Peach price

[FTC Wines]

Varis, sorry about the auto correct on your name last post. I'll save you a 6 year old Peach & a 2 year old one. Hope to see you this winter. Roy

 

[davemo]

Just got peaches today i got a half bushel of (seconds) for 20 and bought a half peck of grade 1 for 7. The #1 are $1.60 a pound but this is from a local orchard that has good local grown produce. Sometimes its not all about whats the cheapest but also about quality, and supporting the local growers etc.

 

[Scooter68]

Davemo - I agree if you can get truly ripe peaches and good quality thats worth something.

I finished cutting up my 36 lbs of peaches, had 4 pounds of pits, bad spots and one pithy peach that had zero taste.

THEN I ran into a problem - NOT ENOUGH FREEZER SPACE. Ah well starting a batch today.
Trying one thing that I may regret. I ran the peach pieces through my blender. The problem I see is that I now have a lot of air in the must. My press wasn't extracting much juice so I tried the blender - figuring there is nothing in the skins or pulp that I don't want in the wine. Everything still was put into a bag since there are still some chunks and pieces of skin but the 'liquid' was so thick at first that my hydrometer stood up in the tube with only about 2-3 inched submersed. So I added sugar for a SG that I know will be close but probably a little on the low side. Checked again this evening and the 'liquid' is still pretty thick but it settled out at 1.110 I pushed it further down and it slowly came back to that same reading. Going to test again tomorrow a couple of times while the Campden tabs do their clean up of any unwanted yeasts etc. Right now the bucket shows 4 gallons with the sugar solution added. Total water added so far is 5 1/2 cups (4 cups for dissolved sugar solution and another 1 1/2 from rinsing my blender and a coupe of other containers into the mix. (didn't want to waste anything)
Also trying something else - Last batch of wine was very light in color virtually like a white wine. So I decided to add a little color to this and mashed up 10 dark red sweet cherries in hopes of adding a little rose tint to the wine. 10 cherries aren't going to affect the flavor unless I share it with some super wine taster and the must now has a very slight rosy hue to the other wise golden color. I did hold out 4 lbs on peaches for other use and I think that after the blender induced air and gross lees are gone I can expect something closer to 3 gallons. So 28 lbs for an end product of 3 gallons should have plenty of flavor (9.33lbs of fruit / gallon) especially since I only added significant water in the 4 cups water in my simple syrup.

(Note Wife returns tomorrow afternoon and the batch will have been started by then - Asking for forgiveness instead of permission as they say.)

 

[bkisel]

Why did you run the peach pieces thru your blender?

Your idea to add color using cherries is interesting. I hope it works. Please let us know whether it does or not.

 

[Scooter68]

"Why did you run the peach pieces thru your blender? "

Well I have a hand press but it just wasn't getting the job done, Thought I'd try this. Pits and anything that might impart a bad taste were already gone. The only problem is that it put a like of air into the mix. If I had a do over, I'd just lightly blend them, just enough to chop a little finer - a real food processer with a slicing blade would have done a great job.
With that much fruit the pulp in larger slices I think it would take a while to break down and release the sugar and acids into to the must. So I'm hoping that this has overcome that and will allow me to have more accurate readings. This morning there was quite a bit of more liquid material (My sample for the SG check was translucent not solid colored) on the bottom of my bucket and that read out about about 1.094. I want a little higher ABV more like 15-15.5 so I added more simple syrup and stirred. Later today I'll check again after it's settled out. I may have to split this into two buckets because this is regular food grade 5 gallon bucket not 6 gallon fermenters and I don't want to be cleaning foam and lost must off the floor. Acid check and nutrient additions later today when I do one more SG test and pitch the yeast. Will probably wait overnight before doing the split so the yeast has more time to spread throughout the must. Temp in the basement is 70-72 so the KV-1116 should be find conditions good to go to work.

Open to suggestions if anyone has some.

 

[jburtner]

He he - was reading this and picked up 50# of peaches this morning. Going to clean cut and dessicate them slightly before freezing

See how I feel about it after that.

Cheers!
-jb

 

[bkisel]

He he - was reading this and picked up 50# of peaches this morning. Going to clean cut and dessicate them slightly before freezing

See how I feel about it after that.

Cheers!
-jb

Why are you bothering to desiccate them? From my experience and from a number of recipes... quartering, de-stoning and then freezing is all the processing needed. [I spritz with k-meta just before freezing but don't think it is really necessary.]

 

[dralarms]

Froze mine with stones in them, thaw a bit and the pit will come right out.

 

[davemo]

I did not freeze mine this yr although i do agree the freezing helps with the juicing. But between adding pectic enzyme and the yeast working on the sugar in them i don't see a problem. I ended up with 18# and added 3 gallons spring water to bring total volume up to 5.5 gal.

 

[bkisel]

Froze mine with stones in them, thaw a bit and the pit will come right out.

Didn't know that. Thanks for the tip.

 

[Scooter68]

How can you get an accurate SG reading when the pulp is relatively intact? Peaches, Apples, Nectarine the larger fruit is going to take some time to breakdown unless juiced.
Since we estimate our ABV by comparing starting vs ending SG our estimates are relatively inaccurate with these fruits until the fruit breaks down and by the time that happens the fermentation process is well underway and the sugar is already being used up by the yeast. That's why I chose to blend my fruit. Admittedly using a slicer that would have simply made very fine pieces of the fruit would have been better than the air introduced in the blending process. I don't have a juicer and don't do enough of this to justify purchasing one large enough to survive juicing 15-30 pound of fruit at one time. (Burned up the rubber coupling on my blender doing this fruit yesterday)
On the upside for me the Air is being released as it sits and I just pitched the yeast this afternoon. SG reading was just a hair below 1.100. Depending on the fermentation and how the SG responds in the next 2-3 days I can go back and add a known amount of Simply Syrup and recalculate my SG to get a better estimate of my expected final ABV but for now I believe getting about 14%ABV is going to work for me.

 

[dralarms]

How can you get an accurate SG reading when the pulp is relatively intact? Peaches, Apples, Nectarine the larger fruit is going to take some time to breakdown unless juiced.
Since we estimate our ABV by comparing starting vs ending SG our estimates are relatively inaccurate with these fruits until the fruit breaks down and by the time that happens the fermentation process is well underway and the sugar is already being used up by the yeast. That's why I chose to blend my fruit. Admittedly using a slicer that would have simply made very fine pieces of the fruit would have been better than the air introduced in the blending process. I don't have a juicer and don't do enough of this to justify purchasing one large enough to survive juicing 15-30 pound of fruit at one time. (Burned up the rubber coupling on my blender doing this fruit yesterday)
On the upside for me the Air is being released as it sits and I just pitched the yeast this afternoon. SG reading was just a hair below 1.100. Depending on the fermentation and how the SG responds in the next 2-3 days I can go back and add a known amount of Simply Syrup and recalculate my SG to get a better estimate of my expected final ABV but for now I believe getting about 14%ABV is going to work for me.

Once it starts juicing due to fruit break down you can use a refractory meter to get an accurate brix and convert that to sg

 

[Johnd]

Once it starts juicing due to fruit break down you can use a refractory meter to get an accurate brix and convert that to sg

And if you don't have a refractometer, sanitize and push a strainer down into your must, scoop out a cup of juice and pour it into your wine theif and drop in the hydrometer.

 

[dralarms]

And if you don't have a refractometer, sanitize and push a strainer down into your must, scoop out a cup of juice and pour it into your wine theif and drop in the hydrometer.

Done that too.

 

[Scooter68]

I was able to get a good sample this morning by holding my finger over the top of my wine thief then pushing down towards the bottom of the bucket. My sample was translucent not as loaded with solids and the reading was consistent with one from yesterday 1.094. Think I will add a little more simple syrup here shortly once the fermentation actually fires up. Right now I have about 4 1/4 gallons in a 5 galllon bucket so I have to watch very carefully for an overflow. will probably split off about 1 gallon into a smaller fermenter for the time being. Once I remove the fermentation bag there should be room for all of it in one bucket.

 

[jburtner]

Why are you bothering to desiccate them? From my experience and from a number of recipes... quartering, de-stoning and then freezing is all the processing needed. [I spritz with k-meta just before freezing but don't think it is really necessary.]

Just experimenting and trying to focus the flavor. A partial dehydration seems to concentrate everything and make it sweeter. I'll chop bag freeze still. May need more boxes of peaches.

Cheers!
-jb

 

[Scooter68]

??? Dehydration sounds like it would make the skins tougher and harder for them to breakdown in the fermentation process. Are you going to juice them or re-hydrate them before starting the wine?

 

[bkisel]

Just experimenting and trying to focus the flavor. A partial dehydration seems to concentrate everything and make it sweeter. I'll chop bag freeze still. May need more boxes of peaches.

Cheers!
-jb

Interesting experiment.

So with dehydration all that is lost is water? Everything else that is peach remains?

 

[Scooter68]

"So with dehydration all that is lost is water? Everything else that is peach remains?"

While it does not seem apparent I am pretty certain that there are volatile oils that are lost in the dehydration process as well. These are the same oils that are lost when we ferment at higher temps with lighter colored fruits such as peaches. These oils contribute to the aroma and flavor of the end wine. Looking at several articles on food dehydration they speak about lost vitamins due to exposure to air and while we don't make or drink wine for the vitamins (if they are there?) the same thing is going to happen to the aromatic elements of the fruit when exposed to the air for an extended time while drying.

 

[geek]

I think I will just freeze and then thaw mine as usual.

I'd be interested in your results though.