Sherry

[Moley]

That sounds fair enough to me, the jar size, whether it's 1 gallon or 5 litres, wouldn't make very much difference.

I wouldn't take too much notice of the timings. Fair enough, it's going to spend the first 9 days in a bucket, but you can ignore that 4 weeks. How long it will take to ferment out and start to clear will vary according to temperture and many other factors. After first racking you should probably be looking at a further 3-6 months before bottling.

You don't give a quantity for the raisins or crystal malt.

BTW, I'm slightly intrigued by that as I've never used crystal malt in any wine.

 

[jcalow]

Thank you for the advice, I understand now. Yeah, the crystal malt is a strange addition. Has been fermenting for a couple of days now and looks very dark and smells very malty. I have added the ingredients and quantities to the recipe I posted above.


Thanks,


Josh

 

[madmodder]

im inrested to see how this turns out, where did you find the recipe if im aloud to ask? the only home brew sherry i have is a goosebery wine which at 3 yrs old was blended with i think blackberry wine and now 20 years later we bottled it been sat in the bottle for 6 months now and my it taste amazing.

 

[stig1963]

http://www.home-winemaking.com/winemaking-5.html

COUPLE HERE

 

Could a GP yeast be used in place of the port / sherry yeast?

 

[biddyG]

hi corby, no expert or anything only a green horn, but i read a bit about yeasts and if you use a port or sherry yeast you might not get a port or sherry drink, for sherry if the recipe is for a sherry i think its the amount of air apace that gives the sherry effect in the storage stage of the wine sometimes the air lock is thken out and the jar plugged with cottonwool, i dunno tho but i can remember reading that somewhere :hmm:

 

[holly]

ive read that a sherry or port yeast is an high alcohol yeast, a gp yeast will die off around 13% ive got a couple of wines going and used sherry yeast just to see what comes out :)

 

[Moley]

a gp yeast will die off around 13%

My Harris ’Super Yeast’ compound is certainly good for 18-19% and I'm pretty sure that Young's GP compound is similar.

Biddy's spot on about the airspace and plugging with cotton wool.

 

[corby_brewer]

My Harris ’Super Yeast’ compound is certainly good for 18-19% and I'm pretty sure that Young's GP compound .

i agree, i recently made a Ribena Wine using Young's GP compound. It started at 1.100 and finished at.990, so that came out at 14.6%.

 

[holly]

a gp yeast will die off around 13%

My Harris ’Super Yeast’ compound is certainly good for 18-19% and I'm pretty sure that Young's GP compound is similar.

Biddy's spot on about the airspace and plugging with cotton wool.

the book i read it in is quite old before the super yeast days would this explain why it mentions dying off at 13% ?

 

[Moley]

Yes Holly, that makes sense to me. Many varietal yeasts will still have a lower alcohol tolerance.

I generally make most of my wines in the 12 - 14% abv range but will occasionally push one to the limit, around 17% for a wheat or barley, and my carrot whisky is nudging 19%.

 

[biddyG]

Holy moley 19 % awesome

 

[jcalow]

Ok, this sherry is getting there, had about a month and a half of clearing under cotton wool. Just thinking about the sweetening as it tastes very dry. The recipe notes say about adding sugar syrup. What syrup do I use and how much do I add? Won't this also be changed into alcohol?

 

[Moley]

Some hydrometer numbers would be useful.
You need about 15g sugar to the litre (65g to the gallon) to give a 5 point rise.
Dissolve it in half a cup of boiling water before you add it.
If you haven't stabilised with sorbate, yes it will ferment again.