Sugar before water?

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Zante

Sugar before water?

Post by Zante » Sun Feb 21, 2016 1:26 pm

Hi everyone, I've just started brewing wines, and I currently have an apple wine that is clearing which I made with apple juice made from a juicer, a mead that is bubbling away and a plum wine that was racked from the fermenting bucket yesterday.

I have seen that many many recipes for fruit wine have the sugar added after or at the same time as the water. With the plum wine, though I added the sugar to the fruit and mixed it without adding anything else. Does anyone else do the same?

Zante

Re: Sugar before water?

Post by Zante » Sun Feb 21, 2016 1:29 pm

Ok, I better expand on that.

What I mean is that the fruit/sugar mix sat in the bucket for a few hours before adding the (boiling) water. That draws out a lot of juice from the fruit.

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MarkA
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Re: Sugar before water?

Post by MarkA » Sun Feb 21, 2016 7:06 pm

It depends on the fruit. I use the sugar juice extraction for rhubarb wine, but I usually leave it for (at least) 24 hours before tipping the syrup/juice into a demijohn and topping up with water. For something like elderberry wine, I'd probably chuck the whole lot in at once and ferment 'on the pulp' for a week before straining it off. If I was using juice to make wine (something like banana where the fruit is boiled to extract the juice or flavour) the sugar would go in at the same time as the water.

It sounds like you've got some nice wines bubbling away :-)

Zante

Re: Sugar before water?

Post by Zante » Sun Feb 21, 2016 9:41 pm

[quote="MarkA"]It depends on the fruit. I use the sugar juice extraction for rhubarb wine, but I usually leave it for (at least) 24 hours before tipping the syrup/juice into a demijohn and topping up with water. For something like elderberry wine, I'd probably chuck the whole lot in at once and ferment 'on the pulp' for a week before straining it off. If I was using juice to make wine (something like banana where the fruit is boiled to extract the juice or flavour) the sugar would go in at the same time as the water.

It sounds like you've got some nice wines bubbling away :-)[/quote]

Yes, I probably should have specified I meant stone fruit and soft fruit, like plums, peaches, blackberries or raspberries.

I noticed how well the juice is drawn from the fruit when I made some blackberry jam some time ago. There was this new recipe that said the fruit should be mixed with the sugar and left overnight. When checked it the day after the sugar had drawn out the juice from the blackberries into a thick syrup.

The same happened with this batch of plums. I then added the boiling water and proceeded as usual with the fermentation in the bucket and then the racking in the demijohn.
Seeing how effective this method was I was wondering if it was used by others, as all the wine recipes I have seen don't mention it.

As for the goos wines, we'll see, we'll see...
I have tasted the apple wine during the last racking at it is very dry (as I was hoping) and also very harsh, but it still has to start ageing, so no surprise there. I've calculated a whopping 17.5% ABV, which I was not expecting.

The mead, if the yeast doesn't die before that, should even reach 22% ABV, due to a miscalculation and adding an extra half jar of honey. I doubt the yeast will get that far, so hopefully it will be strong, but still with some sweetness.

2017 will tell I guess... So hard to wait...

I also have an elderflower metheglin planned for the next batch.

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