Finally got my Wyeast today. I had to go to the Post office and retrieve it as it did not make it again by Friday as it was supposed to have and if it had set in the Post Office all weekend it would have been no good by Monday as they have to ship it with an ice pack which is only good for 3 days. any way, I have it and got my Muscadine port started today.
I had 8 bags of Muscadines which was a total of 46 lbs.........
Got the ole steamer/juicer loaded up and fired up and before long she was extracting Muscadine juice. I had dissolved 6 campden tabs and added to my primary and just let the steamed juice run straight into it.
My final yield for the 46 lbs was just over 4 gallon of juice........
I gathered up the rest of ( as NW says) cast of characters. made a couple of deviations from my planned recipe. I did not use any raisins or bentonite as originally planned
My next step was preparing my bananas and Elderberrris. I put them in a pot with 4 cups water with 4 cups sugar added. I boiled the mixture for about 2 minutes and then let it simmer for another 20 minutes.
I strained this through a strainer bag into the Primary fermenter and stirred well.
The elderberries sure added a lot of deep rich color to the must and smelled pretty damned good too.
Ok, now for those not familiar with the steaming process, here is what was left of my 46 lbs of Muscadines
I added my Grape concentrate, Yeast nutrient, energizer and tannin. Checked the SG and I am at 1.114 with a must temp of 96 degrees. Will let it set until in the morning at which time I will add my pectic enzyme and hopefully pitch the yeast tomorrow evening