Zschoche Cellars began fermenting our second round of juice this afternoon. This time it is a Vinters Reserve Riesling white wine kit. I began by sanitizing all of the equipment and then let it dry. That is one thing that I am going to try differently this time around. Last time, I didn't allow the equipment dry. While the sanitizer is "no rinse," I believe that some of the residue hindered a complete fermentation of the sugar and also led to some of the "off tastes" in the finished product.
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| The Vinters Reserve Riesling kit that I used. |
Next, I added a package of bentonite to a small amount of spring water before adding 2.6 gallons of Riesling juice. I stirred the contents after adding an additional 2.4 gallons of water to bring to total volume to 6 gallons.
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| All of the ingredients that will be added to the juice at different times over the next month. | | |
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| Adding the water to the juice. |
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| Gravity feeding the juice into the primary fermentor using the auto siphon. |
After mixing the juice and water, I took a small sample and measured the specific gravity, potential alcohol and percent sugar. The readings were 1.082, 12% and 22% respectively. Finally, I added the yeast to the juice, covered the fermentor and placed it in a dark cabinet. The temperature of the juice is 65 degrees farenheit, which means that it might be a little longer than seven days before I begin the next step. As with the last batch, the yeast will begin fermenting the juice sometime in the next 24 to 48 hours.
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| The juice with the yeast floating on the surface. |
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