Alcofrolics Anyonymous....

Did you hot rinse them with boiling water before use to remove the (edible) wax/oil coating used to prolong their shelf life? (wax also used on citrus fruits).

 

Apricot jam wine has just gone on. Took a slightly different approach this time. Poured boiling water into a large wok - added the jam - and let it bubble away until liquid (apart from the chunks of apricot that is).

The strawberry went crystal clear about 2 weeks into fermentation without finings - if this happens with the apricot - I'm going to siphon off the clear liquid, stabilise and then decide whether it's worth throwing in some finings.

I cracked a bottle of the pineapple wine yesterday - it's about a month old and improved greatly in taste. I was a bit surprised to be honest - it now tastes more pineappley.

 

The apricot looks like this - it's clearing already:

 

Boiled up the last parsnips and now got 2 gallons fermenting in a brew bin.
After 10 days or so into demi johns and then wait for it to clear.

 

I'm taking a bit of a punt here - I've been given a Wilko wine starter kit that has been stashed away in a wardrobe for some years.

All of the equipment is fine and I've used a can of grape concentrate that came with the kit - with a bbe date of November 2011 - so well out of date - but is seemed OK when I cracked the can open. Also used the included brewers sugar with a similar bbe date.

Put in fresh yeast as I'm fairly sure that the old stuff wouldn't work.

We'll see what happens...

 

If you're not going to use yeast for a very long time, put it in the freezer, otherwise keep it in the fridge.

You need to be careful with concentrates in metal cans as the tins can start leaking after 2 or 3 years.

 

For some strange reason I feel that using grape concentrate is a bit of a fiddle - and that I'm not really making home made wine - not really..

 

I only feel like that if I'm paying full price for it, because the expense of it undermines the whole cost saving purpose of homebrewing, but if bought when half price and even then if it's only used as an addition to just a few wines which will really benefit from it, then I consider it worthwhile.

 

I cheated and used the pineapple juice approach - so 3 cartons of juice, one bag of sugar, topped up with water and a sprinkling of yeast on the top.

Feedback so far is that the grape/apple/raspberry is the best, closely followed by the pineapple and then the jam.

I'd be tempted to crush the 'real' pineapples and use them instead of or along with a carton of juice - worth a go rather than binning them .

I think with 'real' fruit then pectolase is used to get the max from it - I may be wrong .

 

I would only use that to make 3 gallons.

Are you going to use 3 x 5L or 3 x 1 gall (actually 4.7L) demijohns after straining? I could then let you know the precise water and sugar additions required to achieve the required amount of strained must (will be assuming 1.095 OSG).

 

Condoms ?? Sounds like a bit of a stretch but ....

Cuban uses condoms, tropical fruit to make own brand of wine