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.
Not one to leave well enough alone, I gave my wines a 30 second shot of O2 at yeast pitch, and another 30 seconds the next morning. Even though the wine kit instructions say to check after 7 days, at 4 days my Pinot Noir wine was down to 1.007 (from 1.092), and the Riesling wine was down to 1.017 (from 1.082). I suspect the Riesling will reach 1.010 tomorrow. Per the kit instructions, I racked the Pinot Noir wine.
Other readings:
Pinot Noir Pyment: OG 1.122, SG today 1.054
Riesling Pyment: OG 1.112, SG today 1.053
I broke my hydrometer before I got a reading on the Port, but according to the Brix readings and a rough calculator, OG 1.126, SG today 1.031.
The Riesling Pyment and Wine are in the fermenter. This one is going to be interesting, as the kit came with an “F-pack”. This is added to the wine after stabilizing. To achieve the F.G. I wanted while still using the pack, I lowered O.G and F.G. of the batch to compensate. The fun part will be splitting up the F-pack between the batches, which means I pretty much have to do both on the same day.
Here’s hoping…
My second red wine kit pyment is in the fermenters. This time, since the Oregon Yamhill Pinot Noir kit is no longer available, I used its replacement, the Sonoma Valley Pinot Noir kit. The experience was almost exactly the same as last time. After prep, the 6 gallons of wine juice from the kit had an OG of 1.092. After splitting, I added 9 pounds of orange blossom honey and 1.25 gallons of water to bring the pyment O.G. to 1.122. I pitched 10g of RC-212 yeast prepped with Go-Ferm in the pyment. I added 1 oz of house toast french oak cubes in the wine, and 2 oz in the pyment.
I’m going to rest, and I hope to have the Riesling pyment done tonight.
The Chocolate Raspberry Port is bubbling nicely.
