Wine Blog: Oaked Cider? (and etc.)
More wine ponderings.
I checked all three wines on - Saturday, I think, maybe it was Friday? Just checked for bubbles and sniffed 'em. The strawberry's the only one actively bubbling, but the saskatoon and cider both smell of alcohol, so that's a good sign. I have to keep an eye on the cider, particularly, because I want to try taking it off the lees to stall the fermentation, and I suspect that will require daily racking for a few days when it gets near the alcohol percentage / residual sweetness level that I want.
I bought another air lock today - not sure if I should transfer the strawberry to the 1/2 -gallon jug in the middle of primary fermentation. It seems to be doing just fine with the "loose lid" air-lock design. Narbonne is a top-fermenting yeast, and I worry that in the jug, where the top surface area when it's full will be very small, may inhibit the yeast. If it just slows it down, that's better, it'll preserve the strawberry flavour. But if it kills the yeast completely, not cool.
Also realized that sometimes cider is oaked, and that sounds like it could be really nice (though all the oaked cider's I've had have been nasty, but not always because of the oak). When I've done wine kits, the oak chips are added before fermentation, but asking at the wine shop, that's not necessary - and in fact you get an "oakier" taste if you soak them after fermentation is done (something I've wondered about before). I may do that for a portion of the cider. I'm very much treating this first batch as an experiment. ;)
I believe that's all for now.
B.
I checked all three wines on - Saturday, I think, maybe it was Friday? Just checked for bubbles and sniffed 'em. The strawberry's the only one actively bubbling, but the saskatoon and cider both smell of alcohol, so that's a good sign. I have to keep an eye on the cider, particularly, because I want to try taking it off the lees to stall the fermentation, and I suspect that will require daily racking for a few days when it gets near the alcohol percentage / residual sweetness level that I want.
I bought another air lock today - not sure if I should transfer the strawberry to the 1/2 -gallon jug in the middle of primary fermentation. It seems to be doing just fine with the "loose lid" air-lock design. Narbonne is a top-fermenting yeast, and I worry that in the jug, where the top surface area when it's full will be very small, may inhibit the yeast. If it just slows it down, that's better, it'll preserve the strawberry flavour. But if it kills the yeast completely, not cool.
Also realized that sometimes cider is oaked, and that sounds like it could be really nice (though all the oaked cider's I've had have been nasty, but not always because of the oak). When I've done wine kits, the oak chips are added before fermentation, but asking at the wine shop, that's not necessary - and in fact you get an "oakier" taste if you soak them after fermentation is done (something I've wondered about before). I may do that for a portion of the cider. I'm very much treating this first batch as an experiment. ;)
I believe that's all for now.
B.