Apples of hope

After couple of months fighting with ants they finally given up and moved their aphid farm from our apple tree somewhere else. I haven't seen one aphid on leaves for about a week now. Hopefully free from aphids this wild tree will produce big sweet apples, there is only about 10 fruits left on the tree so we keep our fingers crossed for our own apples this year.

Feeding the bug

This morning 24 hrs after adding Pectolase, Yeast and Nutrient was added to each of the buckets.

I was rather surprised to see relatively clear juice in the buckets with skins clearly separated. Compared to my previous attempts at wine making with plums and rosehips it is a major difference. Is it due to type of fruit used or effect of pectolase, I will probably find out when I add pectolase to plum wine later this year.

Morning after

Not that kind of morning!

Fruit crush cooled down and I added a teaspoon of pectolase dissolved in a cup of lukewarm water to each of the fermentation buckets. I have to say both buckets smell rather awesome.

Winemaking evening

Redcurrant Wine
1.5kg washed redcurrants
1.75kg sugar
4.5ltr water

Blackcurrant Wine
1.5kg washed blackcurrants
1.55kg sugar
4ltr water

I started cleaning redcurrants at about 10pm, last batch of blackcurrants was crushed at about midnight. Some of the blackcurrants were getting mouldy, they were separated out for composting.

Fruits were washed, cleaned and crushed. I have boiled water as in recipe and dissolved sugar, sweet mixture was added to crushed fruits and left overnight to cool down.