Ok so I fail on keeping up with this...

Just hush. I'm horrible at keeping a journal. This goes for online and physical ones. I'm good for about 2-3 entries and then I start petering out.

It's now late Saturday night (early Sunday morning) on August 3rd/4th. The peach banana has not only been under the airlock for coming up on a week, but I've completed all the additional sugar adding steps and the like too. Now it's just to wait for fermentation to finish, the yeast to die, and it'll get racked every 3-4 weeks.

So what happened in all that time?

Firstly, I tried to check the sugar before adding my yeast, but that didn't go over so well due to all the solids in the must. But here's my hydrometer:

It's got a couple of different ways to show the sugar content, so it's pretty handy. And fairly cheap, too. (I think the nylon bag cost more than this did!)

That.. didn't give me a reliable reading, so we're just going on a wing and a prayer here. Ah well, it tasted good when I put it under the airlock the first time.

Next step after all the enzyme, campden tablets, citric acid, etc was to add the yeast nutrient, and the yeast itself. I opted for a different yeast than last time, hoping for a lower alcohol, sweeter white wine.

Also this yeast was going to expire in January. Good enough! I did check with my local wine store, as well as ones online, that this will do well with peaches and for the wine I hope to get in the end. So it wasn't totally on a whim.

Unlike the blackberry, Jack suggest to simply sprinkle the dry yeast on the top of the must, instead of activating it in the warm water and doing the starter culture. So:

Didn't look too appetizing, and I was dubious, but I don't want to get crazy here and start thinking that I know what's best. I checked in a few hours, and bubbles had started to form so at least some did survive, and when I stirred it 12 hours later, it was quite foamy and bubbly. Great sign!

Jack suggests 3-4 days of stirring twice daily. I had planned on putting it in the secondaries on Sunday night, after only 2 1/2 days. It's 75-78 degrees in my house currently, and Jack usually does his fermenting at 60-65. Things progress much faster at higher temps, as I found out with the blackberry. However, the best laid plans of mice and men and all that jazz. I went down Sunday morning to give it a stir and.............. no bubbles. None. I'll admit, I freaked out a bit. Time to go into the secondary and get the next batch of sugar in!

It.. did not look appetizing when I took the lid off:

Firstly I squeezed the peaches as much as I possibly could to get all the juice out. There... wasn't much left:

9lbs of peaches. That's what I got when it was all done. Wow.

I added 1 lb 10oz of sugar and mixed it quite well. Then siphoned. It looks like a banana smoothie:

Once again I appeared to have added way more liquid than needed. Next time I'll go by the marks on the side of the bucket, and not just guessing. I had to use my 4th bottle to get the overflow, and use the airlock from the blackberry overflow for it. The blackbery overflow is now sporting a "cap" of duct tape to keep it airtight. So far it's working, I think!

Both the full bottle and the overflow went in my pantry, next to the blackberry:

And then I sat, terrified my yeast had all died. Luckily, both airlocks started blooping madly within a few hours. Whew!

The recipe said to wait 5 days before adding the last of the sugar, but obviously with my warmer house, it was done early. Wednesday afternoon had me pouring the last of the sugar in. I added 1 lb 10 oz to the big jug and 7oz (enough for one gallon) to the smaller one. I did kind of forget about the whole "volume displacement" that happens, so I had to quickly siphon some from the big jug to the smaller so I could get all the sugar in. I had a very very long dowel that I used to stir both of the bottles to get all the carbonation out and to mix in the sugar and get the yeast suspended again.

Once again, a lot of "please don't be stuck please don't be stuck please don't be stuck" happened afterwards, but they started blooping almost immediately. As of now, they still are but not as rapidly. I guesstimate that the active rapid fermentation will come to an end within the next few days. Jack suggests to rack every 3 weeks after that, so we'll see. The blackberry is due to be racked on the 21st (or October 21st, depending on if I rack every month, or wait the 3 Jack suggests) so I might let that go a bit more, and rack these all at the same time after Labor Day.

And that's pretty much the last that this blog will get updated until then. I have no more wines planned until late October/November and sometime in December, and MAYBE February. I hope to have at least one of these bottled by then, so I don't have to keep buying more airlocks and bottles.

Whew... this is fun but I'm getting impatient! The blackberry has darkened considerably as the yeast keep falling out. It no longer looks magenta, but is approaching what most red wines look like. Maybe a little lighter. I hope it'll get that nice dark look after all is said and done!