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head on wine

Just to give a little intro, i have been homebrewing beer for some time now, but the banana wine was my first batch of wine. Since my carboys were in use for my beer batch, I picked up a 1 1/2 gallon fermenter (plastic) from my homebrew store. About 16 hours after pitching the yeast, I noticed some activity in the airlock. Then about 2 hours later I look over at it, and the head had clogged up the airlock. I quickly got some isodopher (however you spell it) setup to sanitize and washed, then sanitized the lid and airlock. then it did it again, then just now when i woke up. I did a 1 gallon batch, but the people at the homebrew store said that the bucket would be big enough. I asked about this. is there anything that i can do with wine to keep the head down?

Thanks, Joe

Reply to
Joe
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You just have to use a proper sized container. Maybe you can fined a food safe 2 gal. bucket at a general store. You do not need a tight fitting lid or an airlock during the heavy activity time. Just cover it with some cloth so bugs cannot get in and dust is kept out. This makes it easier to stir which is good at this stage.

An alternative would be to use a yeast that is noted as being low foaming but this may not be the optimal yeast for what you are trying to accomplish and it may boil over anyway.

Ray

Reply to
Ray

Joe, yes, there is. But the only thing that works with banana is to fill the carboy max. 60 %. Bananas contain the perfect nutrients for your yeast, so these critters go beserk when introduced to banana. The first few times I used banana, the floor, the wall and the ceiling (yes!) made me think too I did something wrong. Took me some time before I figured it out. Filling my carboy to max 60 % worked fine for me. Yeast works frantically; wine is very soon ready. Syphon off the lees when all activity has ended into smaller carboy or/and fill carboy up with applewine. Treat like any other wine from that point. I am a experienced homewinemaker, and I love the contribution of bananawine (tasteless, unless you cook the peel too) to applewine for instance. If you want to do yourself a huge favour, make some applewine; use Liebfraumilch yeast for that and add 10 % bananawine when the applewine is ready. Give it some time to "get married". Full mouth, full taste, excellent flavour. One of the finest white wines I make.

No flowers, no bees; no leaves on the trees; no wonder; november.

Ed

----- Original Message ----- From: "Joe" Newsgroups: rec.crafts.winemaking Sent: Tuesday, March 02, 2004 1:38 PM Subject: head on wine

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ed montforts

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