I'll try and explain what's been going on with the wine.
Roughly 2/3 weeks ago we tested the wines and found that they were both ready to stop the fermentation process - the Hydrometer was reading below 1.00 SG for each, indicating that all the sugar had been used up and the wines were now very dry - despite the Grapefruit starting over a week later than the Peach. We think the difference in the fermentation time is to do with the Super Yeast Compound we used with the Grapefruit, and the regular Wine Yeast we used for the Peach. Whatever the reason, we added the correct amount of Stabilising Powder to each wine, halting the fermentation process and preemptively stopping secondary fermentation.
It was upon tasting each wine that our hearts sank a little. The Grapefruit tasted like, well, Grapefruit (but very dry and acrid) and even the Peach wine had lost its delicious flavour and had started tasting slightly vinegary. We didn't have the heart to blog this awful news.
After the 3 days needed for the Stabilising Powder to do its work, we "racked" the wine (read: syphoned it off) into another container and back again. This got rid of a small amount of sludgy, grainy liquid from each wine.
It was here that I added enough sugar to bring a hydrometer reading for each wine back to a much nicer 1.02 SG. I did this primarily in the hope that it'd make each wine stop tasting quite so horrid. I may have overdone it slightly with the Peach - we'll have to wait and see. Overall though the extra sugar worked in our favour. I added it a little bit at a time, tasting and checking the SG as I went. I put in no more than a full bag of sugar to each one.
We then set the wine to do its work, clearing and maturing.
Regular tasting has shown the subtle development of each, but we are reasonably confident that it is about time to start bottling the Grapefruit - it is clear and crisp and it still tastes of Grapefruit, but if you can get over that, you'll really get on with it. I can't wait to pull the cork out of a chilled bottle and get stuck in.
The peach however, is still insisting on being a cork tease and simply refusing to be game. For a start it's still cloudy - remember the pectolase that we didn't put into this wine? - and it tastes a little carbonated. We had been storing it in a sealed container, so today I bought some demijohns and again racked the wine into them and popped a couple of airlocks on the top of each. This will allow any air to leave the wine without letting any (or fruit flies) back in.
It looks amazing and I'm inclined not to rush it. There are chemicals that we can put into it to make it less cloudy, but the book says to let it clear by itself if that's at all possible. So we're going to be patient with it. If it's not playing ball in a couple of weeks then we might take it by force!
Love to you all.
Jonee and Sam.
Xxx
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