Had a good brewing day today.

[stevie1556]

I managed to get some planned wines on the go today, would have been yesterday but unfortunately got stuck at work.

Managed to get going a gallon of each:
Cherry WOW with red grape juice
Pineapple and coconut WOW
Wilkinsons black cherry wine
Lemon wine
Strawberry wine
Raspberry wine
23 litres of On The Rocks raspberry and lime cider

Quite pleased with them, although the one disappointment I had was that I was saving 2 kilos of grated pumpkin flesh for a spiced pumpkin wine, but it was left in the fridge too long. Had 4 sandwich bags, all smelt 'off', one had a few small bits of mold and another one bhad mold starting to grow. Shame as I was quite looking forward to drinking that one.

The lemon wine was made with the juice and zest of 13 lemons and I hope will finish around the 12-13% range.

Just a couple of questions, when should I remove the zest from the lemon wine? And the strawberry and raspberry wines were made with fresh fruit, which was mashed, and had the sugar and a campden tablet to them, with the yeast, nutrient and pectolase added tomorrow. But when should I aim to rack them off the mashed fruit? And for the final one, the fermenting bucket I've got for the cider doesn't have a airlock hole. Is it ok to leave the lid of the bucket slightly off, I mean as it's clipped on all the way around apart from one little bit, or should I drill a hole in it for the airlock?

 

[bevvies-a-plenty]

hi stevie iall sounds good i have got two of the wilkinsons black cherry wine kits to make hope they are as nice as they sound as for your bucket i would bore a 25mm hole in the lid to take a bored cork and airlock just put the lid onto a block of wood so the drill bit doesnt snatch and should be fine

 

[stevie1556]

I think I'm going to bore a smaller hole in the lid for the airlock, rather then for a cork. When I use 5L water bottles ice drilled a 8mm hole in the lid, nice tight fit and seems to work well.

Cheers the the advice though! :

My first taster of the black cherry wine was rather promising, although I don't really drink red wine. I'm hoping to leave them another 2-3 months in the bottles to develop the flavour properly.