The tale of the dueling cranberry fermentations continue. On Jan 21, the specific gravity of the Cranberry-Niagra had stabilized at Brix = -1.7 (SG = 0.993). My Accuvin test strips indicated that there as about 750 mg/L of residual sugars, which is in the dry range. I decided to rack into a 3 gal carboy, sulfite, and let the wine clear. The racking turned out to be fairly tricky because the lees were a thick, fluffy layer--not compact. I ended up transferring over just over 3 gal of wine, but had to leave quite a bit behind. It's very curious that the lees are this fluffy. I added 100 ppm of potassium metabisulfite and 3 g of lysozymes to prevent malolactic fermentation. After racking, I moved the wine to the basement to begin to clear.
The wine actually tastes pretty good--very lightly tart with a grapey/cranberry nose and good body! Pretty heavy on the yeast, but that's to be expected at this stage.
The cranberry-banana is still fermenting. As of Jan 25, I still see gas evolution with Brix = 7.8 (Sg = 0.995). It hasn't stabilized yet, so I'm continuing to let this one go. The biggest difference besides the slower fermentation is that the lees are much more compact. Racking should be a breeze compared to the other wine.
Interesting...
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