Strawberries
Posted: Sat Sep 05, 2020 9:36 pm
G'day Guy's,
SWMBO came home with close to a kilo of strawberries and said have a go at fermenting these so I said well you juice them and put em in the freezer for a month to bring out the sugars. Finally I got around to them and decided to do a 5 litre ferment so as I always do I gave it a 2kg simple syrup addition, I found the next day the 5 litre beaker had become a volcano and made a huge mess. So duly every morning before work I'd put the beaker on the table so it would get full sun and at night wrap it up and after a month it didn't show any drop in SG.
Took a 50ml sample and used my hydrometer and found the sg was well over 1100 so bit the bullet and poured it my 25 litre fermenter and added 5 litres of rain water which brought the sg back to 1060. Checked after a month and the sg was down to 1010 so let it go for a few more weeks. Checked it again last week and it was on 1001 and when I checked it 3 days ago 994 and finished. Fully clear and no activity in the ferment so did 2 strip runs where I added some TPW low wines to increase the yield. Did a spirit run yesterday and man what a nice taste doing a DP, let 10ml go into a 50ml beaker then added 10ml of water and the sweet taste comes thru then the young taste of brandy that says this needs to go on toasted charred French Oak for a few months.
Got 3 litres @65% on 19 grams of French oak from my 2.2kg domino that is the best toasted oak I've ever seen. A few years ago well before I build my bubbler I gave a mate a bottle to give to a foreman at work site. He loved it that much he said he put a 5kg lump of French Oak in the heater to see if it would fully toast and what came out was golden.
Well now I've done Orange Mulled Brandy, Apple Brandy, Manzano Chilli and with Strawberries done which will be the next, hopefully my new manzano chilli tree will give me a good crop so I can revisit it.
By the way with all my fruit ferments I use EC1118 yeast which I find just plain works well after it's usebuy date if one keeps it in the fridge.
Cheers Bryan
SWMBO came home with close to a kilo of strawberries and said have a go at fermenting these so I said well you juice them and put em in the freezer for a month to bring out the sugars. Finally I got around to them and decided to do a 5 litre ferment so as I always do I gave it a 2kg simple syrup addition, I found the next day the 5 litre beaker had become a volcano and made a huge mess. So duly every morning before work I'd put the beaker on the table so it would get full sun and at night wrap it up and after a month it didn't show any drop in SG.
Took a 50ml sample and used my hydrometer and found the sg was well over 1100 so bit the bullet and poured it my 25 litre fermenter and added 5 litres of rain water which brought the sg back to 1060. Checked after a month and the sg was down to 1010 so let it go for a few more weeks. Checked it again last week and it was on 1001 and when I checked it 3 days ago 994 and finished. Fully clear and no activity in the ferment so did 2 strip runs where I added some TPW low wines to increase the yield. Did a spirit run yesterday and man what a nice taste doing a DP, let 10ml go into a 50ml beaker then added 10ml of water and the sweet taste comes thru then the young taste of brandy that says this needs to go on toasted charred French Oak for a few months.
Got 3 litres @65% on 19 grams of French oak from my 2.2kg domino that is the best toasted oak I've ever seen. A few years ago well before I build my bubbler I gave a mate a bottle to give to a foreman at work site. He loved it that much he said he put a 5kg lump of French Oak in the heater to see if it would fully toast and what came out was golden.
Well now I've done Orange Mulled Brandy, Apple Brandy, Manzano Chilli and with Strawberries done which will be the next, hopefully my new manzano chilli tree will give me a good crop so I can revisit it.
By the way with all my fruit ferments I use EC1118 yeast which I find just plain works well after it's usebuy date if one keeps it in the fridge.
Cheers Bryan
