Recycling sediment

[Stressbaby]

I had 24# of Winesap/Granny Smith apples, frozen, thawed, pressed, fermented on the fruit. As Julie recommended, I pressed again near end of fermentation and moved to carboys. I filled 2 1-gallon carboys plus a 750. However, as fermentation finishes you can see that half of the 1 gallon carboys is just sediment/gross lees. If I were to rack this now I'd have 1 gallon of wine. That is a disappointing yield (but the wine sure looks/smells great!)

I was thinking about doing something sort of Skeeter Pee-like:

• Rack off the "good stuff" and keep the pure Winesap/GS batch separate
• Pour the sediment back in a primary
• Get 3-4 cans of apple concentrate, up the volume to a gallon and sugar to 1.085 and dump that back in the primary with the sediment.
• Adjust acid, nutrient, etc, etc...

Is that dumb? Crazy? Any other thoughts?

 

[GreginND]

Go for it! Should be good.

 

[jensmith]

Done that! Works great. Makes a fun tasty "play" wine. I dump in just about anything in regards to types of suger, juice or fresh fruit. The sg will be hard to estimate, usually higher then you think. So add less suger then you think and only add more after it goes dry.

 

[Stressbaby]

I started this "batch" yesterday and man, did it take off!

2 can preservative free apple concentrate, water to 1 gal gave me 1.025. The apple concentrate recipes I found used two cans and that was all I had anyway. I sugar adjusted to 1.085, 2t acid blend to pH 3.42, 1/2tsp nutrient, and added the sediment. It was bubbling in only a couple of hours!

I didn't add pectic, we'll see if that was a mistake or not. I may still add a bit of tannin and try bentonite in the primary...