Mad Professor ~ Experimental wine making.
April 2011
I had a vague idea that since I had missed my usual Black Doris Plum Jam making season this year, that I would have a go at feijoa wine instead. (yes, I know, they are quite different aren't they?) The idea rattled around in my head for some weeks. I even scooped out and froze a half kilo of feijoa pulp. (we are always given bags of feijoas by those desperate to find a home for them before they rot). It might have stalled there, but then fate intervened. At the New Lynn Salvation Army I happened upon 2 one gallon demijohns (that's glass wine-making jars/jugs). A sign! I bought them of course. I am fond of glass jars and such. So to justify their purchase I had to make wine. Scrounging around on the internet uncovered several rather vague recipes. Get some stuff, put it in a jar, 1 year later... wine. And I bloody well know it ain't that simple! A more in depth recipe was finally found at
http://www.smiths.net.nz/feijoa.html though it was for much more wine than I was prepared to make and consume. I was only aiming for enough to fill those 2 demijohns. So I got out the calculator and fiddlefaddled around. I had made homebrewed beer some years back, so had some knowledge to start from.
First of all, more feijoas were required. A call went out on Facebook, and I ended up raiding Gemma's tree. It needed raiding, believe me.
I bribed mum and dad to help me “shuck” them. (I like the word Shuck.)
The bribe was feijoa crumble (Edmonds cookbook recipe for fruit crumble). The result was 2 icecream containers of Feijoa pulp. One of the recipes said that about one icecream container per gallon jar was ideal, so I went with that. Freeze for at least 3 days to help break down the cell walls and release the juice. Done.
While the fruit was defrosting I went looking for my old beer fermenter barrel. But we could only find one I had picked up in the inorganic collections a couple of years ago. It had no tap, just a hole, and no airlock. :-( Quick thinking had me up to the local Bulk Store to buy one of their used food-grade buckets. They only had 20litre ones for $7, but it worked out fine. Turns out you don't want an airlock for the primary ferment anyway as the gas releases too fast.
Remembering my issues with keeping my beer brew warm enough to keep fermenting, I purchased an aquarium heater for $28 on trademe. It now turns out that at this time of year (early april) the hot water cupboard would have been fine. But I didn't know that, and stuck my first brew in it's bulkstore bucket, into a dogbath filled to the level of the brew with water. Aquarium heater went into the dog bath to keep the water at 20 degrees C. I only saw the light come on a few times, at night. But on the last day of the primary ferment , the temp had dropped to 18 degrees, the weather had cooled considerably, and it was struggling to warm the water. A new rubbish bin was the suggested vessel to use for this method, not a dogbath. (I assume a lid would help keep the heat in.)
Anyway, the brew had to be stirred daily, so I just put the lid on the fermenter and left one bit of it not pushed down so the gas could escape.
Now for the recipe:(* means I got it from a homebrew specialty shop, the one in Mt Eden road)
2 x icecream containers of feijoa pulp. (3.8 to 4kg)
1 Tablespoon Pectinase dissolved in 100ml warm water. *
2kg sugar. Maybe more.
2 or 3 ordinary teabags.
Campden tablets (or sodium metabisulphite) *
White wine yeast. (I used something called MA33, made for fruit wine) *
Also needed; “No Rinse” sterilizing solution. Available at the supermarket from the beer section, next to homebrew kits.
Equipment;Primary fermenter bucket, food-grade, at least 10L, with a lid.
Secondary fermenters, should be see-thru, can use 2.25L coke bottles if you can't get the one gallon demijohns (which hold about 4L each)
A large jug to mix sterilizing solution in (mine was 2L)
A stockpot or other large food-grade container for transfering and straining, you could probably use a new bucket, but I just used our stockpot.
Stick-on thermometer for primary fermenter. Mine is an aquarium one from the pet shop. Needs to show at least 18 -30 degreesC.
Stirrer, funnel, hydrometer *, syphon hose *, potato masher, kitchen sieve.
~Freeze Feijoa pulp for at least 3 days, then allow to thaw overnight.
~Mix Pectinase dissolved in water into the pulp and leave to rest (with lids on) for 6 to 12 hours. (this helps break down the fruit and get more juice from it)
~Using “No Rinse” sterilizing solution, sterilize fermenter bucket and lid, stirrer, a teaspoon, hydrometer and it's container, large jug, kitchen potato masher.
~Carefully mash the feijoas then tip them into the fermenter bucket.
~In your large jug, dissolve 1 kg sugar in 1.2 litre boiling water. Add to fermenter.
~Make about 150ml of strong tea with the teabags, and add to fermenter (for tannin).
~Add about 3 litres cold water, and stir. (I added 4 litres and it was too much to fit in the 2 demijohns)
~Measure gravity with hydrometer. I used the container it came in and just tipped some of the brew into it. My reading was 1.060. One of my recipes said to bring the sugar levels up to 1.100, but it depends how alcoholic you want it to be. Instructions with the hydrometer will tell you how to work out how much sugar you need. I ended up adding another 1 kg of sugar, and got a reading of 1.095 which I decided was close enough, and matched the other recipe, which says 1kg of sugar per gallon. You don't have to use a hydrometer, and can just go with the 1kg sugar per 2 kg fruit ratio. I wanted to use the hydrometer for a rough idea of how alcoholic the wine would be, (about 12.8%), although I now find out they are notoriously unreliable).
~Once your sugar is in, and you've given it another good stir, crush up about 1 and a half campden tablets and mix them into the brew. I used a mortar and pestle, but you can just use the back of a spoon. This stuff will kill off any wild yeast that could spoil the brew. Some people are allergic to sulphites, and apparently there are other ways to inhibit the wild yeasts, like through refridgeration, but I took the easy option.
~Once it's all mixed, put the lid on but don't seal it completely, as gas needs to escape. Now it needs to be kept at about 20 degrees C for the next 6 days. In warm weather the hotwater cupboard will probably do. Otherwise use the aquarium heater method, get your water to 20 degrees first, then follow instructions on heater. Don't let the heater touch the fermenter or the bottom of the dogbath/rubbish bin/whatever you use for your water bath.
~24 hours later the campden tablets will have done their work and you can now add the yeast. Don't add it any sooner or the campden tablets may inhibit it. The packet I got was enough for 23 litres. So I used some of it to experiment with “starters” which is getting the yeast started before you add it to the brew. (I used the starters for other brews) But I just chucked in 2 tsp of the yeast and stirred it up, and put the lid back on (again, not sealed). (Starters seem like a good idea if you are a bit unsure how good your yeast is.) They say it's not the quantity, but the quality of your yeast that's important.
~Now, open it each day and stir the “crust” back into the brew. It should be “fizzy”. After 5 days like this it's time for the next step.
The next step is moving your brew into secondary fermenters.
~Sterilize: 2 x demijohns, sieve, large jug, stirrer, funnel.
~Add 2 crushed campden tablets to the brew and stir thoroughly. Then you want to strain all the pulp out of the brew. I sterilized our largest stockpot, which still wasn't big enough, (8 litres) and the 2 litre jug. I just tipped the brew through the sterilized kitchen sieve into the stockpot. The last bit went into the jug, and I divided that last bit between the two sterilized demi johns, reasoning it would have more “goodies” in it. The rest of the brew goes into the demijohns until they are almost full.
~Now, I went to the trouble of getting rubber bungs and airlocks for the demijohns, because that was how I had brewed beer. But apparently you can just put a double layer of gladwrap over the top with a rubberband. The rubberband will stretch to allow the brew to “burp” without letting too many nasties in. I read on one website that air can still migrate through the kitchen wrap, and on another that it's fine. Shrug. We'll see I guess. On this website
http://www.smiths.net.nz/feijoa.htmlthey use “cookie jars” which sound like the kind with a glass lid and rubber ring, except they take out the rubber ring and leave it glass on glass, then put kitchen paper and string over it to keep it clean. Says it works fine. So I guess it depends how fanatical you want to be about it.
~I filled my demijohns to about 1 to 1.5cm below where the bung is. Then put water that had been boiled in my airlocks and fitted them. I still had about 1.2litres left because of my miscalculation with the water at the beginning, so I put that into a sterilized 1.5L plastic soda bottle, and topped it up with water that had been boiled. (It is important to leave as little air space as you can to help keep the wine from oxidizing apparently.) With the soda bottle I used the double -gladwrap and rubberband method as I had no extra airlock.
~Once sealed up, I washed the outside of the demijohns and soda bottle to prevent ants, and put them on the floor in the hotwater cupboard. The aim is to put them somewhere with a reasonably stable temperature, but not too hot.
* This is where I have gotten to so far.
In this pic, are also 2 brews I have started in the 2 days after I started the first brew. They are made from "leftovers". (More on that in future.)What I intend to do next is:~“Ferment to dryness”. This involves “racking” the wine. Removing the wine from it's sediment every 3 or 4 weeks, using the siphon hose (sterilized each time of course). The siphon hose needs to be clear, about 2 metres long, small enough in diameter to fit into bottle/demijohns, but not too small. It can not be sterilized by boiling. You have to use sterilzing solution, and make sure it gets right through.
It would be easier to have spare sterile demijohns to siphon right into, but I don't have any. So I'm planning to siphon into the stockpot, clean and sterilize the demijohns, funnel the wine back in, and reseal the airlock. (I'm told you can use small pebbles to swirl around inside the demijohns to help remove the sediment during cleaning.)
Don't put the siphon in the bottom of the bottle, you want to leave the sediment behind. You will inevitably lose some volume this way. I am planing to top up with boiled water to keep the levels up (remember what I said about oxidization?) This will dilute the wine a bit. You can apparently reserve some of the wine and put it in the fridge for topping up purposes. I guess the cold temperature prevents the fermentation, or slows it right down. In this way, the brew is undiluted so to speak.
Anyway, “ferment to dryness” means tasting it each time you “rack” the wine. If it gets too dry it loses it's fruity flavour, so towards the end of this secondary fermentation you can add some more sugar. I've calculated no more than 50grams per gallon (4L), but we'll see. That website suggests the wine should be nice and clear, and ready to bottle in 2 to 3 months, and ready to drink almost immediately. But also states that it may require as many as 7 rackings. Which I calculate to be about 5 months. There are a lot of variables. Fruit wine apparently does not benefit from extended ageing in the bottle, but then, some websites say you need to ages it for at least 6 months!
So far, this is an experiment, and I suggest you use the website
http://www.smiths.net.nz/feijoa.htmlas a guide if you are trying it yourself. You will note I haven't used some of the things it suggests, like malt and ammonium phosphate. I just wanted to try to be as simple as possible, and my volume was much smaller! (My bulk store was also out of malt, or I would have tried a starter yeast on it). After reading a bunch of conflicting info, I just picked out what sounded right to me, but this website certainly had the best instructions.
I will be updating this post as the brew progresses. If it fails miserably, let that be a warning to you about following the recipe and not going off on gut feelings and tangents. :-)
~Yvon
This is a boring little video of my "bubbling babies" in the hot water cupboard, the day after the first brew was put into secondary fermenters. They are the ones with airlocks.
The large jar is an apple cider experiment, and the brown jar and front soda bottle are feijoa and apple concentrate "leftovers" with my starter experiments chucked in. You can see the gladwrap (on the brown jar especially) is all puffed up with gas coming off the first fermentation, which I'm doing in the jar instead of a bucket, and in the hotwater cupboard instead of the waterbath*excuse mouth-breathing, I have a cold!
*Post-script* Just an edit to say, I've noticed this page has had a lot of hits. I have to warn you though, the results of this wine attempt were NOT good! The plum wine I made a year later was MUCH more successful. Please do check it out instead.
