Supermarket bargain fruit experiment

[Wimberry]

Was shopping late last night (Morrisons) and they were marking down the fruit, I seized the opportunity and bought 7 bags of red grapes at 19p each and 4 bags of bananas at 19p each. I thought i,d experiment with these so this morning I started the brew.
Planning on making 2 gallons from this
I chopped the bananas (3k), added these to the saucepan in went a bag of sultanas (500g) after washing in hot water to get the oil off them and giving them a quick wizz in the blender, added 3 litres of water and simmered these for 30 mins along with 500g of sugar.
I put the grapes (2.8k) in my fermenting and crushed them with wooden meat tenderizer (was gonna press them with my feet, but changed my mind due to health and safety issues :0).
I added the banana/sultana/sugar combo and also added 5 chopped apples (just for the hell of it) to the crushed grapes i'm now gonna wait for it to cool, add some pectolase/campden and leave it overnight, tomorrow I will add some yeast (i,ve got some Ritchies high alcohol in a starter).
The plan is to ferment on the pulp for a week then strain, adjust the sugar etc.
Could be a winner, who knows ? I'll let you know how it goes but thought i,d share the info.
All the Best

 

[bobsbeer]

Sounds good. :thumb:

 

[oldbloke]

I shall follow this one with great interest!

 

[Paperdragon]

This sounds interesting. What are you going to call it?

 

[Wimberry]

Thanks for your replies, might call this brew GRANANA LNS (grape/banana/late night shopping) :0)
All the very best
Wimberry

 

[Wimberry]

This is fermenting well now, getting a good bongo on the lid of the bucket :0)

 

[terminal500]

Ignorant beginner here, so please forgive the daft questions, what is the campden for, is it because the mix contains mains tap water or are there other reasons for using it?

 

[GeorgeSalt]

Ignorant beginner here, so please forgive the daft questions, what is the campden for, is it because the mix contains mains tap water or are there other reasons for using it?

Unwashed mixed fruit.. at least that's why I'd be using it. Supermarket fruit is unlikely to have the right yeasts sitting around on the surface.

 

[terminal500]

Ah I see. This sounds quite good fun, I'm quite jealous. How did you arrive at 2 gallons for that amount of fruit, is it just experience? Also what sort of time line are you working on before bottling and then maturing time before drinking. Sorry again about the questions. Cheers Tom.

 

[oldbloke]

He's got about 12lb of fruit, which as a rule of thumb will do up to 3 gallons, maybe a bit more depending on the fruit. If it was something with a stronger flavour than grapes, it'd do more. Since it is grapes, best to keep the volume low.
Tha's off the top of my head, and may be total rub.

 

[Wimberry]

As an update and to answer a few questions, the campden tablets were used to kill off any "enemy" yeasts/bugs from the fruit, always a good idea as a precaution against infection when using any fruit.
The fruit mix was fermented on the pulp for 8 days (stirring and gently sinking the floating cap once a day) then I strained all the solids through a fine nylon straining bag and pressed it using my recently acquired (Ebay) Walker Desmond fruit press, this made over 2 gallons of juice.
I added 1.25k sugar to a saucepan and added about a litre of the must, gently warmed this to dissolve then added this to a demijohn, repeated this for DJ 2.
I then filled the two demijohns up to the shoulder with the must, the spare i froze in a tupperware container.
Fitted airlocks to the DJ's and after 6 days of fairly rapid fermentation I topped them up with the defrosted must.
They are still bubbling at about 1 B.P.S, the colour is a bit orangey, not a lot of colour came from the grape skins but they were not that dark, more pink than red.
I will rack this when it slows to a near stop and as for drinking, I think it will be about 8 to 10 months, I'll let you know how it goes.
All the Best