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Ok, So I have both the Peach and the Raspberry racked from the primary fermentation. I racked on to the fruit pulp in both cases. With the peach, I froze the pulp after blenderizing and hitting it up with some pectic enzyme. I am afraid that peaches don't juice well. Pouring it through my siv is just useless. The pulp is that fine. Hmm, blueberries had a lot more pulp. Of course I did de-skin the peaches. I ended up with about 1 1/2 gal of pulp after blenderizing. The peach pulp was in the freezer for the full time.
Stats:
Peaches 20 pounds or 1 1/2 gal of pulp.
Primary's gravity was 1.120. I didn't take a reading when I added the pulp. I am just going to have to guess how potenet it is. I also previously posted that my gravity was 1.2 and 1.18. I found that I have been reading my meter wrong. It is 1.112 and 1.118. Makes a big diffrence.
On the Raspberry.
The berries blended up nicely to a nice thick puree. Lots of seeds. Near as I can tell running it through the siv just removed the seeds. I blended up 10 1/4 pounds of raspberries. Or 180 oz, or 1 1/3 gallons of puree. How many seeds it that? Well that is about 2 cups of seeds. I put the seeds in a jar. It still had some red to it and some juice clinging to them, not much. I am not sure if the seeds have any flavor. I put a 1 cup of cheap white rum into the jar too. I figure I can have Raspburry extract or rum out of it. Eh, we shall see what the experiment yeilds. I am sure that the resulting mixture, san seeds, will have enough flavor to flavor cookies or something. It is an interesting experiment.
Anyway, I took the puree and hit it up with some pectic enzyme and put it into the fridge for a couple of days. I then decided that it really wasn't worth trying to reduce it to juice even though it was starting to seperate into a nice dark juice at the bottom inch of the gallon juice pitcher I put the pulp in. Incidently it was worth removing the seeds but I still got the same with the raspburries as I did with the peaches. Just pulp that was too fine and went through the screen.
Hmm, I wonder if I could malt the seeds like in beer and get anything flavorful out of it. Or dry it and grind it up like a flour. That might be good. Raspberry seed flour or a malt that would work as an addition to a mead later. Hmm, need to do some reasearh.
Anyway, both meads are packed up into their buckets. I used my carboys that are food grade plastic buckets so that it will be 1. easier to clean and 2. so that I would have room for the fruit. Same will go with the pumpkin. I am seriously thinking it might be great to grow pumpkins next year. I am not a gardner though. Hmm, Raspberry Bush, Pumpkin Patch, and mayhap a strawberry patch in our all but unused back yard? That is the thing that I am learning with mead making. It leads to soo much other disiplines. Bee Keeping is out for me though due to my fear of stining flying insects. I don't think that we have the neigborhood that could tolerate a hive or 2. I found out on the home brewing community here that 1-2 hives could generate anywhere from 1-5 galons of honey per hive. Sounds great. But not in my reach. I also don't have the time.
Ok, So Raspberry and Peach going, going to add the Thyme to the raspberry on the next racking and the Spearmint on the next racking for the peach. I will be oaking possibly both, that I will do on the racking after that. I think that these two bathces may be ready to bottle and age by July next year.
I also am going to do the Pumpkin Toasted Almond next and not the blueberry lemon or lemon/lime. Due to the fact that I have the pumpkins NOW and they can't wait more than a coulpe of weeks before I cook and use them. Ah well. Things are progressing slower than what I want due to time constraints. Laters.
Dave
Stats:
Peaches 20 pounds or 1 1/2 gal of pulp.
Primary's gravity was 1.120. I didn't take a reading when I added the pulp. I am just going to have to guess how potenet it is. I also previously posted that my gravity was 1.2 and 1.18. I found that I have been reading my meter wrong. It is 1.112 and 1.118. Makes a big diffrence.
On the Raspberry.
The berries blended up nicely to a nice thick puree. Lots of seeds. Near as I can tell running it through the siv just removed the seeds. I blended up 10 1/4 pounds of raspberries. Or 180 oz, or 1 1/3 gallons of puree. How many seeds it that? Well that is about 2 cups of seeds. I put the seeds in a jar. It still had some red to it and some juice clinging to them, not much. I am not sure if the seeds have any flavor. I put a 1 cup of cheap white rum into the jar too. I figure I can have Raspburry extract or rum out of it. Eh, we shall see what the experiment yeilds. I am sure that the resulting mixture, san seeds, will have enough flavor to flavor cookies or something. It is an interesting experiment.
Anyway, I took the puree and hit it up with some pectic enzyme and put it into the fridge for a couple of days. I then decided that it really wasn't worth trying to reduce it to juice even though it was starting to seperate into a nice dark juice at the bottom inch of the gallon juice pitcher I put the pulp in. Incidently it was worth removing the seeds but I still got the same with the raspburries as I did with the peaches. Just pulp that was too fine and went through the screen.
Hmm, I wonder if I could malt the seeds like in beer and get anything flavorful out of it. Or dry it and grind it up like a flour. That might be good. Raspberry seed flour or a malt that would work as an addition to a mead later. Hmm, need to do some reasearh.
Anyway, both meads are packed up into their buckets. I used my carboys that are food grade plastic buckets so that it will be 1. easier to clean and 2. so that I would have room for the fruit. Same will go with the pumpkin. I am seriously thinking it might be great to grow pumpkins next year. I am not a gardner though. Hmm, Raspberry Bush, Pumpkin Patch, and mayhap a strawberry patch in our all but unused back yard? That is the thing that I am learning with mead making. It leads to soo much other disiplines. Bee Keeping is out for me though due to my fear of stining flying insects. I don't think that we have the neigborhood that could tolerate a hive or 2. I found out on the home brewing community here that 1-2 hives could generate anywhere from 1-5 galons of honey per hive. Sounds great. But not in my reach. I also don't have the time.
Ok, So Raspberry and Peach going, going to add the Thyme to the raspberry on the next racking and the Spearmint on the next racking for the peach. I will be oaking possibly both, that I will do on the racking after that. I think that these two bathces may be ready to bottle and age by July next year.
I also am going to do the Pumpkin Toasted Almond next and not the blueberry lemon or lemon/lime. Due to the fact that I have the pumpkins NOW and they can't wait more than a coulpe of weeks before I cook and use them. Ah well. Things are progressing slower than what I want due to time constraints. Laters.
Dave