All four batches hit their respective final gravity ranges today. Well, more accurately, the pyments did. The wines ferment dry and have been done for a day or so now.
Tonight was stabilizing and clarifying. I use a wine whip and electric drill, and I have to say I find the process therapeutic.
Eight days at this stage, then one final rack for “polishing”. Two weeks after that, we bottle.
Merlot Pyment – 1.050, pH 3.19
Dolcetto Pyment – 1.044, pH 3.15
Fermentation has slowed but still observable. Odor has greatly reduced.
After dodging a tornado, I took gravity readings on the pyments. The Merlot Pyment is at 1.086, and the Dolcetto Pyment is at 1.082. That’s a drop of 36 and 38 gravity points, respectfully, in less than 24 hours. Not bad.
It’s still about 50 points before I rack to secondary. At this rate I may be racking by Tuesday. Whee!
Checking the pH of my pyment batches turned up 3.00 even for the Dulcetto Pyment and 3.08 for the Merlot Pyment. I added 5g of Potassium Carbonate to both batches to bring the pH up a bit. I will check again tomorrow. Both batches are still fermenting like mad.
All the batches took off, except the Merlot wine. Not something that has happened to me before, especially since the yeast that comes with the kit should work for 6 gallons of wine and I’m pitching it on three. The Dolcetto took off like a rocket. Odd also in that the yeast that came with the Merlot is RC212, a yeast I have a lot of experience with. I shot the wine with some O2 and pitched more RC212, just in case. We’ll see how it goes.
Update: That did it. Merlot is off and running well now.
Here are the readings:
Not too shabby, and right in line with my previous pyments. Not sure what possessed me to start this late, but I did. Every time I start brewing again I forget how much a full 5 gallon glass carboy weighs. Whew!
I am going to sleep well tonight.
After a long hiatus, I should soon have the time to brew again! Yay!
I still have my Apple Butter Cyser from over a year ago in bulk aging. I plan on freeze-concentrating the entire batch. I’ll bottle that up soon after.
On the list of planned brews:
It has been WAY too long since I did a full batch of traditional mead. Now that I have a couple of good experiments behind me, I know just what I want. I’ll be shooting for 12% ABV, and I know which yeast I’ll be using. If you can’t guess, you haven’t been listening to Basic Brewing Radio!
I have been asked by a couple of people to make a video. I can do that. I will be doing a small batch (so I can shoot upstairs and not break my back brining the brew into the basement to ferment). I’ll post these on youtube for all to see. Yes, I’m nervous.
Now, to those who think it is sacrilege to ruin a high-end wine kit by making a pyment, let me say two things: First, my very first wine kit pyment used a high-end kit (Oregon Yamhill Pinot Noir) and it came out fantastic. Second, as always, I’ll be splitting the six gallon batch in half and making the pyment out of only one half, which means the other half will be regular wine. I came up with this idea, and it’s worked really well so far.
I’m off to pick up my honey and get some bottled water today. I have a business trip this week, so I don’t plan to kick off the brewing until later in the week or on the weekend.
Stay tuned!
Sometimes I really don’t like my job. There are tomes I get so busy I can’t do things I need to do, like, bottling. *sigh*
I finally got around to tasting a few yesterday. The carrot honey mead was a pleasant surprise. What an amazingly complex taste! It’s really good now, but in a few months it will be even better. I got 6 bottles out of the batch. One went to tasting at The Brew Hut, and Steve, the guy who asked me to try that honey, is jealously guarding the rest.
The second round of pyments and wines all taste good, none the worse for their extended stay in the carboy. I will be bottling these today, knock wood. I have not tasted the other 6 beer yeast honey experiment batches. I intend to bottle those next weekend, once I’m back from yet another trip.
The ABC batch tastes like liquid Christmas and apple pie. It will bulk age a little longer. I also intend to give the port a little TLC soon, but my forced neglect may have turned it into a lost cause. We will see.
And that’s the update. More as it develops.
The wines and pyments are clearing. I used the Chitosan that came with the kits to do this, per the instructions. All four batches are clearing nicely. It’s interesting to watch the initial clearing process, then wait and watch the slower clearing happen. It’s like a band of clearness that starts at the top and slowly makes its way down.
The Port reached 1.014. I could discern no fermentation, no matter how much I tried. Give that the batch is at day 10, I went ahead and added the capitalisation sugar. It’s slowly fermenting again now, thankfully.
Now we wait some more…
Things are progressing well:
Chocolate Raspberry Port: 1.020, 10 points from capitalisation. I figure it’ll be at 1.010 by Tuesday.
Pinot Noir wine: slowed to a crawl. I reckon it’s almost fermented out. I’ll check it once the Pinot Pyment reaches FG, but I have little doubt it will be at the kit-specified FG of .996 by then. It was at 1.007 four days ago.
Pinot Noir pyment: Racked to secondary today, 1.025, or 10 points from desired FG. Fermentation picked up after racking. Will check this one tomorrow.
Riesling Wine: Racked two days ago at 1.003. Should finish soon.
Riesling Pyment: Racked to day at 1.014, or seven points from desired FG of 1.007. This one has an F-pack, so FG here is BEFORE the f-pack addition. I’m shooting for 1.015 post-f-pack.
The timing on the Riesling batches will be crucial. I want to do the f-pack for both on the same day, but if I am to follow the instructions, the wine must reach .996 by the time the pyment reaches 1.007, as I will need to stop the Pyment and not stop the wine short. Judging by the readings, I think I’m okay. This is the first split-batch wine kit pyment procedure I’ve done with an f-pack kit, so we’ll see how it turns out.
