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Brewlog - Pear wine 2013, 6 gal at least

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Chevette Girl

Chevette Girl

All around BAD EXAMPLE
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Apr 27, 2010
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Ottawa, ON
So I spent a good chunk of today chopping pears into a fruit bag... then ran out of room, so I've got to figure out what to do with the rest of the pears... freezer's full so they're packed in ice packs till tomorrow.

I forgot to weigh the bucket before I added two gallons of water with 2 crushed campden tabs and 2 tsp fo pectinase... I can do that tomorrow and then subtract the weight of 2 gallons of water in a bucket to get an approximate amount of pears. I'm guessing over 25 lb as it was more than a 5 gal pail before I started chopping.

Tomorrow, it gets 8 kg of sugar boiled in water and then cooled, plus some grape concentrate for body... in the meantime I'll think about what yeast to use. Maybe RC-212, since I've been using it for everything else! And I have to figure out where it's all going to go, my three big fermenters are full and I think I only have one empty small one and if the crabapple batch is any indication, it's not going to be enough room.
 
Well, this batch got well and truly out of hand... I filled an almost 3-gal honey bucket and another 3 gal bucket with the must and am still not sure the big bucket with the fruit in it is going to have enough room...

So...

Pears (I'm guessing 30 lbs? Never did get a chance to weigh them), chopped and soaked overnight in 2 gal water with 2 tsp pectinase and 2 crushed campden tablets

8 kg sugar boiled in 1 gal water, cooled to 100F in several changes of water in the kitchen sink

1.5 cups white grape concentrate

2 tsp energizer

2 packets RC-212, rehydrated according to package directions

Water to get the SG somewhere sensible, ended up being between 2 and 2.5 gallons, initial gravity 1.115 or so, probably in reality a little lower after juice is released from fruit, so I'm going to call it 1.110.

Pitched 10 minutes ago and there was a convoluted splishing and splashing trying to mix everything in the big bucket and keep the fruit bag from escaping from a small bucket while I divided the must up among the small buckets to make enough room to put the fruit bag back in the big bucket...

Once it's showing activity, big bucket gets 2 tsp yeast nutrient and small buckets each get 1 tsp, will aerate and sort out the rest of my lazy-ass SNA later, must go roll dice!

Oh, and I've got another container (stainless stock pot, ran out of buckets) with more pears that didn't fit in the brew bag or in the fridge, currently soaking with pectinase, I'm going to see if I can scrape up enough honey from the bottom of the buckets to make a few gallons of pear mead with that one, if not I'm raiding the sugar jar again and it'll be a perry...
 
Aerated, all three buckets showing plenty of activity, gave the big fruit bucket two teaspoons of DAP and each of the small juice buckets 1 tsp, then 1 tsp of energizer for the big bucket and 1/2 for each small bucket.

So, total of 4 tsp DAP and 4 tsp energizer for these batches, I'm guessing I've got at least 7 gallons so it looks like I want 5.75-6 tsp each so one more feeding should do it...

SG of fruit bucket was 1.090, SG of both juice buckets was 1.105, pH of all of them was over 4.0 so I don't think I need to worry about pH, if by the end of fermentation it's still above 4.0 I may adjust with a little lemon juice or acid blend to get somewhere around 3.8.
 
Aerated this morning and added some DAP/Energizer mixture (1 energizer:2 DAP) I used to keep around for my lazy SNA before I switched to going with 1:1 because the two juice buckets were stinky. The fruit bucket's fine. Had a sniff when I got home tonight and they're still a bit ripe so when I aerate again after supper, I'll check the SG and add something appropriate.
 
I'm derelict in my duties, these got a quick whisk this morning and by this evening something was stinky down there, so all the juice buckets got a share of the very last of my energizer. Didn't even check the SG... if things are still stinky tomorrow, nuked bread yeast is on the menu. I'm kind of amused how all the juice buckets are kind of sulphurous but none of the fruit buckets are.
 
Early this AM

SG fruit = 1.018
SG juice 1 = 1.050, stinky
SG juice 2 = 1.070, stinky

Just now

SG fruit = 1.012, pH 3.6
SG juice 1 = 1.046, pH = 3.2, added 1 tsp calcium carbonate
SG juice 2 = 1.070, pH = 3.0, added a bit more than 1 tsp calcium carbonate and 1/2 tsp DAP

So I guess I know why this batch got stinky!
 
I've been so busy with apples and other stupid things that I'd completely forgotten to check SG's and stuff, the last bucket's down at 1.010 so it's time to rack everything so I can have a bucket back! ...which I will promptly fill with apple cider.

Hi, my name is Chevette Girl and I have a brewing problem.
 
I wished I lived closer to you. I'd help relieve you of some of those full bottles.

Can you legally give some product to a charity? Like a church or something, where they could auction it? (Or maybe the first church in North America to have communion-mead?) Or is that a no-no in Canada?
 
Uh, I think something for public consumption probably has to be approved or come from an inspected facility or something... Donating for charity auctions might be legal, but I'm not even sure how to find out! :) Currently I barter with it, for riding lessons, masssage therapy, osteopath treatments and honey donations.
 
"A bottle of wine" -- it sounds like you have a few extra barrels ready for barter. At least you get riding lessons from it, and some other fun stuff.

It occurs to me that if friends and family end up liking the upcoming batches as much as the previous meads I've made, I will have to start taking donations for honey and bottle-ware. I have added it up and this hobby costs too much in consumables to hand it all away. I don't have room to store it. I'd have to switch back to one gallon batches.... Heav'n forfend!
 
Fruit bag is out, and one of the extra buckets has been poured into the big one, it's up on the freezer settling out. I may end up needing to put this in two large carboys, the crabapple batch turned out to be seven gallons (so it got the big carboy) and this batch is bigger...
 
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