Damson wine

Picked 25lb of damsons today in around half an hour - very ripe, but plenty left on the trees even though it had obviously been picked recently, Started 2 fermenting buckets as per below

Recipe per 3 gallon batch:

• 11.5 lb damson
• 11.5 lb sugar
• 23 pts boiling water
• 3 tsp pectalose
• 3 tsp Yeast Nutrient
  
• Youngs Burgundy red wine yeast

Day 1 - 24/09/11 - getting started

Put fruit and sugar in fermenting bucket and poured over boiling water. Added the pectalose and gave the barrels a very good shake to help the fruit break down and the sugar dissolve.

Once done the fruit could clearly be seen rising to the top with the skins coming off. Finally covered with muslin for 24 hours.

Day 2. - 25/09/11 - pitching

Dissolved the yeast nutrient (around 4 tsp) in approx 1/4 pint of cold water. The nutrient was quite damp. Poured it into the bucket.

There was quite a bit of undissolved sugar sitting at the bottom of the bucket so gave a it a good scrape and stir for a few minutes but there was still quite a bit refusing to dissolve.

Fitted an airlock to each bucket
.

Day 19 - 14/10/11 - racking off

Racked off the wine tonight, we managed 6 demijohns of syphoned wine, of which the sample tasted nice and fruity :) Strained the rest of the must through a sieve, then muslin cloth, for a further 1 1/3 demijohns, for a stronger version. All air-locked and looking lovely, should have 44 or so bottles of wine!

Day 131 - 03/02/12 - racking off

Racked off again into 6 demijohns. Tastes promising

14/04/12 - bottling

Bottled 35 bottles. Tastes good