I was excitedly telling my wine guru co-worker about my starting, and about the farm I went to. The farm obvously was pesticide free because, well, fruit flies. Everywhere. Good ol Drosophila melanogaster. I didn't mind all that much because, hey... pesticide free! And after a thorough washing, the fruit looked absolutely flawless and I couldn't see any contamination.
My co-worker agreed that it was a-ok, but did relay a story about the very first time she tried fig wine. She uncovered her primary after 5-6 days and saw....... well, let's just say "baby fruit flies" swimming all in it. That whole batch got dumped.
Now, rationally I knew there was NO way that could happen. After all the squishing and pulping I had done, followed by pouring nearly 3 gallons of boiling hot water on top of it, if there ever WERE any bugs, eggs, or anything not fruit, it was long dead. When it comes to us higher multicellular organisms, boiling water is pretty harsh, and being completely immersed in it is fairly deadly.
Still, there was that niggling doubt. Hence the chang of "please no maggots, please no maggots, please no maggots" as I was uncovering my must.
No, there weren't any maggots.
What did hit me, however, was a VERY strong odor of fruit juice and a bit of a tang that indicated that fermentation of some sort might have started already. Yay!
I donned some gloves (that totally didn't help, by the by) and lifted out my nylon bag. And then set about gently squeezing all that delicious juice out of it. Or at least as much as I could to the point that, when just let fall, it wasn't even slightly dripping. I wasn't going for complete dryness, just so it wasn't dripping anymore. The result was an almost wine looking tub of fruit juice.
And a few splatters on the floor.
This really heartened me because I was worried that the 3 gallons of water would severely dilute the color of the juice. Obviously my worries were completely unfounded. I did resist tasting though. Barely.
After this, I added a whopping 7 1/2 lbs of sugar to my soon to be wine. I thought it would take a while to dissolve, because that's a LOT of sugar. Turns out, it didn't take very long at all. I took a wooden cooking spoon and got a good whirlpool going to get it all mixed up.
Then it was time for the pectic enzyme:
This is 1/2 tsp per gallon of primary, so I added 1 1/2 tsp. Pectinase is needed for a few reasons. Firstly it breaks down the cell walls in plants to help degrade them and bring out flavor. Secondly, it gets rid of "pectin haze" which is when the pectin in fruit wines causes the wine to not be clear, and as such, clouds it up.
A quick stir, and the pectic enzyme is all incorporated, and my must is ready to sit for another day while the enzyme does its work.
Looks pretty much the same. Just stirred up.
Next step will be in 24 hours where I will add the yeast and yeast nutrient, and then fermentation will start! And... wine will be produced! Exciting!
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