Hi
I am in the process of making my first batch of marrow wine. My 5lb of marrow which has been grated is in its covered/sterilised bucket with oranges, lemons and the relavant yeast and pectose. My recipe says not to add the sugar for another 5 days. Can anyone see a problem with this or is this all good? Regards Benjamin 'All the gear and no idea'
benjamin -
Normally you want to get yeast fermentation going pretty quickly, to avoid other kinds of spoilage micro-organisms getting established. The marrow doesn't have a lot of fermentable sugars, so I would be worried about letting the grated marrow sit for 5 days. It might work if you are doing something else to discourage bacteria, molds, etc. -- say, by adding a lot of SO2 (sulfites). Even then, 5 days seems too long to me.
People who make wine from grapes sometimes do a "cold soak" and keep the crushed grapes and skins soaking at a low temperature before adding the yeast, which apparently helps extract more color/tannin/flavor from the skins. But it doesn't seem to me that this would really apply to marrow wine.
I think I'd be inclined to add the sugar sooner -- I'd be uncomfortable waiting more than a day or so before giving the yeast a reasonable food supply (i.e., sugar). That's my two cents.
Doug
I thought a cold soak was to get the flavour and colour from the grapes without extracting too much tannin, since tannin isn't very soluble in cold water and is more soluble in alcohol solutions.
That is my understanding, too. Otherwise the long hang time on the vine for 'mature fruit' (25-25.5 degBrix) would result in increased tannin extraction, right?
Gene
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