Richie_asg1
Junior Member
I've read that for winemaking everything has to be sterilised, sanitised - including all the ingredients which usually involves adding a campden tablet to the fruit during its steeping phase at the beginning.
But I remember in an old book on country wines they don't do that, and instead just pour water over the fruit and let it sit for 8 weeks. This results usually in a thick mold crust on the top of the liquid, which is then removed before draining the liquid for fermentation. There must also be some anaerobic bacterial action going on underneath.
I have just watched another video of the same thing for sloe wine -
There are commercial wines that use grapes infected with botrytus, as these grapes shrivel due to cracks in the skin which is attacked which result in sweeter grapes. This seems to result in a sweeter wine style as well so are the sugars even fermentable or is there some interplay between the botrytus, bacteria and the yeast, or is the sugar content of the must so high it relies on alcohol tolerance to leave some residual sugars.
Quite a lot of cider is made from crushed apples which are usually less than perfect going in yet makes good cider.
I'm just thinking this "sterilise the fruit" modern thinking may not be essential or even desirable if the effects of botrytus are beneficial.
I have recently been looking at the Korean method of food waste composting called Bokashi. This is where the waste is innoculated with bacteria and the lot is compacted to digest anaerobically. But this is only half the story. Later the material is mixed with soil in an aerobic composting method - whereby all the anerobic bacteria die and the aerobic strains take over. This they find is a lot easier because most of the work has been done for them, and so the composting process is a lot quicker.
I am just wondering if allowing molds and bacteria to act on fruit before it is fermented using our choice of fungus is beneficial to flavour or juice extraction?
But I remember in an old book on country wines they don't do that, and instead just pour water over the fruit and let it sit for 8 weeks. This results usually in a thick mold crust on the top of the liquid, which is then removed before draining the liquid for fermentation. There must also be some anaerobic bacterial action going on underneath.
I have just watched another video of the same thing for sloe wine -
There are commercial wines that use grapes infected with botrytus, as these grapes shrivel due to cracks in the skin which is attacked which result in sweeter grapes. This seems to result in a sweeter wine style as well so are the sugars even fermentable or is there some interplay between the botrytus, bacteria and the yeast, or is the sugar content of the must so high it relies on alcohol tolerance to leave some residual sugars.
Quite a lot of cider is made from crushed apples which are usually less than perfect going in yet makes good cider.
I'm just thinking this "sterilise the fruit" modern thinking may not be essential or even desirable if the effects of botrytus are beneficial.
I have recently been looking at the Korean method of food waste composting called Bokashi. This is where the waste is innoculated with bacteria and the lot is compacted to digest anaerobically. But this is only half the story. Later the material is mixed with soil in an aerobic composting method - whereby all the anerobic bacteria die and the aerobic strains take over. This they find is a lot easier because most of the work has been done for them, and so the composting process is a lot quicker.
I am just wondering if allowing molds and bacteria to act on fruit before it is fermented using our choice of fungus is beneficial to flavour or juice extraction?
