Hello from Western Washington

[WildBill]

Hey there everyone. I am now clearing my first batch of peach wine and fermenting my first batch of cherry. They both taste great and now I am an expert! Feel free to ask me how to do it.

I am joking! Please don't light me on fire yet. I jumped in with a recipe from the wine store and went to making wine in late August. {I had to use 30 lbs of free peaches}. I did a little cruising on your forum in the meantime and that is what has led me to join up. What a great bunch of people with great attitudes towards the beginner. Thanks for your advice you have already given me here. I am serious about my wine tasting great so far. Hope it continues this well.

 

[sailavie]

Hello WildBill and welcome! Sounds like you've got a good start at it. Keep us up to date on how things are going.

 

[sevenal]

Hey Bill

Welcome to WMT.
Did you use natural yeast or commercial yeast in your peach wine?

 

[Runningwolf]

Welcome aboard!

 

[djrockinsteve]

Hey Bill, Glad you joined. We do have a great bunch of folks here along with a wealth of knowledge. We do have some wine makers out your way, check out the "map" on the home page and see if they are close.

Again welcome.

 

[winemaker_3352]

Welcome aboard!!!

 

[jweger77]

Welcome aboard!

 

[Brian]

Welcome WildBill have fun and learn with a great bunch of people

 

[Julie]

Hi WildBill

Welcome to winemakingtalk

 

[robie]

Welcome, welcome!

 

[Rocky]

Hey, Wild Bill. (Sounds like Andy Devine!) Welcom to the club. Western Washington? You mean the Pacific?

Glad to have you aboard. Lots of good wine from Washington State.

 

[WildBill]

Thanks for the warm welcome.

Thank you all for the warm welcome.
I started the peach before I found this site. I used champagne yeast at a starting sg of 1.09. I fermented to dry and racked. 3 weeks and racked again. I racked for the 3rd time and added k-sorbate and 6 campden tabs along with about .75 cups of sugar in enough water to top up because it was kinda dry. Has plenty o kick though.
Now that I explained what I did, what could I do better? The wine tastes good but has lost the peach flavor. My cherry is in fermentor now for about 4 days and still tastes like cherry at 1.05 sg. Do I wait to rack until 1.0 or rack now and stop fermentation to keep fruit flavor?

 

[Rocky]

WB, I have not made a peach wine, but I have made a cherry wine. I think I did a lot of the things you did and the wine got too hot (i.e. too much alcohol for the fruit and masked the fruit taste). You really will have a hard time "stopping" fermentation. I would let the Cherry ferment to dry, i.e. 0.992 or so SG, make up an d f-pack and put it in the wine for a few weeks and then add the k-meta, k-sorbate and the sugar to taste. With your peach wine, since you have already added the k-sorbate, if you add an f-pack for more peach flavor, the wine will get even sweeter than it is now.

 

[REDBOATNY]

Welcome Wildbill! How about those great grapes you have out there? What are they growing in your area?

 

[lloyd]

Welcome to the forum. I too am making peach wine I used 110 lbs of late season freestone peaches and have 25 gallons in carboys now just racked out of the primary for a few days. The peaches were not bursting with flavor and the wine has very little peach flavor. So I intend to make an F-pack when it finishes. I have heard other people have had this same problem.

 

[SarahRides]

Hi and Welcome!!!
I have a small batch of cherry that was aging for about ten months..... I snuck a taste of it last week and absolutely love it! I didn't backsweeten so it is just a tad tart........... it'll be delicious!

 

[jtstar]

Welcome Wild Bill

 

[mmadmikes1]

welcome from another WW member. Rocky is right about the flavor being week in strong fruit wine. But if you add an fpak before you stabilize it will probably start fermenting again. Stabilize before adding fpak. I also use Pectic enzymes when making fpaks. makes sure it will clear good

 

[WildBill]

Thanks again for the welcome mat here.
I read how to make the f-pack. (took a while to figure out what the heck it was. Now for the silly question, how do I get it into the carboy? I tasted the peach last night after stabilizing and it could go a lil sweeter. Do I rack into bottling bucket to f-pack it?

On another note, I used lavlin RC212 for the cherry. Will it go past the fruit flavor also? I used bing cherries my mother-in-law canned a few years back and it is fermenting way slower than the champagne yeast did on thehttp://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/images/smilies/biggrin.gif peach.

I pulled a quart off the last racking of the peach and put a cinnamon stick in it as an experiment. After 1 day it was really good. It's gone now so I don't know if it would have cleared.

 

[LJPelletier]

Welcome Wild Bill