Hedgerow Port - Day 3

Added another 13oz sugar in splash cooled boiled water. 

Fermentation still rapid.

Hedgerow Port

Having picked and frozen 9 lb 8oz hedgerow fruit over the past year, it seemed a good time to ferment it into 12 bottles of wine. 

Ingredients
½ banana
9lb 8oz plums, elderberries, blackberries, blackcurrets, and damsons
7 litres water initially
1 lb raisins
6 lb approx sugar
2 campden tablets
3 teaspoons pectolase
1 teaspoon yeast nutrient
2 teaspoon grape tannin
Gervin GV10 high alcohol yeast
Later chalk
Later finings

For each gallon of wine there is 5lb of fruit so a strong port type wine is a good idea and for this a high tolerance yeast is needed. I’m using Gervin GV10 for high alcohol and sparkling wines. I think this yeast will go up to around 18.5% alcohol. With 3lb sugar per gallon and the fruit this should go up to around that level or close to it if some of the sugar is added bit at a time when the fermentation is underway. Started by defrosting the fruit and stoning the plums and damsons which only takes a couple of minutes giving each one a quick squeeze. Then all the fruit went into a five gallon fermenter with the raisins. Meanwhile the banana was sliced and boiled in a litre of water for half an hour. This shouldn’t create any banana flavour but should give the wine more body. The banana was then thrown out and half the banana water added to the fermenter. The other half of the banana water was poured into  a one gallon demijohn and left to cool. Boiling water was then poured on top of the fruit until the level was around 10 litres. As it cooled, two crushed up campden tablets were added. The yeast sachet was then added to the cooled banana water and shaken. By the time the fruity liquid in the fermenter was cool, the yeast must was bubbling. This was then added to the fermenter, with the pectolase, nutrient and tannin. I would have measured the ph but the colour of the must was so dark, this was not possible, but I’m guessing around 3.5 which would be ideal for wine fermentation without the addition of any acid.The next day, fermentation was well underway, airlock bubbling rapidly and thankfully no foam pouring out of the top. I added another 13 oz sugar in splash of water (boiled and cooled).