UKH

OK, still brewing merrily - been fermenting for a couple of weeks now, and the general fizziness and frothing is calming down.

The recipe said to add chopped raisins to the apple juice, and I did. But there is now a crowd of raisins floating on top. They show no sign of sinking. Should I skim them off before siphoning the liquid into a demi-john? And is there any reason why I should not then put them in a fruit cake? (mmmyumyumyummm)

... ok, ok, I ought to be asking this on a home brewing website. But when it comes to advice about alcohol, I ask my climbing friends.

L

In reply to BusyLizzie:

I guess the only risk of leaving them in the demijohn is that they'd block your syphon. Personally I try to disturb the wine as little as possible, so would leave them in until the end.

Not sure I'd use them after, would expect them to be a bit yeasty. Throw them out for the birds and watch them get drunk.

In reply to BusyLizzie:
Hi BL

I would leave them be and syphon the liquor off to the demijohn for the second fermentation. its not strange for fruit etc to be floating on the top prior to racking.

If you want to use them in a cake then go for it. Imho I would feed them to the birds, it's not as if they've been swimming in brandy?

Good luck Davey

In reply to markAut:

Yeah, the wine (and therefore the soaked raisins) will taste pretty awful at this stage - yeasty and bitter without a proper wine taste.

I usually leave the raisins in at the first racking while there's still active fermentation, but then probably leave them out when you rack next time.

Guess you are doing apple wine? I only used raisins once and they went mouldy floating on the top. Never bothered again after that and the wine is great.

......and I have done 5 gallons of apple wine a year for a while using whatever apples I can lay my hands on. I used to have an orchard, now I don't but there are lots of apples out there for the picking. I did do cider but its very time consuming - chop apples, shred apples, then press apples and you only get a gallon out of each bin bag, and because it is slow you end up doing it over several sessions so you have to keep cleaning the kit, dull, dull, dull. Wine only requires rough chop i.e halves or quarters, hot water, go! I don't rack as I am not seeking a competition clarity wine. It comes out of the bin, sugar, yeast and into demi johns and sits there for a year. Then gets siphoned straight into wine boxes a gallon at a time. Easy.
Like Mick says it can be a bit of a passion after a while - 120 bottles of elderflower champagne this year, 15 gallons apple, 2 gallons elderberry, 1 each of damson, sloe, and cherry plum....but we are brewing all the drinks for our wedding too!

In reply to all:

Thank you all! I decided overall I didn't want to risk the raisins going mouldy so have taken them out. They taste quite nice. So now I have a bucket of very unpleasant-looking liquid, which I propose to put into demi-johns tomorrow, and a very dodgy fruit cake. All good. I have so many apples in the shed that I might try a second batch without the raisins, but this time adding some eating apples.


Lxx

In reply to BusyLizzie:

If you want any more apples just ask....

In reply to Skyfall: Eaters or cookers? If I can find someone with too many eaters I could do a swap