# Do you skim the top off Blackberry Jam Slurry starter?



## MurphyTexas (Mar 6, 2012)

Hi Y'all,

I have a 6 gallon batch of smuckers seedless blackberry jam wine at SG 1.035 in the primary fermenter and am going to use it as my SP starter. I have 6 gallons of the lemon / sugar per Lon's recipe whipped and waiting for the blackberry to drop to SG 1.020 which should be very soon. 

My blackberry wine has about a quarter to half inch of solids stuff floating on the top which I wasn't expecting since I thought it was just juice. 

The question I have is: should I skim and trash the stuff on the top prior to my primary racking thus removing it from my SP starting slurry? Or does it serve some positive benefit for starting the SP? What would you do?

This is my first "jam wine" SP so I don't know what that top floating solids is made of. Is it Pectin?


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## robie (Mar 7, 2012)

Sorry, but somehow your post has slipped by all the SP people. This post will put it back on top, so maybe someone knowledgeable will respond.


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## Arne (Mar 8, 2012)

Kind of a toss up. I would tend to think about skimming it off, but it mite have a bunch of the jam flavor in it which would pass on the the skeeter pee. Not much help, but guess it comes down to your choice. Arne.


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## BlueMike (Mar 8, 2012)

I do not skim mine. About 90 percent gets removed when racking to secondary and the rest is removed when racking off secondary to clearing stage.


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## MurphyTexas (Mar 8, 2012)

BlueMike said:


> I do not skim mine. About 90 percent gets removed when racking to secondary and the rest is removed when racking off secondary to clearing stage.



Thanks for the reply. The amount of floating lees was more like a full inch so I skimmed off about half simply because there was so much of it that it filled my 7 gallon primary. It started fermenting the sp in 2 hours.


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## Julie (Mar 8, 2012)

What was your starting sg? I have made a couple blackberry jam recipes andI never had anything floating on the top, I am thinking you might be rushing this. Wait until your blackberry is done fermenting, you should have about a quart and a half to 2 quart of slurry to make your sp.


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## MurphyTexas (Mar 9, 2012)

Julie said:


> What was your starting sg? I have made a couple blackberry jam recipes andI never had anything floating on the top, I am thinking you might be rushing this. Wait until your blackberry is done fermenting, you should have about a quart and a half to 2 quart of slurry to make your sp.



Hi. The starting blackberry Jam wine SG was 1.092. You are right that I may have rushed it a bit. I just wanted an "active slurry" so my SP would start easily. This is my first Jam wine experience and am learning by doing. As of this morning, both the wine in the carboy and the SP in the primary are bubbling nicely and the room smells great.


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## Arne (Mar 9, 2012)

Sounds like you got off on the right track. Good luck with it. Arne.


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## Julie (Mar 9, 2012)

MurphyTexas said:


> Hi. The starting blackberry Jam wine SG was 1.092. You are right that I may have rushed it a bit. I just wanted an "active slurry" so my SP would start easily. This is my first Jam wine experience and am learning by doing. As of this morning, both the wine in the carboy and the SP in the primary are bubbling nicely and the room smells great.



LOL, I understand that but yeast never dies. I have fermented to .992, taken the slurry, froze it for a year and a half and when I took it out of the freeze as soon as it started to warm up it started to foam.


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## MurphyTexas (Mar 9, 2012)

Thanks Arne.

Thanks Blue Mike.

Julie - Yeast never dies... It just hibernates. That sounds like the lyrics for a song. 

Well my Blackberry Jam Skeeter P was at 1.045 tonight so I added the last bottle of lemon juice. I have a corny keg just waiting to be filled and am still debating on pressurizing with CO2 versus Argon as I now have both.


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## Arne (Mar 10, 2012)

I will give you another quick hint. After you get the s.p. into the secondary for a week or so, you mite want to start another batch. You will probably be suprised how fast the stuff disappears. I belive there are some s.p. gnomes in my winery that have a couple of glasses or bottles every nite. Other than that, I wonder what happens to it??? Arne.


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## MurphyTexas (Mar 10, 2012)

Arne said:


> I will give you another quick hint. After you get the s.p. into the secondary for a week or so, you mite want to start another batch. You will probably be suprised how fast the stuff disappears. I belive there are some s.p. gnomes in my winery that have a couple of glasses or bottles every nite. Other than that, I wonder what happens to it??? Arne.



Gnomes. Too funny. After making my first batch of SP a month or so ago, I have decided that for every carboy of wine there will be another carboy of skeeter pee. So now there are 3 batches of SP in the works. The goal is to have enough to take to social gatherings. However, after reading all the posts about SP (this is a great forum) I have decided to corny keg the SP after stabilizing rather than bottles. I think my spring project may be a Skeeter Pee Keezer.


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