Solving Wine Problems & a Revelation...

I noticed a funny thing with the apple wine a couple of weeks ago - both apple mk II & mk III were looking decidedly cloudy. That's not 'cloudy' as in 'not clear, a bit foggy looking', but 'cloudy' as in 'fluffy cotton wool, spring lambs' cloudy.

Consulting CJJ Berry, I found that 'tiny jelly blobs which look rather like frogspawn' are the result of a pectin haze - the solution of which seems to involve a lot of complicated laboratory type chemical preparations & procedures, so I bunged a teaspoon of pectolase in each demijohn instead & gave them both a good shake.

I should have added the pectolase at the start of fermentation, it would seem, which would have destroyed the pectin & avoided this problem. Live & learn, eh?

After a couple of weeks, the effect is quite astonishing - both starting to become crystal clear from the top, the clouds sinking to the bottom - brilliant!

I racked the elderberry & apple off tonight - a taste reveals that it's lovely & fruity, although no where near clear yet so I bunged in a teaspoon of pectolase whilst I was at it for good measure.

Having tasted the apple III the other day, the elderberry & apple this evening and having a bottle of this year's parsnip on the go at the weekend, I'm coming to the - admittedly intuitive - conclusion that fruit wines are actually better tasting than vegetable wines...

P.S. I found out where the worst storm of the year went to this weekend - it was busy at my big sister Helen's house on the south coast making a nuisance of itself, so the weather forecasters redeem themselves a little...