conpewter
Well-Known Member
Cool project! I think it will turn out nice, though perhaps rather dry because of the wine yeast. How do you plan to secondary (if it was ~125 gallons of pulp...)
and you can smell it tooIf you stare at that last picture long enough, it gives the illusion it is moving and bubbling.
I forgot to mention, but the night before last, before fermentation really took off, I followed gratus fermentatio's (thanks gf) suggestion and pushed a strainer down into the push and collected what pooled in it. It was still pretty thick, but I froze it, defrosted it and skimmed off the thickest of it. It was still too thick to take a hydro reading though.
So today, on my lunch break I took it by the LHBS and asked if they might be able to take a reading using a refractometer. The interchange went something like this:
me: "I was wondering if it would be possible for you to take a reading from this with the refractometer."
LHBS Guy: "hmmmm..." as he looks at the very orange liquid in the jar. "Can't get an accurate reading. It's too viscous."
me: "oh, that's too bad."
guy: "yeah, it's too viscous." As he pulls the lid off and smells it. "What is it?"
me: "Persimmons."
guy: "ah, persimmons don't have much sugar." Looking at the jar. "I don't think you could get an accurate hydrometer reading either. Too viscous."
me: "From what little research I could do I thought they were about 15%"
guy: "yeah, not that much sugar. How did you process the persimmons?"
me: "ummmm...we took the persimmons and mashed them up."
guy: "yeah...lot of pulp that way, that's why its so viscous. Probably not going to get an accurate reading."
me: nods head
guy: "how much of this do you have?"
me: "100 gallons"
guy: "Let me go see if I can get a reading."
And he did...15% on the nose.
Looking for the daily photo...
Sorry to disappoint. Yesterday was a pretty uneventful day. We added 1oz of yeast nutrient, but that's about it.
As for racking and bottling, we are totally unprepared. Racking probably involves another barrel and a lot of skimming of pulp. We may rent a press and run the pulp through it to get all the juice that we can.
We may rent a press and run the pulp through it to get all the juice that we can.
What you can't see is that it isn't uniformly thick. Between the pectinase and the fermentation, a great deal of separation has occurred. Under the thick pulp at the top is liquid.
5 gallon paint strainer bags and a wine press. Fill the bag with pulp, chuck it into the press, squeeze, repeat.
It'd take a few batches with my press, but it's doable.
i think that might have been my first thought, rather than fermenting 100 gallons of pulp. this looks so awesome.
What do I need to do to get a bottle of this? It sounds very interesting.
You aren't far from me. When it's done you can come pick up a bottle. How's that?
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