Day 11 - 27/07/06
Just checked the wine before heading for the hills for a few days - its got to a lovely steady bubbling now - lots of tiny bubbles rising looking like this
Theres a bubble coming round the airlock every two to three seconds. Did you know if your airlock is bubbling it proves you have a good bung seal? If you didn't the water wouldn't move despite the visible bubbles in the wine. When the bubbles slow to one every 30 seconds, we'll "rack off" into a clean demijohn (leaving the sediment behind) and again when fermentation stops (we'll use something to settle out all the sediment)
The sediment really is building now - its mostly the breeding yeast. Remember I said proper wine yeast sinks and that makes it easier to clear? Heres a picture that shows it settling out on its own
Anyway, its all proceeding as it should so its back on with the paper jacket and time to finish packing for my trip
12/08/06 - Day 25
Well, I bet you had forgotten about this thread J. Well, the wine has now virtually stopped bubbling (less than one bubble every 30 seconds. Its also started to clear itself beautifully look at this sediment layer.
So, time to see if its ready and fermented out (this means all the sugar has turned to alcohol). To do this we will remove a bit of wine from the demijohn and check the specific gravity. This is where our wine thief comes in really handy. If we were to tip the demijohn, we would shake up all that sediment. So we take a bit of wine from the neck of the demijohn like this
And we read off the new specific gravity looks like about 992 to me what do you think.
Now, if you have been following this thread, a couple of things should strike you as odd here. The first is, we started with an SG of 1100. Okay, you know that the sugar has been turned to alcohol and CO2 so that its not very strange that its changed. But what is quite strange is its now lower than the SG of water (1,000). Thats because alcohol has a lower SG than water. In fact we can work out how much alcohol we have theres a formula that goes
Original Gravity Final Gravity / 7.36 = % Alcohol by Volume ABV)
In this case thats 110 992 / 7.36 = 14.7% alcohol. Thats plenty strong enough.
Right time to get rid of that sediment. This is a process called racking off in effect siphoning good liquid without disturbing too much sediment. For this purpose we use a wine makers siphon.
A wine makers siphon is a piece of clear plastic tube. In one end is a tap. In the other a stiff clear plastic tube that is sealed at the end. Half an inch above the sealed end two small holes are drilled. The stiff tube is lowered into the wine that is to be siphoned off. Because the end is sealed, it doesnt suck up the sediment, but liquid from the two side holes half an inch above the sediment.
If you done have a wine makers siphon, lower a piece of tube into the demijohn and then put a clothes peg on the tube just above the neck of the demijohn. This stops the tube dropping in and touching the sediment.
Now, put the full demijohn on the kitchen counter and a clean, sterilised demijohn on the floor. Suck on the tap end of the demijohn to draw up some wine and then place the tap into the clean demijohn. The wine will flow down the tube into the clean demijohn without disturbing (much) of the sediment.
My next job was to taste the wine. Reckon its nice? Nope. Blackcurrants are sour at the best of times. All the sugar we put in has turned to alcohol along with most of the fruit sugar. So, we are going to need to sweeten the wine some. But if we add sugar, we may well start it fermenting again. So we need to stabilise the wine (kill the yeast). To do this we will add some potassium sorbate.
Now, if you dont want to do this, just add some sugar syrup. Yeast cant live much above 14% ABV (at least this type cant). So itll be okay after a bit more bubbling. I just like to be sure.
Now, I only need 1g of potassium sorbate per gallon (demijohn). I would often use my reloading scales for this, but many wine makers dont have them, so here is a way using kitchen scales.
First, weight out 5g of potassium sorbate (kitchen scales are okay for this)
Add 50ml of water to the 5 g of sorbate. It should dissolve instantly and be faintly yellow in colour.
Now we have 50ml containg 5g. So 10ml contains 1g. 1 teaspoon is 5ml. Two teaspoons per demijohn will be just fine.
That will take 24 hours to work then well adjust the wine taste Im going for a very boozy, slightly sweeter finish on this a bit like port. So, we put the airlocks back in for now.
More soon!
Red
Just checked the wine before heading for the hills for a few days - its got to a lovely steady bubbling now - lots of tiny bubbles rising looking like this
Theres a bubble coming round the airlock every two to three seconds. Did you know if your airlock is bubbling it proves you have a good bung seal? If you didn't the water wouldn't move despite the visible bubbles in the wine. When the bubbles slow to one every 30 seconds, we'll "rack off" into a clean demijohn (leaving the sediment behind) and again when fermentation stops (we'll use something to settle out all the sediment)
The sediment really is building now - its mostly the breeding yeast. Remember I said proper wine yeast sinks and that makes it easier to clear? Heres a picture that shows it settling out on its own
Anyway, its all proceeding as it should so its back on with the paper jacket and time to finish packing for my trip
12/08/06 - Day 25
Well, I bet you had forgotten about this thread J. Well, the wine has now virtually stopped bubbling (less than one bubble every 30 seconds. Its also started to clear itself beautifully look at this sediment layer.
So, time to see if its ready and fermented out (this means all the sugar has turned to alcohol). To do this we will remove a bit of wine from the demijohn and check the specific gravity. This is where our wine thief comes in really handy. If we were to tip the demijohn, we would shake up all that sediment. So we take a bit of wine from the neck of the demijohn like this
And we read off the new specific gravity looks like about 992 to me what do you think.
Now, if you have been following this thread, a couple of things should strike you as odd here. The first is, we started with an SG of 1100. Okay, you know that the sugar has been turned to alcohol and CO2 so that its not very strange that its changed. But what is quite strange is its now lower than the SG of water (1,000). Thats because alcohol has a lower SG than water. In fact we can work out how much alcohol we have theres a formula that goes
Original Gravity Final Gravity / 7.36 = % Alcohol by Volume ABV)
In this case thats 110 992 / 7.36 = 14.7% alcohol. Thats plenty strong enough.
Right time to get rid of that sediment. This is a process called racking off in effect siphoning good liquid without disturbing too much sediment. For this purpose we use a wine makers siphon.
A wine makers siphon is a piece of clear plastic tube. In one end is a tap. In the other a stiff clear plastic tube that is sealed at the end. Half an inch above the sealed end two small holes are drilled. The stiff tube is lowered into the wine that is to be siphoned off. Because the end is sealed, it doesnt suck up the sediment, but liquid from the two side holes half an inch above the sediment.
If you done have a wine makers siphon, lower a piece of tube into the demijohn and then put a clothes peg on the tube just above the neck of the demijohn. This stops the tube dropping in and touching the sediment.
Now, put the full demijohn on the kitchen counter and a clean, sterilised demijohn on the floor. Suck on the tap end of the demijohn to draw up some wine and then place the tap into the clean demijohn. The wine will flow down the tube into the clean demijohn without disturbing (much) of the sediment.
My next job was to taste the wine. Reckon its nice? Nope. Blackcurrants are sour at the best of times. All the sugar we put in has turned to alcohol along with most of the fruit sugar. So, we are going to need to sweeten the wine some. But if we add sugar, we may well start it fermenting again. So we need to stabilise the wine (kill the yeast). To do this we will add some potassium sorbate.
Now, if you dont want to do this, just add some sugar syrup. Yeast cant live much above 14% ABV (at least this type cant). So itll be okay after a bit more bubbling. I just like to be sure.
Now, I only need 1g of potassium sorbate per gallon (demijohn). I would often use my reloading scales for this, but many wine makers dont have them, so here is a way using kitchen scales.
First, weight out 5g of potassium sorbate (kitchen scales are okay for this)
Add 50ml of water to the 5 g of sorbate. It should dissolve instantly and be faintly yellow in colour.
Now we have 50ml containg 5g. So 10ml contains 1g. 1 teaspoon is 5ml. Two teaspoons per demijohn will be just fine.
That will take 24 hours to work then well adjust the wine taste Im going for a very boozy, slightly sweeter finish on this a bit like port. So, we put the airlocks back in for now.
More soon!
Red
