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| Last month, Anna helped me to 'rack-off' the Birch Sap wine. This is simply syphoning the wine into another sterile demijohn to leave the sediment behind. The sediment is a build-up of dead yeast cells; if the wine is left too long on the sediment it can affect the final taste. |
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| We took a final hydrometer reading which was virtually off the scale! This means that almost all the sugar has been converted and the wine will be 'dry' and quite strong in alcohol. I'm not very keen on sweet white wine so this is how I like it and the relatively high alcoholic content should mean that it will store well too :) |
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| I read that the sediment makes a very good fertiliser so I rinsed the original demijohn with water and poured it on my rhubarb outside the shed door. |
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| As you can see, it was still quite hazy and the wine had to be left another month to drop a second sediment. We also added some stabiliser to ensure that all fermentation had finished to prevent it re-starting at a later date |
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| So this evening, with the wine now crystal clear I was ready to syphon it into bottles. |
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| It produced enough for 9 bottles and tasted great with quite an appealing earthy yet citrous character. I think it will be perfect by Christmas - if it lasts that long!! |
