Port from Oregon Puree!

Terry,

You should make your must to target an approximate 12% finished wine. After a few days fermentation, add an appropriate dry brandy (a dry cherry brandy if you can find it, or perhaps Calvados, vodka, or Everclear) to halt fermentation by bringing the total alcohol to ~20%. A Pearson's square will assist you here, as will a hydrometer.

I haven't had any particular difficulty racking off of the lees of wines made using Oregon purees. The "sludge" referred to is most likely the solids of the puree, plus the yeast lees. This is a trade off for the fruit mass you would lift from the wine after fermentation and either press or discard.

I poured the Oregon Puree into a fine mesh fermentation bag for primary fermentation last time I used it (for Apricots)... That seemed to work well for me, I did not have the extreme sediment problem and the fine mesh bag did strain out quite a bit of solids.

Later, A. J. Rawls

Funny this should come up. I just added two cans of the cherry puree to a Lambic that I have had fermenting got over a year now. There is a

2" layer of fruit sludge on the bottom of the carboy that would make racking difficult at this point. Does this "sludge" eventually compact on the bottom of the carboy?

Mark

I used one can of the rasberry for a 3 gallon batch of melomel. I added it in secondary so that the rasberry character wouldn't get scrubbed out by the CO2 during the primary ferment. The sludge eventually settled down to about an inch or so. Wasn't a big problem. After racking off I used about 2 cups of the "sludge" to make some bread by adding flour (and a pinch of salt) to the correct consistency, there was enough yeast in it that I didn't need to add any. Made for an interesting taste in the bread.

--arne

Mark,

I haven't noticed any difference in the level of the lees over time, because I rack off of them before setting the carboy aside for extended aging. It is a bit difficult to rack off of these lees, because the typical spacing given by a racking cane doesn't bring the intake of the cane above the level of the lees, but I've had lees from whole fruits build up above that level as well. In these cases I exclude as much of the lees as I can, and resign myself to another racking in a few months.