol tolerance of the yeast. At some point, the yeast will stop fermenting because it can’t tolerate more than a certain level of ethanol based on the strain of yeast being used. This is why you have to distill ethanol to get hard liquors. Most guides will tell you to measure the specific gravity and rack at a certain point. I never have and personally love the result. I just let the initial fermentation run until it is done. Then about 4 days after the bubbles stop I rack the wine for another couple of months under airlock. To “rack” is just to move it to another container without the sediment. So siphon off the fermented must into a clean and sanitary carboy. My start was in a small kitchen in Va Beach. There with a handful of 1/2 gallon glass jugs I started making hard cider.  This was apple juice and yeast mixed in a bowl and then funneled into the jugs. I think I used champagne yeast for this batch. No sugar added or anything like that, just yeast in this first batch. To sanitize back then, I boiled everything. You should use an actual airlock to prevent outside debris, bacteria, molds, bugs and such from getting to your product. Making wine attracts bugs with the off gasses.  For me, the other main factor is I want to control every aspect of my winemaking process to create a consistent wine that is the exact way I intended. I know people have used balloons and such for an airlock, don’t be cheap, you can get a 6 pack for about $10 on Amazon. The fluid that goes into the airlock should be sanitary, personally I use vodka. You can use sanitizer solution too. I’ve only ever had the fluid from the airlock pull back into the batch once and I’ve done countless batches at this point. So whatever you use, it should be safe to drink in case it does. Another side note, I hate those S type airlocks and have replaced all of them with the three piece airlocks. They are so much easier to clean, sanitize and maintain. After my initial hard cider batch turned out pretty good, my mom bought me a winemaking equipment kit similar to this one as a gift and then a wine ingredient kit to go with it so I could make her a batch of the wine of her choice. My equipment kit came damaged in shipping so I called to get the one broken part replaced and they sent me a whole second kit. Carboy, bucket and all the other goodies. Funny thing, I never use the part that was broken, the hydrometer. Since that batch for my mom I started making my own apple wine using apple juice from the store. For my last duty station in the Navy, I was the cookie cop (Messdeck Master-At-Arms) of the galley so I learned about food prep and the difference between cleaned and sanitized. This is huge when making wine because you want to control what is causing the fermentation. You don’t want the wrong yeast in there, it can/will ruin the batch. I make 6 gallon batches and it takes months, so I’m near OCD levels of stringent about cleaning and sanitizing everything in the process. This includes the must itself. Do not skimp on the sanitizing. I use Star San for the equipment personally because it works great and doesn’t have to be rinsed off. Another point of caution, sanitize the surface/rack you put your freshly sanitized equipment on when you let them drip off the excess. I’m going to post the guide I followed for making apple wine in the next post. If you read the guide there it walks you through the basic process. My wife and I do like sweet wine, so I back sweeten the wine once it is done with racking. Not all wine I make is from store bought juice, but the bulk of it is. Two years ago I was able to make peach wine that was insanely good from juiced peaches bought locally (throw offs that had to be cut up). The process is still mostly the same. You have to kill any yeast in the processed peaches (fruit) to ensure it doesn’t ferment with the wrong yeast. To ensure the must doesn’t have the wrong yeasts running wild in it, I sanitize the must. Sanitizing wine prevents the growth of bacteria and yeast. The Campden Tablets accomplish this by creating an inhospitable environment for wild yeast. The biggest thing I’ve had to learn with this whole thing is patients. It just takes time and there is no rushing it. Some recommendations on equipment to get other than what was mentioned above already: Floor corker. If you are going to be bottling a 6 gallon batch it ends up being about 33 corks you have to set (for 750ml bottles). The dual-lever one in the kit sucks. Synthetic corks. To each their own, but I prefer the synthetic over real cork for a multitude of reasons. One word of caution, if you send a corkscrew all the way through and then try to reuse the cork the hole does not close in and will leak. So don’t send the corkscrew all the way through if you are going to have leftovers from the bottle you will want to save for later. Good cleaning brushes. I really like this set and it does a pretty good job cleaning the bottom of the bottles. I still have the old set that came in my kit and they have started rusting. These new brushes are way better. Mixing paddle for drill. This is a Godsend when mixing 6 gallons of anything with six pounds of sugar and the other ingredients used in wine prep. Carboy caps. No more rigid bungs that don’t seal well on the carboy for racking. These have been a huge blessing for the process. You can open one port and not have the chance for your airlock to pull the fluid into your batch either. Carboy drainer. For years I struggled with getting the carboy to be upright for full drainage after cleaning/sanitizing until I finally looked for a solution. Here you go, took me years to realize how much I needed this little bit of plastic. Mortar and Pestle. I have one similar to this. Primarily used for the Campden Tablets and easily cleaned and sanitized. FastRack bottle drying rack. This is huge for properly draining the wine bottles once you've washed, rinsed and sanitized them. They sell catch trays too if you don't have a drain pan already. I’ll try to keep this post updated with other product recommendations so as new people find the thread they have an easy reference. |
This was a double tap, but I'll edit it to talk about additives and such instead. Glad I ended up with the double tap now.  Yeast Nutrient Pectic Enzyme "These enzymes break down pectin present in fruit cell walls leading to efficient juice extraction and a clearer final product with minimal residual pectin debris. Pectin breakdown allows for maximum fruit and grape juice extraction while yielding more flavors, colors, and aroma from ingredients also accelerating clarification during primary fermentation itself— reducing sedimentation issues later on." Acid Blend Wine Tannin Ascorbic Acid Campden Tablet (Potassium Metaphite) Per Wikipedia: Campden tablets (potassium or sodium metabisulfite) are a sulphur-based product that are used primarily to sterilize wine, cider and in beer making to kill bacteria and to inhibit the growth of most wild yeast. They are also used to eliminate both free chlorine and the more stable form, chloramine, from water solutions (e.g., drinking water from municipal sources). Campden tablets allow the amateur brewer to easily measure small quantities of sodium metabisulfite, so they can be used to protect against wild yeast and bacteria without affecting flavour. Untreated cider must frequently suffers from acetobacter contamination causing vinegar spoilage. Yeasts are resistant to the tablets but the acetobacter are easily killed off, hence treatment is important in cider production. Wine Yeast (Lalvin EC-1118) I grabbed the Technical Data Sheet from here (mirrored in case they take it down). Potassium Sorbate Per Wikipedia: Also known as "wine stabilizer", potassium sorbate produces sorbic acid when added to wine. It serves two purposes. When active fermentation has ceased and the wine is racked for the final time after clearing, potassium sorbate renders any surviving yeast incapable of multiplying. Yeast living at that moment can continue fermenting any residual sugar into CO2 and alcohol, but when they die, no new yeast will be present to cause future fermentation. When a wine is sweetened before bottling, potassium sorbate is used to prevent refermentation when used in conjunction with potassium metabisulfite. It is primarily used with sweet wines, sparkling wines, and some hard ciders, but may be added to table wines, which exhibit difficulty in maintaining clarity after fining. |
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As mentioned in the original post I followed a guide on making apple wine to get me started on the winemaking process. This is the one I found online from EC Kraus (now found here). Click To View Spoiler Here are a couple of tweaks I’ve made over the years using this guide. Normally I start with 100% organic apple juice. My last batch ended up being from concentrate, but that was by accident and it still turned out great. Normally I go for no preservatives though because I don’t want to chance them hindering the fermentation process. I use brown sugar for fermenting as opposed to cane sugar. Right now I’m actually in the process of three batches where I’m testing the amount of light brown sugar vs dark brown sugar. We like the bit of molasses flavor in the wine, so now we are finding the right mix for our taste. In this pic you can see the three batches. Six pounds of light brown sugar first, two pounds of dark and four pounds of light second. Six pounds of dark last.  One pack of Lalvin EC-1118 yeast is good for a six gallon batch. It just takes a half-day longer to get really rolling in the fermentation process. I’ve never followed the portions of the guide referencing the specific gravity. I just let it ferment in the bucket until about four days after bubbling stops. Then I rack it into a carboy under airlock. Where ever you ferment or rack you should try to make it higher than the next container you are going to siphon into. The least amount of movement to stir up the sediment in the bottom of the fermenter or carboy the better. I move my fermenting batches to a table to ferment so the carboy can be on the floor when I siphon off. When racking, it is on the table so I can siphon into the bucket on the floor. You get the idea. So here is my process for making Apple Wine now: First up: Mix juice and everything else in fermenter. I add the solids first since it doesn’t “splash” without the juice in it. Clean the floor enough when mixing and you’ll start with solids too. :p Let sit for a minimum of 24 hours. I let it go for about 32 now because the number of times my yeast didn’t start and I had to pitch yeast a second time. You have to let the Campden tablets’ effect wear off so the new yeast can actually start feeding on the sugars in the mix. This step is critical with real fruit to ensure you kill off all the naturally occurring bacteria and yeast. Don’t over kill the Campden tablets but don’t skimp either.  Second: After a minimum of 24 hours you pitch the yeast and seal the fermenter under airlock. “Pitching yeast” is just sprinkling it on top. No need to mix it or agitate the must in any way.  Third: Wait. Follow the guide if you want and measure SG and rack when described. Personally, I let it run until about four days after it finishes bubbling.  Fourth: Rack it. Carefully break the seal on the fermenter so you don’t create a suction and pull the airlock fluid back into the fermenter. Then using the auto-siphon from the kit transfer the wine into the carboy. Be mindful of leaving the sediment behind in the bucket. While it is racked it will clear more, but there is going to be sediment in the bottom of the fermenter. Try to leave as much of that sediment in the bucket as you can. Seal the carboy with an airlock. I use the same airlock it was fermenting with. I leave it here for more than a month. The one in this image racked for more than two months.  Fifth: Back sweeten by siphoning out of the carboy into a bucket with Campden tablets, Potassium Sorbate and cane sugar. Mix again with paddle and drill. I sweeten with one pound of sugar per gallon. So six pounds of sugar per batch.    Sixth: Bottle. Using the auto-siphon and bottle fill tip, transfer the mixed solution into bottles. Notice the tip of the bottle filler has a black piece sticking out?  That is spring loaded and limits flow, not full stop. Put it into a bottle holding down enough to move the black piece into the body of the filler. Then, while doing that, operate the auto-siphon to begin filling bottles. Move from one bottle to the next until they are all filled.   Seventh: Cork. For corking I use the floor corker and synthetic corks. First thing I do is drop my corks into the sanitizer. They don’t have to soak in it, just bath in it. I move them to a bucket lid to drip down so I can put them in the corker. Then it is just corking bottles until they are done!      Eighth: Wait a minimum of 24 hours for the corks to expand and seal before laying bottles on their side. Chill and enjoy at any time once bottled. When I moved into this house and it came with a basement that had a sink drain I was in heaven! I went to the restaurant supply store and bought this three bay sink so I could properly wash, rinse and sanitize. The shelves came from Ikea.   Remember though, I started my hobby in a small kitchen and would have to move my must from the floor to the kitchen table to transfer. That being said, I cannot stress enough the need to properly clean AND sanitize everything in the process of winemaking. Can you get away with not doing it, maybe. The day you walk to your wine rack and your corks have all popped off because fermentation kicked in again after bottling is the day you will wish you sanitized properly. I use one of my fermentation buckets for my sanitizing solution. It uses only five gallons worth as opposed to partially filling the big sink and gives me room to move in that sink bay for filling bottles and such. Also, I’m constantly sending my hands back into the sanitizer through the whole process so if I scratch my nose I can sanitize my fingers before grabbing something that might touch the product. |
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Had to do the dishes today. I'm planning to bottle the medium brown sugar batch tonight. Forgot to do the dishes earlier so I could actually bottle them though. I updated the original post with a link to the FastRack bottle drying rack. I'll update it as I think about other things that really help with the process. Most I've acquired over the years, some only recently. Wash  Rinse  Sanitize  Drain  I even dunk the FastRacks in the sanitizer solution to make sure nothing transfers over to the bottles. |
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I'm glad to share. Easier in this thread now where we can all talk about winemaking and learn from each other. I hope to pick up some tricks from others who have gone before me too! Tonight I did bottle the medium brown sugar batch. Fairly uneventful as far as bottling goes. It certainly tastes good. I'm looking forward to bottling my light brown sugar batch next weekend and then letting them set for a bit, then tasting each side by side. I want to know which mix of brown sugar for the fermenting we like best. This batch is REALLY clear too. Very happy for that.       
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AWESOME THREAD and awesome first writeup!  I am trying fermenting, but not wine. I love and am interested in any kind of ferment because it is such an ancient preservation method. People even ferment water. I'm using mine to try to heal my gut (sourdough and kefir, clabber, etc) But I'm a wine enthusiast and now I have to make time to carefully read all you have written here!  ETA: Super nice setup with the commercial sink!!! 
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Thanks man. You should share the fermenting you're doing and why (or your goal for it). My primary fermenting is wine so of course it is what I'm going to talk most about. Early June I did start trying to make my own apple cider vinegar. Those batches are still going... but I have to admit I know very little about it. I figure the best way to learn is just to do it. |
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Quoted: Oh THANK YOU so much for sharing your knowledge! I gathered up my Mustang grapes for a wine project and this thread is exactly what I needed. I’m kind of stuck high center now trying to figure out the best way to juice my grapes. Absolutely! When we did the batch of peaches and made wine from them we used a Cuisinart Juice Extractor (or similar, I don't really recall the brand right now) we got from a yard sale/thrift store/handmedown/somethinglikethat because it was what we had. It leaves a bunch of pulp in the juice, but that isn't really a problem for wine making since the solids still contain a bunch of sugar in them too. I'm digging through my old pictures to see if I can find any that show the process we did but am struggling with that right now. If I find them I'll post them on here. Basically the process if the juice them however you can. Don't worry about the pulp but I wouldn't leave seeds and such in the juice, flesh is fine. The least you can the better in my opinion though. We did not add any water to the fermenting bucket, just the extracts from the peaches. Then I mixed in the Campden tablets (and sugar, enzymes and such like I do for apple wine) because I didn't want any natural yeasts in the mix. Remember, sanitize everything, including the juice. Then ferment. If you're doing real fruit you will have to likely move to secondary racking to really get it to clear. It is going to be cloudy on the first racking so be patient. Rack it a third time if you have to. You don't have to though. As long as you leave the bulk of the sediment being when you do the initial racking the yeast waste will be left behind and won't impact the flavor. It will just have a more gritty texture to it if it isn't clear. ETA: Found some! Mixing before fermentation  First racking  Second Racking  Bottling  This process was from August 26th 2022 - February 6th 2023. Note the volume loss due to solids. The other carboys (two different batches actually) in the picture were 6 gallons of store bought juice. In the bucket for the peach wine it was just over the 5 gallon mark at the start. Based 22 750ml bottles, that is 4.4 gallons in the end. |
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Quoted: IN thanks for the thread! Pictures are broken  Crap. I thought I fixed them. My proxy died a horrible death yesterday so I've been working to rebuild it. ETA: Anyone mind going here and let me know what you see: https://turtle2472.com/ar15/IMG_9381.jpeg ETA2: Do you block Cloudflare? CloudFlare proxies to my reverse proxy that died yesterday. I'm seeing traffic in my logs though. Anyone else not seeing my images? Test from my cellular connected devices seem to be working. Edited: Link made hot to help people respond. ~Kitties |
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Quoted: I can see them. I can also see the images. Sometimes I've noticed that it takes a bit...I even have to click off and back on a post/thread, for the images to appear. I think it's a loading issue but I'm the least techy person on the forum. @Bansil give it a second try and a minute to load. Can you still not see them? |
... and bottled. Now I currently have nothing processing for wine though I still have the apple cider vinegar on the shelf. As before, this was an uneventful bottling. I added the Potassium Sorbate, Campden Tablets and sugar to the bucket for back sweetening. Then siphoned the wine into the bucket and commenced with mixing using the drill and paddle.  The one thing I wanted to show was making sure you don't get the end of the siphon down into the sediment from the racking. I get somewhat close, but watch for the sediment to be getting sucked in and pull the siphon up before it grabs more. I slowly tilt the carboy to angle the wine so the siphon gets most. This control also allows me to pull the siphon up once the sediment starts to swirl in the wine and try to get sucked up.  Then transferring the sweetened wine into the bottles. The 2x4 chunk goes under the bucket as it gets empty so the siphon can get just about everything in the bucket.   Then comes the corking using the floor corker.   And it is REALLY clear this time around! I'm thrilled with that. I'll do a bottle by bottle comparison after the corks have had time to fully seal.  Here is the remains in the bottom of the carboy. 
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Quoted: Good stuff! I've made several batches of apple wine. Never tried to back sweeten, always worried about bottles blowing up. Nor have I tried brown sugar, but that sounds good. I may have to try a batch with that soon. Back sweetening is awesome once you find the right level of sweet you want AND add the Potassium Sorbate before bottling. Here is what the three levels of brown sugar look like next to each other with a fridge for the backdrop. The lighting was about the same for all three bottles with a long LED overhead. I also wrote a L, M or D on the neck over the cork in grease marker so make it clear which is which. 6# LB (L), 2# DB 4# LB (M), 6# DB (D)  Here you have my full stash from those three batches minus a few bottles in the fridge so we can taste them side by side later to figure out which mix of brown sugar we like best. 
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OP.... 1st thing I'd like to say is you're awesome, and thank you for sharing some of the secrets, and the techniques you use for crafting your fermented beverages. I'm mostly a beer snob (especially fruited beers/sour beers/fruity Berliner Weisse-style beers) But more recently, I have fallen in love with melomels and bochet meads.....and fruity sweet ciders and perry's. To the point I may get into it as a hobby. I've also had the opportunity to try some fruited wines that appealed to me.....sweet and fruity.....NOT dry. Everything from apples to raspberries or local huckleberries.... even rhubarb !! I dislike red wine, but the German style of white wine (Gewürztraminer and Riesling), and some port wines (some are like drinking a Raisin Cider) have surprised me. Which brings me around to the question.....have you had any interest in doing meads.....ciders or perrys ?? I realize that meads are a pricey path to go down, considering the price of honey, but along with ciders, the popularity has grown quite a bit. And obviously there is a huge amount of info online....and some info in the home brewing area of the forum. But I would like to hear your thoughts on producing cider and mead. Once again , thank you for sharing your expertise with the wine making....it's very interesting. . |
New tip, swirl (which direction doesn't matter) your bottles when draining them during the cleaning process. Took me a while to figure this out too. When I did the dishes Friday, I recorded this little example to show how much faster these drain when swirling first: Of course, this applies to any bottle you want drained quickly. |
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Quoted: OP.... 1st thing I'd like to say is you're awesome, and thank you for sharing some of the secrets, and the techniques you use for crafting your fermented beverages. I'm mostly a beer snob (especially fruited beers/sour beers/fruity Berliner Weisse-style beers) But more recently, I have fallen in love with melomels and bochet meads.....and fruity sweet ciders and perry's. To the point I may get into it as a hobby. I've also had the opportunity to try some fruited wines that appealed to me.....sweet and fruity.....NOT dry. Everything from apples to raspberries or local huckleberries.... even rhubarb !! I dislike red wine, but the German style of white wine (Gewürztraminer and Riesling), and some port wines (some are like drinking a Raisin Cider) have surprised me. Which brings me around to the question.....have you had any interest in doing meads.....ciders or perrys ?? I realize that meads are a pricey path to go down, considering the price of honey, but along with ciders, the popularity has grown quite a bit. And obviously there is a huge amount of info online....and some info in the home brewing area of the forum. But I would like to hear your thoughts on producing cider and mead. Once again , thank you for sharing your expertise with the wine making....it's very interesting. . Thank you! I'm glad to share what I've learned over the years and hope it helps you if you do more in the winemaking side of things. I looked at ciders originally back when I first started out with home brewing, more ciders though. Conceptually it is the same as I do with the apple juice and brown sugar. The thing is, I got into my winemaking for my wife and I to enjoy as well as to share with friends and family as gifts. (We did our own vanilla extract back when beans weren't worth more than their weight in gold.) So with that being my goal, I haven't really pushed into making anything other than wine for consumption up to this point really. So I haven't really looked into the steps for cider or mead. Personally, I think I would prefer the "polish" of wine, but then that goes back to making what you like. I thought about making another batch of apple wine with only pure cane sugar for fermenting and back sweetening. Then I would have the "no brown sugar" batch for comparison. As I thought about it though, I don't like it as much without the molasses in it so why would I make it without the brown sugar? I see making any home brew beverage the same, if I'm not going to really enjoy it, why put the time into it? Experimenting is one thing, but I rarely do that in 6 gallon batches. I was just talking with my mom about this a little bit ago though. I might try some smaller (2 gallon) batches with cinnamon sticks in during the racking phase (as recommended by another member in this forum). Then if I don't like it I only lose 2 gallons. |
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Quoted: Thank you! I'm glad to share what I've learned over the years and hope it helps you if you do more in the winemaking side of things. I looked at ciders originally back when I first started out with home brewing, more ciders though. Conceptually it is the same as I do with the apple juice and brown sugar. The thing is, I got into my winemaking for my wife and I to enjoy as well as to share with friends and family as gifts. (We did our own vanilla extract back when beans weren't worth more than their weight in gold.) So with that being my goal, I haven't really pushed into making anything other than wine for consumption up to this point really. So I haven't really looked into the steps for cider or mead. Personally, I think I would prefer the "polish" of wine, but then that goes back to making what you like. I thought about making another batch of apple wine with only pure cane sugar for fermenting and back sweetening. Then I would have the "no brown sugar" batch for comparison. As I thought about it though, I don't like it as much without the molasses in it so why would I make it without the brown sugar? I see making any home brew beverage the same, if I'm not going to really enjoy it, why put the time into it? Experimenting is one thing, but I rarely do that in 6 gallon batches. I was just talking with my mom about this a little bit ago though. I might try some smaller (2 gallon) batches with cinnamon sticks in during the racking phase (as recommended by another member in this forum). Then if I don't like it I only lose 2 gallons. That would be nice for the holidays...the spiced wine. |
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Quoted: That would be nice for the holidays...the spiced wine. Quoted: If you don’t like it make friends by giving it away. I lose more beer bottles that way, but some of them come back. Yeah, this does have merit! I might just have to do another batch just to throw in some cinnamon sticks. Couple of cloves too? I'm trying to think of what a spiced drink has in it. I'm not even sure how much of what spice to put in there. I'll have to dig around the net and see what others have done. With the molasses from the brown sugar the touch of cinnamon is starting to sound really good at a treat. Also, today my wife is heading to a nearby farm to see about buying some imperfect peaches. We might have peach wine on the menu soon! |
OK, here's the nitty gritty of turning a Gorilla Cart of peaches into 6 gallons of juice and making wine with it. Since it is peach we are working with we wanted to separate the pit and the skin before juicing. The advertisements for the juicer say we don't have to... but we throw the peach pit away, not try to compost them. Everything else we don't use for juice or pulp later for baking is composted. Since many of these were imperfect peaches, the bad spots had to be removed and they were skinned while we were at it. Then it is just feeding them into the juicer.  The extractor on this is really just a fine mesh filter that slings pulp up and juice through the holes, but it works.  Out comes the juice!  If you're curious, this is what the pulp looks like.  We counted out 12 of those bowls full of peaches was 6 gallons of juice. The juice went straight into the fermenting bucket. It is REALLY aerated from the process so it takes up more space in the bucket. I'm nearly positive once I pitch the yeast I'm going to have the airlock overflowed from peach foam. I'll start the fermentation in the sink for this batch. The process to make the juice wine is just about the same as it is for the apple wine I normally make. Add the sugar. Since we know we like the dark brown sugar more, I got 6 pounds of it and added it in a little beyond the midway point. You can see how dense this "juice" is because that is all 6 pounds sitting at the surface of the juice there. It did eventually ooze into the bottom of the bucket though.   Last batch of juice added to the bucket making it 6 gallons of fresh peach juice.  Then mix in the sugar on the bottom and try to get the juice all "flowing" using the paddle bit.    Then it is time to add in the tannin, pectic enzyme, ascorbic acid, acid blend, yeast nutrient and crushed Campden Tablet. A couple of points on this one. The apple wine I make I only use 1/8 tsp per gallon of pectic enzyme. It is already juice and fairly clear so as much isn't needed to break down the pectin and do the molecular action that is giving us the sugar for the yeast to eat. Since this is HEAVY on the pulp still, I used 1/2 tsp per gallon for the pectic enzyme. For the wine tannin, I should have spread it out more as I dropped it into the bucket. The tannin just clumps together and becomes a ball of dry powder with a wet shell. Given the viscosity of the juice, you just can't really get the agitation to break it up with the paddle bit so I ended up having to stick my hand in the bucket and break up tannin balls with my fingers.   The guides tell you to let your must sit for 24 hours with a towel on it, I just set the lid on it without sealing it and no airlock.  We started the process at about 1330 yesterday afternoon and I finished setting the lid on the bucket at just before midnight. Also, the gorilla cart worth of peaches was only $57! We might be able to get another half batch out of what we have left from making this batch of wine. |
Pitched the yeast this morning on the first batch of peach wine. The aroma coming out of the bucket when prepping to pitch the yeast was amazing. There is an interesting point with this wine from the fruit like this. There is a layer of solids that rise to the top before they eventually settle out. So for this kind of wine I have to mix those solids back down into the bucket for pitching the yeast or the yeast just sits on top of those solids. I also then fold in the yeast so it gets down into the juice under that top layer of solids. Thick like pumpkin pie! Lots of juice under it though.    Since the top the solids it so much higher right now, I'm going to start fermentation at an angle with the high side where the airlock is. Hopefully this will keep most of the peach foam from coming back through the airlock.  If it does come through the airlock it isn't a problem, just a mess. As long as everything is coming out of the bucket and not going back in we are good. |
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The second batch of peach wine is on the way. The Gorilla cart full worked out to 12 gallons of juice. I am more concerned about this second batch though. It didn't have the sweetness in the aroma like the first batch did when I opened it today to add the last of the juice into it. I added 7 Campden Tablets this time even though it is right at 6 gallons. I also went ahead and added the pectic enzyme to it while I was there since it is as close to the juicing I could. I don't have brown sugar to go in it yet, that should be here later tonight after my wife hits the grocery store. I'll add the rest of the ingredients once the sugar is here. I might even add another couple of Campden Tablets to help ensure it is not going to have any wild fermentation. I have to remind myself, these were the imperfect peaches so it is mot like there wasn't some wild fermentation happening already. Tons of good juice in there so I'm sure it will all work out in the end.   
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Quoted: Awesome thread, 10/10 for the effort alone. I made beer years ago but lost interest due to the time needed and I never really liked what I brewed. Any more I stick to fermenting veggies like pickles and carrots. Definitely a fun hobby. Oh, vinegar as well. Teach me/us about vinegar! I have two gallons going now where I took existing Apple Cider Vinegar with mother and split it with apple juice. 
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Quoted: Teach me/us about vinegar! I have two gallons going now where I took existing Apple Cider Vinegar with mother and split it with apple juice. https://turtle2472.com/ar15/IMG_3294.jpeg I'm still a bit of a newby. My wife had a period of hording wine that she bought on sale and then decided she didn't like drinking wine  (I rarely do any more), so we have 40, maybe 50 bottles of average to good stuff mixed between white and red. After getting into sourdough, growing mushrooms and then fermenting, I figured vinegar would be a good way to use up that wine.I googled some and figured it would be an easy venture. I stumbled at first because I just poured the wine in a quart mason jar, covered it with a cloth and added some unpasteurized cider vinegar with mother to them. Only one of the 4 I started with did anything initially. Reading more, I learned that the likely cause of the stalled 3 was the alcohol content being too high. I diluted them some and they started to go. With those complete, I have two pretty impressive mother collections (one red, one white just for color sake). I've been continuing the process with other bottles as I use up the current stock. I use it in soups and dressings, I need to expand what I use it for as I have a seemingly endless supply  For anyone trying it, keep it away from your fermenting items, the cross mojonation is a bad thing for the ferments - I don't get why, just learned that through experience. |
I went to check on the peach wine and they were doing good, but I anticipated more bubbles. So, unlike how I normally do it, I opened the buckets and checked on them during the process. Of course, I sanitized anything in contact with the buckets/must. So here is my first batch and the layer of THICK sediment on the top. I mixed it back down in and broke it up so you can see the fermentation happening. The bubbles are steady rolling now. When I go to rack these, I'll skim off the top sediment as much as possible just to make racking it easier.  Check out how thick this sediment is!    
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A few days ago the bubbles were rolling! Now they are super slow, but still going. Given I pitched yeast on Thursday and Friday, this is about right. So I'm likely to spend Saturday racking both batches. I might do the Thursday batch tomorrow, but I doubt it. Given the high solid count and the layer on the top, I'll likely skim off most of that into a large pot and then siphon off the buckets from there. Then I'll try to strain the solids I took off the top... maybe. These batches will likely just be racked two or three times to drop the sediment. I do have a wine pump with filtration, I just don't like using it. I'm mildly concerned it will impact the flavor. |
Time to get the first batch of peach wine racked. Same start as all the other times, sanitize EVERYTHING. Crack open the bucket slowly to prevent sucking the vodka in from the airlock. I was really concerned about this batch overflowing the airlock if you recall me mentioning that. Well, it didn't. It did get a serious layer of solids on the top though.  With my slotted spoon I started gently scraping out the solids from the top and putting them into a sanitized container. I tried to let those solids drain as much as possible with the spoon.   Then I stopped short of most of the solids. I let more go into the first racking that I would for the apple wine because I'm going to do a second racking for certain on these batches.  Since there is so much wine in those solids I do try to strain them with a fine mesh coffee filter. It isn't perfect, but it allows me to retain more wine that just throwing all of it into the compose pile. As you can see here, there is a lot of solids!   And racked! Same airlock as was on it before. Now to give it time to clear.  Tomorrow I'm planning to rack the second batch. Both stopped bubbling for a few days now. |
Today I racked the second batch of peach wine. As before, sanitize everything that might possibly come in contact with the wine. Cracking this batch open I was so pleased with the aroma! If you recall, this is the batch that had a little bit of a vinegar like smell off the start. It wasn't strong, but not sweet at all. I'm pleased to say, that was cleared up by the Campden Tablets. As with the other batch, I scraped off the solids from the top and put them in a container while I cleared up the top.   I did "prep" a little different this time in that I put the block under the bucket earlier in hopes more would settle into the corner before I started to siphon off. It didn't seem to make a difference, so clearly I would have needed to do this while it was still settling during the initial fermentation.  Then siphon leaving most of the solids behind, but there are a lot of solids so I did let some come over in an effort to save most of the wine.  As you can see, there is still about a gallon of wine+sediment in this bucket. So, like last time, I ran it through the mesh filter.   After straining out what I could, I still ended up with about a gallon loss due to solids from the top and the bottom of the wine. Not bad overall given the juicing process we use.  Here are the two batches side by side. You can see how much the first batch has already cleared in that short time. Now, we wait for a couple of months I'm thinking before I do a second racking in an effort to leave out as much solids as possible. 
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Peach wine is still progressing as expected. I walk by and beat on the table when I walk by to help force a little bit of vibration to help the settling. Won't be long and I'll be looking to rack them again and for the final time. These are REALLY clearing up nicely. I'm looking forward to getting a sniff/taste of them.  
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Right on. Good to see someone else making their own. Your processes look nearly identical to mine, you just have nicer facilities. I moved on from only fruit wines to meads, cysers and melomels as well. We make somewhere in the neighborhood of 200-300 bottles per year depending on the fruit crop. ETA: also ferment pickles, kraut, pico de gallo, and hot sauce. |
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I am loving my hobby with the wine. I might branch out but that will be "side batches" since my wife and I enjoy the wine together. I am doing apple cider vinegar right now, but want to branch into all the other fun foods to ferment. I even bought the lids for mason jars that you can put airlocks on! My peach wine batches are looking solid still.  The wild part is the airlock on the right must have larger holes in the cap because it has a ton of gnats in it. I can also tell where Helene passed really close to us, we lost most of the pressure in the airlocks!  
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Quoted: This is an awesome thread .Thanks OP. Thanks man! Glad to share. Y'all know how I mentioned the airlocks show Helene passed close to me? Well, I'm logging pressure with an rPi and finally thought to actually look at the data in Grafana*.  For perspective, here is the 8 days surrounding it:  Yeah, we had a bit of a pressure drop. I should have had a camera watching the carboys venting when the storm passed over. * This is uncorrected "raw" pressure, not adjusted for sea level or anything. |