Personal pages/Birnebrand 2014

Birnebrand 2014

I have about 25kilo schwarze Johannisbeeren, frozen for about two weeks. Thawing took a while, but they're hovering on the stove slowly warming up. I bought a bohrmaschine Rührer to help mash the berries.

The paint is coming off the Rührer, I won't be using that anymore. Will need plastic or galvanized steel.

Vat I - johannisbeer+pear, 5+5L

Vat #1 is a 15L vat.

5kg Johannisbeer, 5L pearjuice and 4kg sugar = 15.2kg.

2014/08/09 Start.

2014/08/27 Bubbling happily.

2014/09/16 seems to have pretty much stopped bubbling. Probably the odd bubble every 5 minutes.

2014/09/23 There is some pressure, maybe a bubble every hour, I don't know. It interesting to note that vats I-III with the mix have mostly stopped fermenting, whereas vat IV with plain juice is still going.

2014/10/03 Bubbling as well as stopped.

Vat II - johannisbeer+pear, 5+5L

Vat #2 is a 15L vat.

5kg Johannisbeer, 5L pearjuice and 4kg sugar. Weight 15.0kg.

2014/08/09 Start.

2014/08/27 Bubbling happily.

2014/09/16 seems to have pretty much stopped bubbling. Probably the odd bubble every 5 minutes.

2014/09/23 There is some pressure, maybe a bubble every hour, I don't know.

2014/10/03 Bubbling as well as stopped.

2015/08/29 10:00 Distilling vat I and II together. In the vat, the mash had a quite delicious aroma/nose. at around 18:00, the take started gping hazy, almost certainly because of the solids burning in the pot. I am thinking of redistilling these (keep in the green demijohn).

2015/08/29 18:15 Done. 500ml heads. Yield: 2 x 700ml: 72% and 58%.

Vat III - johannisbeer+pear, 7.5+3L

Vat #3 is a 15L vat.

7.5kg Johannisbeer, 3L pearjuice and 4kg sugar = 15.4kg.

2014/08/09 Started bubbling.

2014/08/27 Bubbling happily.

2014/09/16 seems to have pretty much stopped bubbling. Probably the odd bubble every 5 minutes.

2014/09/23 There is some pressure, maybe a bubble every hour, I don't know.

2014/10/03 Bubbling as well as stopped.

Vat IV

2014/08/12 I extracted about 10-11L of juice from the rest of the pears and added 4kg of sugar, stirred well with the drill. Now bubbling happily.

2014/08/27 Bubbling happily.

2014/09/16 Still bubbling steadily.

2014/09/23 Still bubbling, albeit slowly.

2014/10/03 Still bubbling, albeit slower.

2015/05/14 Started distilling at 12:15. The juice in the VAT smells quite nice. Stopped distilling at 16:25 - took 1L at 75% plus 0.7L at 50% and 0.7L at 30%. The latter two I'll put back in.

2015/05/15 Reran the still with the leftover plus the tails from yesterday. Not a good idea.

Vat V - birnetrester, frozen+fresh

No. 5 is a 30L vat. It's got the remnants of

• 15kg fresh+squeezed pears, also pureed in Nadine's Champion juicer,
• 15kg fresh+squeezed pears
• 2 x 15kg of frozen+squeezed

Approx 30kg mash in total, it's pretty much full.

2014/09/06 Have added 10ml pektinase diluted in 100ml water to the trester. The first part had already started fermenting, and smelled like acetone.

2014/09/07 Added yeast from a starter made with 2ml from the bottle.

2014/09/10 Added 2L water and 2kg of sugar.

2014/09/10 Bubbling violently, almost overflowing.

2014/09/11 Still bubbling a lot, did not overflow sofar.

2014/09/12 The overflow risk is due to air (CO2) from below pushing up the mash.

2014/09/14 still bubbling a lot, the vat is full, overflow risk still real.

2014/09/23 Has not yet overflowed, I should be getting an airlock today.

2014/09/24 Airlock applied, bubbling died down.

2014/10/03 Shows some pressure, but no bubbling.

2015/09/02 09:45. Distillation started. It was difficult getting the mash out.

Vat VI - birnetrester, frozen only

No. 6 is a 30L VAT. I've kept the squeezed pears in this, only from frozen batches. I am debating whether or not to add pektinase before starting to ferment it.

Mix: 4L water, 4kg sugar, apprx 15L juice.

2014/09/12 It has started to produce the acetone-like smell, nothing has been added sofar.

2014/09/13 Weight is about 15kg. Have added 10ml pektinase diluted in 150ml of water. Expect to add last 5kg of trester tomorrow.

2014/09/14 Have added most of the left over from squeezing the last 15kg. Also added another 10ml pektinase diluted in 100ml of water, 2L of water with 2kg of sugar and the yeast starter.

2014/09/15 Have added another 2L of water with 2kg of sugar.

2014/09/18 Bubbling nicely. Still smells strongly of acetone. Very sharp smell, it "bites".

2014/09/23 Bubbling steadily.

2014/10/03 Bubbling steadily, but slower.

2015/08/27 I'm starting vat VI today. The upper 10cm of pears were dry. I drained a couple of litres of juice from the bottom, then dug out the pears by hand and into the pot. Yield: 3 x 700ml: 80%, 77% and 68%. The next bottle of maybe 500ml was cloudy, which led me to think the mash was burning so I stopped. Having removed the mash the next morning, it didn't look burned though, but that haze has to come from somewhere.

Vat VII - birnemost

No. 7 is the 100L VAT I got at the Landi moving sale last year in Egg.

I'm filling it up slowly with pear juice and sugar. It started fermenting by itself fairly quickly; next time I'll add my Brennmaischhefe right away. I've worked out that to make 95L @ 20% alcohol, I need 80L of juice plus 27kg sugar. I'm guessing that I should be subtracting the sugar content of the juice, but I don't have an oechsle (refracto-)meter.

2014/09/12 Status: 67L of juice, 23kg sugar mixed in. Have another 15kg of pear defrosting, should be ready for Sunday.

2014/09/14 Have added the rest, status appears to be 79L of juice with 27kg of sugar. The vat is full, it even spilled over a bit when I added the last 2+2. Just be careful and add the last liters slowly.

2014/09/19 Continues to bubble nicely.

2014/09/23 Has been bubbling in little strings of bubbles for a few days. One sets off a string.

2014/10/02 The tap on the end broke and started leaking juice, albeit very little. I had to half empty the vat (into whatever containers were available), then tip it and replace the tap. Bit of a mess. I'm fairly certain it was due to my screwing the tap on to tight.

2014/10/03 Still bubbling.

2014/10/22 Still bubbling, but slow.

2014/11/09 Still bubbling.

2015/05/16 Took 30L and distilled it. Took about 400ml of heads. With the poor smelling stuff from yesterday, 8x0.7L of tails. Plus 1L bottle.

2015/05/24 Took 30L and distilled it. Took about 700ml of heads in the little cups. I still don't like the smell much.

2015/05/25 Took the last bit, also about 30L and distilled it. Took about 700ml of heads in the little cups. I still don't like the smell much.

Vat ??? - birnemash

This is pear mash in a 30L vat, pureed. One handle broken, I think when I was trying to share the vat. I don't quite know why I have no notes on it. It has a pink post-it attached saying "birnemask". Looks like about 30L.

2015/08/28 09:00 Distillation begin. Getting the sludge out was a bit messy, lots of splotches everywhere.

2015/08/28 20:00 Distillation done. Yield: 4x700ml: 80%, 75%, 70% and 60%. About a litre of tails, slightly hazy.

2015/08/29 The mash had burned some, there was a darkened mush in the bottom when I cleaned the pot.

Vat ??? - birnesaft

This is pear juice in a 30L vat. Apparently no vat number.

Vat VIII - birnemost

This is pear juice in a 30L vat.

2015/08/31 08:45 distillation started.

2015/08/31 500ml heads. Yield: 5 x 700ml at 77%, 70%, 67%, 60% and 50%. The latter was used for seeding the thumper for Vat V. The tails, maybe a litre, at 38% was added to the green demijohn for a second run.