Truffle Pig Wine

Fermentation is complete, and it's had a couple weeks in zero-degree weather to settle, so I racked it today.

I racked the wine from the 23L fermentation carboy to a 18.9 carboy that I'll use for aging. There was 1L of juice left over, which went in a handle Milk jar that I use.

I added 50ppm SO2 (17.5ml) into the bottom of the smaller carboy before racking the wine into it.

Once the wine was racked, I noticed some bubbles pushing through the airlock, I imagine this is from left-over carbonation, although I imagine a few yeast cells are still going at it. To be sure and surpress any live yeast, I put the carboy back out into the cold.

Since the numbers haven't changed at all from last night, I've decided to just chill down the first batch and stop fermentation on that one altogether.

There's a blizzard outside, so I grabbed snow from the porch and filled the bucket (the carboy is in a bucket) with snow up to the neck of the carboy. Within five minutes bubbles had almost completely stopped coming through the airlock.

I'll keep this cool for the next day or so, and then hit it with 50ppm SO2

Batch 1 - 20°B @ 60°F (14.5°C) @ midnight
Batch 2 - 21°B @ 62°F (15.5°C) @ midnight

My target residual sugar is 20°B, so I'll probably stop fermentation tomorrow, when they've dropped another 0.5°B.

21.5°B @ 64°F (17.5°C)

The fermentation rate on both batches is dropping off considerably now, so I've decided to stop cooling down the containers so they can finish fermentation a little stronger. I'd like to be done with fermentation by the end of the week, so if we can maintain a drop of 0.5°B per day, that would be great.

Since Batch 2 is lagging behind by a degree and a half, I'll probably let Batch 1 drop below 20°B and then blend the two together to average them out.

Batch 1 - 22°B @ 58°F (14.5°C)
Batch 2 - 23.5°B @ 58°F (14.5°C)

22.5°B @ 59°F (15°C)

Batch 1 - 23°B @ 61°F (16°C)
Batch 2 - 24.5°B @ 58°F (14.5°C)

The high-end hydrometer actually doesn't seem to be very accurate, so I've returned to using my wide-range one. The problem is that the bulb at the bottom of the high-end is quite wide, and the graduated cylinder I'm using just isn't big enough to give it enough room to bob around freely, and find a natural balance point. I'll have to get a bigger graduated cylinder.

23.5°B @ 62°F (16.5°B)

Note: Measurements taken at midnight

Batch 1 - 25°B @ 59°F (15°C)
Batch 2 - 26°B

Note: I've switched to my narrow-range high-end hydrometer now, which goes from 16°B to 24°B (but I can guess up to 25°B). This should lead to more accurate readings and I'll be able to go down to .1°B increments starting probably tomorrow.

25.5°B @ 64°F (17.5°C)

For some reason, it's been hard to cool these carboys down the last couple days. I forgot to re-ice them this morning before my trip down to Watsons, and by noon the temp had gotten up to 64°F. Ideally, I'd like to keep this down around 60°F

I also made an addition of 1 g/L of Tartaric Acid to both containers in order to raise TA to 9.4 g/L. Ideally this should be done prior to the start of fermentation, but I didn't know what the original TA was until a week or so ago, and haven't had the spare time to do it until now.

26.5°B @ 60°F (15.5°C)

Batch 1 - 57.5°B @ 60°F (15.5°C)
Batch 2 - 58.5°B @ 60°F (15.5°C)

Temperatures were only 60°F when I checked it this evening after getting home—which isn't bad considering it hasn't been cooled down at all over the last two days.

A slight bitterness has started to creep into the taste, but I've found that to be normal at this stage of fermentation and is something that seems to drop out during bulk and bottle aging.

29°B @ 55.5°F (13°C)

And for the first time since inoculation, I did the numbers on the second carboy of fermenting juice. This one has slightly less juice, and the outer bucket is a little better insulated, so the temperatures have been consistently one or even 2 degrees cooler, so fermentation has been a bit slower:

30°B @ 55°F (12.8°C)

*note: Today Kim and I are are driving up to Ottawa to spend the weekend at my parent's house. We won't be able to cool the icewine, or take numbers on it until Sunday afternoon. This may cause the temperature to rise slightly and fermentation to speed up a bit as a result.

That said, I don't imagine the temperature will rise much higher than 15°C and fermentation shouldn't get faster than 1°B per day.

30°B @ 56°F (13.5°B)

The noticeable boozy smell of yesterday is actually more pleasant and subdued now, most-likely due to the slight drop in temperature. We're also back to our normal rate of fermentation of 1/2°B a day.

30.5°B @ 59°F (15°C)

The heat's been running a bit high these last two days, and brix have dropped a full 2 degrees -- this is about twice as fast as normal.

As a consequence today is the first day I can detect the smell and taste of a little bit of booze (it should be about 4% alcohol now). This isn't a problem, wine is after all, supposed to smell like booze. But I wasn't planning on letting the temperature stay up in this range until perhaps this weekend (we're going to my parent's for the weekend, it'll be tough to keep the temperature of the fermentation down) at the earliest.

Oh well, no biggie, I don't think it'll make a difference. Even with this little blip, we're still fermenting about 8x slower than last year ...

31.5°B @ 60°F (15.5°C)

I forgot to ice the water surrounding the carboys last night before bedtime, and the temp had got up to 15°C overnight. Oops. I don't imagine it'll matter much, but fermentation did go through a little quicker last night.

This is a strategy I'll employ at some point in the fermentation: If the rate of fermentation drops below 0.5°B per day (or maybe I'll choose an arbitrary date when I'm tired of breathing in carbon dioxide all day) then I'll raise the temperature of the must to 15°C to finish it off a little more quickly.

32.5°B @ 55°F (12.5°C)

33°B @ 56.5°F (13.5°C)

33.5°B @ 57°F (14°C)

34°B @ 57°F (14°C)

At this point, we seem to be losing about 1/2°B every day.

The juice is still roiling from all the bubbles, but the actual rate of fermentation is very slow. It's hard to get an accurate read from my hydrometer (it's a wide-range, my high-end narrow range hydrometer is from 16°B to 24°B and will only be useful for stopping the fermentation precisely at my target: 20°B)

34.5°B @ 56°F (13.5°C)

Keeping the juice cool has done a great job of keeping the fermentation rate slow and steady. It only dropped 1% sugar over the last 24 hours (compared with last year's Icewine, which dropped over 10 brix on it's first day of roaring fermentation).

35.5°B @ 60°F (15°C)

I just checked the Icewine and fermentation has started in earnest. There are now lots of bubbles coming to the surface and the juice has started to roil a little. A bubble is pushing through the airlock a few times a minute now.

I made an addition of 5g of Fermaid K today. The 1118 yeast I'm using isn't supposed to produce much in the way of sulphides, but it's still not a bad idea to give the yeast some nutrients regardless.

There's not much activity yet -- a few bubbles pushing through the airlock every couple minutes or so, but it's definitely taking its time getting started. This is much better than last year, where my icewine ripped through 16 brix before the end of the third day of fermentation.

The difference has to be in the temperature I'm keeping the juice. Last year I left it on the counter of the apartment and naturally settled between 68°F and 74°F, but this year I'm trying to keep it all much cooler:

I've split all 21L into two batches, each in a 13L carboy. I've set those carboys into two 20L plastic buckets, which I've filled with water (up to the shoulder of the carboy). I'm also rotating a small icepack into the water about four times a day and using a digital thermometer to track the temperature of the water.

Using this method, the water is consistently staying within the 54°F to 59°F range, which is right where I want it.

37°B @ 53°F (11.5°C)

There was only one store in Toronto open today that carried EC 1118 Prise de Mouse yeast, and that was Wayne's Wine World up at Yonge and Eglinton, so we drove uptown and braved the freezing cold to get some (it was -18°C out and almost -30°C with the wind chill).

Wayne was kind enough to give us 4 packets of yeast for no charge, but we ended up paying for it with a $30 parking ticket for staying parked too long in a 10-minute zone.

We got home in time for dinner and I immediate racked all 21L into two 13L carboys, leaving a good couple inches of head space in each.

I then re-hydrated and pitched the yeast, following the exact instructions I got off the Scott Labs "Easy steps for optimal yeast hydration" PDF pamphlet.