by Zak Griffin » Wed Aug 28, 2013 9:00 pm
I put my first ever wash on the other day, so I thought I'd leave a thread here so I can see/you guys can tell me where I fucked up!
Ingredients are:
~45L water
10kg white sugar
400g tomato paste
2 decent lemons worth of juice
160g baker's yeast
All in a 50L fermenter. I mixed the sugar, tomato paste and lemon juice into the first 10L of hot water, then topped it up to about 45L. Temperature was about 40 degrees, I let it cool down to about 35 before I pitched the yeast.
Starting gravity was 1080, and it started bubbling away pretty much straight away. That was on the 24th. I stuck the fermenter in the corner, wrapped it up and tucked it in.
I'm not set up enough yet to have any fermenter heaters, so I've just been sitting it in the sun (when there is sun!) during the day, and it hasn't stopped bubbling through the airlock, and the gravity is still dropping, so I'm pretty sure it's all going alright :handgestures-thumbupleft:
Gravity was at 1040 after 2 days, and between 1010 and 1000 today, on the 4th day. Whenever I check the temp it's sitting between 20 and 30.
Going the way it's going, I'm hoping it should be done fermenting by this weekend. I'll rack it off into another couple of containers to let it clear, and get another one going straight away. Not entirely sure when I'll get a chance to run it yet, but I'm planning on just stripping it through my (still unfinished) pot, and saving the low wines until I get enough for a spirit run through my (similarly, unfinished) Boka.
Oh, and total cost so far is $5 because the checkout chick fucked up my change when I bought the ingredients, so if it doesn't work I won't be too devastated.
Happy to hear your tips/hints/suggestions/criticism/abuse!