a few questions

[anoddmind]

'ello brewers, I started a gallon of strawberry/blueberry wine late last night, then realized that I will be at work (changing shifts) at the point where I am supposed to add the yeast. would it be better to let the must wait an extra 5 hours, or should I put the yeast in 5 hours early? I could ask my housemate to add it for me, but there is no guarantee that he will be awake at that point of the day, besides, I wouldn't want to bug him about that anyways. if you need a list of all ingredients and the process I used, I would be glad to post it.

on the same batch, I forgot to sanitize the primary, but I had just washed it with dawn oxy dish soap, think it will be fine, or should I just go ahead and throw it out?

last question for now, if you have ever had a cigar made by Drew Estate's Acid line, you know they have a very unique flavor, and I want to make a wine to go with the blue line. I have an empty box of Kindred Spirit (a no longer in production variant of the Kuba Kuba.) The box comes with the cigars in a nest of tobacco that is seasoned the same way that the cigars are and the wood grabs much of the flavor of the cigar, but with trace levels of nicotine still in the wood, do you think it would be safe to cut the box into small cubes and use it in wine? it's spanish cedar, if that makes a difference.

thanks for helping me out, this is a great online community, I have already learned a ton of things here without even posting.

 

[Woodbee]

Welcome. I think that I would wait the extra 5 hrs. And you should be OK with the fermenter as is. In the begining of fermenting you can have all kinds of dirty little elements bugs leaves, stems and a little dirt.Once you go to a carboy then really keep it clean.
Brad

 

[smurfe]

Welcome aboard, in regards to adding the yeast, no problem to wait. In regards to not sanitizing I don't have an answer for that. If it was really CLEAN you may get by fine. Hopefully there is no aftertaste from the dish soap. Not really recommended unless it is un-scented.

In regards to the wood. I am sure it is some type of cedar as all of my cigar boxes are. I don't really think cedar would give a profile to a wine I would like. I don't even know if there are any toxic oils in there. I would definitely do a bit of research to assure there are no toxic make up in cedar. If not, give it a try and see how it comes out. You normally only see oak though and I have never saw a cedar wine barrel so I am doubting this would be a great idea. That is what is good about gallon batches though. You can really experiment. I have made some good stuff and some really crap stuff.

 

[Wade E]

Wait the extra 5 hours. Please do list the recipe and what you have done up to this point just because you are a beginner and we would like to make sure allm is right. Hopefully you rinsed out that soap well at least! Did you add pectic enzyme, wait 12 hours and then add sulfite?

 

[anoddmind]

alright, it went something like this, washed and rinsed all equipment, wiped down table with bleach and used Lysol on the surrounding area. put a half tsp of LD Carlson Easy Clean in a bucket and added a half gallon of tap water to it, dunked all equipment in the solution and got to work
Used 3 1# bags of frozen strawberries and 1 10oz bag of frozen organic blueberries.
placed all fruit in a nylon mesh bag and started to mash it with a glass. I got impatient at the start (tsk tsk) and didn't wait for the fruit to thaw. I then added one pint of Zepherhills water and continued to mash the fruit.
when I felt that the fruit was pulverized enough, I added:
6pts water
1tsp acid blend
1/4 tsp tannin
1/2 tsp pectic enzyme
1tsp yeast nutruient
1 crushed campden tablet
and somewhere between 2 and 2.5 pounds of granulated sugar (lacked a scale, and planned to look up the conversion into cups only to discover that my connection had died)

I stirred all ingredients together for a few minutes while continuing to poke at the nylon bag with a spoon.
starting SG was 1.100-95
balling 23 (do I need this number yet)
and 12% alcohol
I know I'm making a lot of mistakes, I tend to get a 4.0 from the school of hard knocks

thanks again, I hope this information will help you help me
did I forget anything?

 

[smurfe]

You were a bit light in the Easy Clean but if you washed first with Dawn and then dipped in Easy Clean you ought to be OK. Although Easy CLean is listed as a cleaner, it it is a Per Carbonate cleaner which if everything is already clean will get you real close to sanitary. I have used straight Oxy-Clean only in beer batches as I was out of Star San and had no issues. Beer is way more susceptible to infection than wine.

While I will never recommend short cuts I have to say, If you keep everything clean all the time, you run little risk of infection. I don't want to minimize sanitation and I still follow the practice but I have to say people stress out way to much over it. If you clean before you use something and particularly after (not just a rinse with hot water) and store properly and keep your work environment clean you ought to not have an issue. Winemaking IS NOT a sterile process.

ONE MORE TIME, I am not saying sanitation is a waste. It IS important and should be followed but from what you have described I think you will be OK. If not, it's a learning experience that will drill it in your head from now on. Keep us updated on how it turns out.

 

[Malkore]

a thousand years ago, our ancestors sanitized nothing, and they still made drinkable beverages. Sanitizing reduces the risk of infection. a lack of sanitizing by no means guarantees an infection.

my two cents: Star-san is my favorite no-rinse sanitizer. Its an acid sanitizer that works in 30 seconds of wet contact time, and as long as the pH stays at 3.0-3.2 it'll keep working...thus you can store it for weeks or even months if you make the solution with distilled water. I'll mix up 1 gallon and sanitize on brew day, and use the same solution weeks later to rack and bottle.

the nifty thing about it is any wet residue or foam that's left in the primary will simply break down into phosphate, which the yeast will consume as their phosphorus nutrient source. also it has almost no flavor, so you won't taste it in the finished product.

 

[upper]

Ok back to the Cedar,ever had Salmon baked on a Cedar plank?.Upper

 

[mmadmikes1]

dont add cedar! it has natural oils that will kill all kinda of bugs including yeast. The oils are poison to humans as well.

 

[anoddmind]

thanks for all the advice, lots of help.