Cashew Fruit Wine Attempt 1

[Rice_Guy]

I would build a mini-freezer into a cool room wall at the start. The temperature controller would work.
Option two would be pump glycol on a copper tube coiled on the ceiling. Again a mini freezer could cool a glycol solution.
What temperature? 20C wouldn’t be too hard to get. I have put a carboy in a square ice chest with two liter ice jugs. Yes it sticks out but I wrapped a winter coat over the top.

 

[KaptKanga]

Racked the must and took an SG reading (see the image below0 so looks like the sugars are well and truly gone. Taste test has it pleasantly dry. Colour looks good and it is still cloudy so I will leave it for a day or two and then put it on ice to settle it out and rack it again.

 

[KaptKanga]

I would build a mini-freezer into a cool room wall at the start. The temperature controller would work.
Option two would be pump glycol on a copper tube coiled on the ceiling. Again a mini freezer could cool a glycol solution.
What temperature? 20C wouldn’t be too hard to get. I have put a carboy in a square ice chest with two liter ice jugs. Yes it sticks out but I wrapped a winter coat over the top.

I use the esky with frozen wine bladders approach for my kimchee, cucumber and sauerkraut fermentation and does the job really well. The initial build I want to keep low tech until I confirm that the build works as expected. Then I will add the smarts.

 

[KaptKanga]

After this experiment is bottled, I will do another pineapple and banana batch (25 liters). Plus, will do a small batch of durian wine. Will use separate posts for each so those interested can follow.

 

[Rice_Guy]

I am keeping it at around 27C. I am toying with the idea to make a fermenting cabinet out of cool room panel to keep the fermenters at around 20C, On the previous wines I did not detect any reductive flavors.

FYI; Saw this about a small temperature control system. It looks expensive compared to a small one carboy chest freezer.

 

[KaptKanga]

FYI; Saw this about a small temperature control system. It looks expensive compared to a small one carboy chest freezer.

Thanks for the video. I may have another way, as a friend here believes he can get me an old chest freezer carcass and it modified to take a bar refrigerator cooling system with a modified controller to have it stay at 18-20 degrees C. So that is an easier option that building from scratch

 

[KaptKanga]

Checked the wine this morning an I have sone sort of growth on the top. I think it may be some sort of mold. The wine does not have any discernable odor indicating that it is off but I am contemplating tossing this lot to be on the safe side.

Any thoughts on what type of mold it could be?

 

[Ohio Bob]

Not the best resolution pictures, but to me it looks like potassium metabisulfite particles that got attached to CO2 bubbles. Might also be fruit particles. How long has it been since the last racking? Perhaps another racking, and a dose of Kmeta is warranted.

 

[ChuckD]

I am contemplating tossing this lot to be on the safe side.

Don’t do that. Even if it is mold it’s likely fixable. Take a paper towel and dab the stuff off the surface. Then wipe down the exposed neck of the carboy with a k-meta soaked towel and spritz a k-meta solution onto the neck and surface of the wine. I have done this successfully in the past. It seems everyone who makes wine has a minor mold or bacteria issue at some point.

 

[Rice_Guy]

I agree with Chuck, try to fix it. A beverage with over 5% alcohol at a pH under 4 is very resistant to food poisoning organisms. The normal issue with a wine at 11% alcohol and pH under 3.5 with 10 ppm of free SO2 is that an aerobic organism has colonized the surface. From picture two I am guessing that your wine is at the shoulder of the bottle, more headspace than desired. ,, I try to keep my headspace at 3cm / 1.5 inch. A large surface will make cleaning with paper towel harder. Do you have glass marbles to reduce the aerobic space? I have used 1” HDPE and Delfina plastic rod.

Based on the size of the floaters you are early in an infection. The flavor should be OK. How does it taste? When I have had surface I have removed > treated with 100 ppm meta > add 50 to 100 ml alcohol.

 

[Rice_Guy]

How much headspace? Too much headspace creates an environment where aerobic organisms can grow. Micro growth is a cascade from carbon source to carbon source. Once the sugar / sucrose is used up new colonies dominate Ex Acetobacter will consume alcohol and produce vinegar.
https://cdn2.imagearchive.com/winemakingtalk/internal_data/attachments/113/113642-a76ec75396797c5bcfcd406a9b5dcabc.data?response-expires=Thu, 19 Dec 2024 00:21:33 GMT&response-content-type=image/jpeg&X-Amz-Content-Sha256=UNSIGNED-PAYLOAD&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=I3UPHPWOPY63ZMOGLZFM/20241212/nyc3/s3/aws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20241212T002133Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=604800&X-Amz-Signature=2e5171bf9135cf1de43a81e11418fb6fa789858eb4c5c548c5620291d81d797b

That is a neat bottle! How many liters? ten? Where can I find a dozen bottles like that

 

[KaptKanga]

Don’t do that. Even if it is mold it’s likely fixable. Take a paper towel and dab the stuff off the surface. Then wipe down the exposed neck of the carboy with a k-meta soaked towel and spritz a k-meta solution onto the neck and surface of the wine. I have done this successfully in the past. It seems everyone who makes wine has a minor mold or bacteria issue at some point.

Ok I was worried that there may be toxins in the must. Let me try your fix. Thanks for the advice.

 

[KaptKanga]

I agree with Chuck, try to fix it. A beverage with over 5% alcohol at a pH under 4 is very resistant to food poisoning organisms. The normal issue with a wine at 11% alcohol and pH under 3.5 with 10 ppm of free SO2 is that an aerobic organism has colonized the surface. From picture two I am guessing that your wine is at the shoulder of the bottle, more headspace than desired. ,, I try to keep my headspace at 3cm / 1.5 inch. A large surface will make cleaning with paper towel harder. Do you have glass marbles to reduce the aerobic space? I have used 1” HDPE and Delfina plastic rod.

Based on the size of the floaters you are early in an infection. The flavor should be OK. How does it taste? When I have had surface I have removed > treated with 100 ppm meta > add 50 to 100 ml alcohol.

Thanks for the heads up. Yeah, I did not have a smaller container, so I was taking a risk with so much headspace. I have now bought a 5-liter container so can transfer the must to that so it will have very little head space. The taste was actually ok, very dry so I was going to back sweeten. I have bought a few containers now so I can limit the head space, but the marble idea has a lot of merit, and I can buy them very cheap here.

 

[KaptKanga]

How much headspace? Too much headspace creates an environment where aerobic organisms can grow. Micro growth is a cascade from carbon source to carbon source. Once the sugar / sucrose is used up new colonies dominate Ex Acetobacter will consume alcohol and produce vinegar.
https://cdn2.imagearchive.com/winemakingtalk/internal_data/attachments/113/113642-a76ec75396797c5bcfcd406a9b5dcabc.data?response-expires=Thu, 19 Dec 2024 00:21:33 GMT&response-content-type=image/jpeg&X-Amz-Content-Sha256=UNSIGNED-PAYLOAD&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=I3UPHPWOPY63ZMOGLZFM/20241212/nyc3/s3/aws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20241212T002133Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=604800&X-Amz-Signature=2e5171bf9135cf1de43a81e11418fb6fa789858eb4c5c548c5620291d81d797b

That is a neat bottle! How many liters? ten? Where can I find a dozen bottles like that

Great thanks for this