Sloe Wine: Give me mould!

[HelpImBlind]

I am following this recipe:
https://www.brewbitz.com/content/15-sloe-wine-recipe

I followed it to the letter and in 3 days, my 2 months of moulding will be up. In anticipation of starting the fermentation proper, I had a gander this morning and there is hardly a spec of mould. There a couple of bits of cloudiness here and there on the surface, but that's it. The recipe talks about a thick layer of mould, and other videos I have watched typically have a good thick layer of mould that you can handle.

So my questions are:

a) Why little mould? I kept the fermentation bucket under the stairs and the temperature would have been between 15-20 oC at all times. Did I possibly go overboard when sterilising the bucket? Should I have let the berries/hot water cool with the lid off to give the chance for some mould spores to go in the bucket?

b) How can I promote mould growth for future batches?

Cheers! :drunk:

 

[Tau]

It's a risky recipe and mould is not required at all to produce a good sloe wine. Plus you have a risk of introducing moulds or fungi, even some bacteria that are seriously hazardous to health, although the worst are more grain focused but cross containation can occur in most kitchens. Have a look at threads for my sloe wine threads.

If you want the fruit fresh not boiled or sulphinated (whatever happened to the ph in sulphur apparently standard uk is now f (like a lot of things in uk are now f'd lol)) Put the sloes in a culindar or seive use a large spoon crush fruit over a bowl and eventually you're left with just the stones with the fruit having passed through.

 

[patlunch]

Saw the brewbits video and tried this. First batch 2022, decent mold, tasted a bit meh, 18 months later and its the best wine I've ever had. Batch 2 2023, made a non mold and a mold version to taste the difference. Moldy version didn't produce much mold, just a bit up the sides of the bucket, but went ahead anyway. Results: moldish version, absolutely amazing, lovely warm favours, non mouldy version, good but as you'd expect, tastes like sloes.