Fruit wines and other stuff !

So, the second batch of apples that I pillaged from the local roadside tree's, was milled and then left with some pectolase and crushed campden tablet mixed in. The campden tablet to prevent bacterial infection and the pectolase to help with juice and flavour extraction plus it helps prevent pectin hazes in the finished wine.

Then last weekend, I strained and pressed it. I also added the 3lb of frozen black berries that I had in the freezer. To basically follow one of the Apple and Blackberry recipes in the ageing "Boots book of Home Wine and Beer Making" (ageing as it was originally published in 1982 but the recipes seem to be more up to date than those in the CJJ Berry Book "Firt Steps in Wine Making).

Of course, I should have just milled the apples and then added the blackberries but I don't think it matters, it's been fermenting on the pulp of the blackberries/apple juice for about 4 days or so now, which means that today I'll be straining it and the pressing what's left of the pulp.

Also, about a week ago, I found some cheap plums in the local Tesco (about 65 pence per pound) so I bought 6lb thinking that the average fruit recipe uses about 3lb of fruit per gallon. The plum recipes use about 4 1/2 lb per gallon so I've de-stoned the fruit, crushed it a bit and then added the 5 pints of hot water. This has been allowed to cool and then it's had pectolase, a crushed campden tablet and a teaspoon of citric acid added. Later this evening I'll be adding the rest of the ingredients i.e. yeast, nutrient, grape concentrate (don't recall whether I add the sugar at this stage or not...) etc but it'll then be left to ferment on the pulp for about 3 or 4 days, before the pulp is then strained off.

I should point out, that I've been using either Lalvins RC212 or Youngs Burgundy yeasts. This'd be mainly because of the properties of retaining colour and some of the more delicate flavours that often differentiate between red/dark coloured fruits and light/green coloured fruits (it's more in depth than that, but I suspect it's better to stick with the normal winemaking conventions).

TTFN!