montjoye

2kg 10B apricots. Some from last year I think
2kg market apricots from Mrsbrown

Halve and destone. Freeze, defrost, bring to a simmer, for 45min this time.
Cool to 50C, add 1 teaspoon (3g) pectinase and one crushed camden tablet. Stir, cover. Keep warm/ish for 36hrs. (24hrs would be fine but that point was late evening). I wrapped the pot in a towel for the first night, then put it on the brew heater.
Boil small brew bag to sterilise.
Strain pulp through bag. Including lots of squeezing. Maybe a press would useful here.

Juice yield was 3-3.5L* with very little pulp. Doing the pectinase treat before juicing was new, and worked a treat. I'd done a little googling which said that pectinase helps with juice extraction, not just haze reduction in the finished product.

Put the apricot juice in a sterilised fermenter.
Add 16L plain commercial apple juice.
check OG: 1.052
pitch SN9 fruit wine yeast. (turns out I prefer the versions using champagne-Lalvin EC1118 or Safcider yeast)

*the receiving pot said 2.75L, it made up to 20L in the fermenter (implying 4L apricot juice). Somewhere in there is the real number. Wotevs

12th June. No gloop (only a week!) 1.005, so 6%. Some spritzig still present. Cloudy sadly.
13th June: started bottling, lots of sediment. So instead, I've racked it on to 40g of dextrose. Not sure if time will clear it, whether I should use some sort of finings, or what. The decision is now put off for a few days anyway.
22nd June: bottled. Sediment vanished. Still a little cloudy but no more than the last year or two. Hopefully it will clear properly with time. 4doz and 9

I got sick of cleaning things, so I've broken that up with setting up my next brew. This is that 20L of apple and pear juice that I scored for $1/L. It's 37.5% pear juice 'cause I cleared the shelves of the 50:50 mix and had to buy some plain apple to make up 20L. It's Berri brand clear juice.

The yeast is Vintner's Harvest SN9 which several people on Lochac brewers recommended as good for cider, leaving a fuller mouthfeel. So I'm doing a very simple ferment to test it.  vintnersharvest.com/products/vintners-harvest-wine-yeast-sn9. My brew stash doesn't have any simple cider left so this is needed anyway. I do still have a few last bottles of strong home pressed "harvest" cider, about half a case of apricot cider and quite a lot of the very dry mulberry cider. The latter I'm thinking of as primarily cooking booze.

OG 1.043
April 12th, no gloop, 1.004, some spritzig
April 21st, still no gloop, spritzig faded, 1.005, 5.0% abv, bottled.


June 8th
Reporting in on how this went. I call it a success. Nice soft mouthfeel, definitely less dry than with champagne yeast. Fairly light flavour, but it is only cheap commercial juice. I under dosed the carbonation sugar so it's low fizz. Must remember that my ciders don't have the same late ferment issue that many of my beers suffer.

A attempted repeat of a successful 'speriment

3 litres apricot juice/pulp (yield from 4L after freezing, defrosting and squishing through a brew bag)
treat apricot with campden and pectinase for 36hr at ~12deg *
18 litres clear apple juice (Aldi)
4g wine yeast nutrient
champagne yeast

starting density 1.049, yeast pitched today. I'm concerned about the health of this yeast. It sank and didn't foam on hydrating. I can always repitch if it doesn't take off. (it was fine, and champagne yeast since then has behaved like this for me)

*1 campden tablet, 1/2t pectinase. 24hrs in a warm place-except like last time it was more like 35hrs in a cool place.

Fermented at ~16C. Only took ~11days.
FG 1.005
ABV 5.7%

I've just put 10L each of pear and apple juice to a fermenter with a sachet of Nottingham Ale yeast.
OG 1.051
The density sample is pretty tasty, especially split with soda.

The pear juice was got cheaply from the Shep factory shop and is cloudy. The apple juice is clear and $1/L fromthe A store. Both full juice, no added sugar and preservative free.

I was originally going to combine the pear juice with apricots, but after thinking about their respective ripening/picking seasons, I ditched that idea. They are not natural partners. The apricots ripen at new year and the pears several months later in autumn. Of course with modern freezers etc we can put them together if we wish, but I decided not to. So the revised plan simply pairs the pears with apples :-). 'Tis my latest experiment, and if it turns out well, I'll try to keep some aside for MrsBrown at festival next year.

Moooorrre 'Speriments!

This project was born of having ~3kg of apricots lanquishing/taking up room in my freezer. One lot had been there from last year's harvest. I already have jars of both apricot jam and sauce in the pantry and apricot wine maturing in the brewing cupboard. So... here is a try at another thing:

2 litres apricot juice/pulp (yield after freezing, defrosting and squishing through a brew bag)
treat apricot with campden and pectinase for 36hr at ~12deg *
2 litres clear pear juice
16 litres clear apple juice (Aldi)
4g wine yeast nutrient
champagne yeast

I am told pear juice naturally contains some unfermentable sugars. I'd have used more if it were cheaper. This 2L was $7. Whereas we can get apple juice for $1/L.  If this turns out to be drinkable, I'd be more willing to spend more on pear juice when we have next year's apricot crop to play with.

starting density 1.048

*1 campden tablet, 1/2t pectinase. 24hrs in a warm place- well it wasn't warm and 24hrs was during dinner prep last night.

It's been a dozen days since I last posted. My brain is too tangled up to post on the important things. What I do need is a record of dates etc on the two brews currently glooping away happily in the dining room.


Damson wine
recipe below started on April 15th, aside from the precook and freeze part which was prior to festi.
My comments, interpretations and alterations in italics. Pics later when I have the full series.

Recipe 1 of 2 -Country summer style (can't remember the source website but this recipe turns up in several places. It is the alternative presented along with the one that says to grow mould on the surface first. Pass, but Weaver has done that one and it is truly tasty)

Ingredients :-
• 3 lb. ripe damsons(I started with ~2kg)
• 3 lb. sugar
• 1 gallon cold water(4.5L)
• pectic enzyme-(1teaspoon)
• campden tablet
• gp wine yeast (fermol rouge, hydrate before pitching)
• yeast nutrients (1g)

Instructions :
pick or buy damsons as ripe as possible,remove stones and wash them well (wash and remove stalks, stew slowly with 200g sugar, mouli to remove stones, freeze, defrost). put the 3lb. damsons in a large saucepan (my big stockpot,fruit inside a brew bag)  and pour on a gallon of cold water. Bring to the boil and simmer(a few min only given they were cooked earlier )until the damsons are tender but not mashy. strain off the liquid through muslin into a plastic bucket (lift brewbag and allow to drain back into saucepan). The damsons can now be used as stewed fruit or for making jam(residue is now only worthy as compost, all brown and dry). add 3lb. of granulated sugar to the liquid in the bucket and stir well with a plastic spoon until the sugar has dissolved(tick). leave to cool right down, then add pectic enzyme and a crushed campden tablet(tick). allow 24hrs covered in a warm atmosphere before stirring in the yeast and yeast nutrient. the leave in the warm for three days before you transfer into a fermentation demi-john, fit an airlock and ferment until dry, (this still in progress) when the fermentation has stopped, rack and clear before bottling. some may be required during fermentation and a tablespoon of sugar added once or twice should do no harm. you will de able to drink it in six months or perhaps before that. but the longer you keep it the better it will be.

Racked on 2nd June. there was a white lump of something floating, is this pectin perhaps? I included the ~600ml from the PET bottle (volume that wouldn't fit in the demijohn in the first round). Ferment still going but slow. taste is fiery, fruity, sweet but thankfully not sour.

Cider
simpler but a lot more work.
25L home crushed apple juice (2:2:1 acid, tannin, sweet)
5 crushed Campden tablets for 24hrs
Nottingham ale yeast, hydrated before pitching

Apples collected by Weaver and friends, including me. Juicing for this lot happened between April 13 and 21st. Yeast pitched Monday April 22nd. Ferment going by Tues 23rd. As usual I didn't have a proper seal initially. We were being monstered by wasps through the second juicing day. Amazingly only one sting was received that day, by poor Weaver. Lots of wasps got into the juice in one way or another. We should probably call it wasp cider! I boringly insisted that no wasps end up in my fermenter. Weaver set up at least one 50L batch, same juice proportions as mine, including the wasps! Then, because I am experimenting by using an ale yeast, he planned to do one with the same proportions again, but sans wasps, both with our more usual champagne yeast. Ha, he is such a  Weaver, but I appreciate the scientific approach, test one variable at a time eh?   Oh, juicing method this year was almost the same as last- Commercial juicer then pulp put through a hydrolic press. Last year we took the juice from the juicer and only pressed the pulp, but we ended up with a LOT of solids in the fermenters. This year we recombined juice and pulp and pressed the lot. This made for very satisfying pressings :-) and much clearer juice.