Keep the fruit or the liquid

[BackToBasics]

Before I start I know the obvious answer is to get a larger fermenting vessel. However...

I followed a recipe for apple and pear wine that used 2.7kg of apples/pears and 4.5l water to boil them in. Just looking at the volume of fruit I knew that it'd never fit in the fermenting bucket but I cooked the fruit regardless and hoped for the best. During cooking a lot of the fruit disintegrated so I figured I was better of discarding some of the cooked fruit rather than the liquid.

The remaining solids will be removed from the wine when I transfer it to the demijohn so I'm reasonably happy with what I'm done but with a 6 month wait before I can taste the results I'm a bit worried.

So...have I done the right thing? Does the recipe use too much fruit? Should I just buy a bigger fermenting vessel?

 

[Brewtrog]

For a DJ, that's about right, the boil is to extract the flavour of the fruit, you shouldn't need to leave it in. Personally I'd use a bit less than a gallon of water though, so that I could definitely fit the sugar in.

 

[BackToBasics]

Cheers. The recipe called to leave the fruit in the fermenting bucket for 24 hours (ended up being 48 hours due to the water going off on Monday). Am I to take it that I'd be okay to discard the fruit at this point to make life a little easier?

The sugar went in no problem. I had enough forethought to leave room for it. The smell on opening the bucket was fantastic - a million miles away from the smells I got off my beer kit during the first week.

Anyway, it's in the demijohn now bubbling away nicely. Apparently it'll take about 4 weeks to clear and will then need 6 months in the bottles. I should have plenty off booze ready for christmas.

 

[Brewtrog]

Yeah it should be fine to chuck the fruit now, if you have a compost bin, then compost it.

 

[Dave Ne]

Hi BtoB, just be carefull in the future though, some recipes need the pulp and more importantly the skins to leach out flavours, cheers Dave