Skeeter Pee
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Vox said:
5 gal ingredients amount /5x3= 3 gal ingredients amount
It is not ruined. If it is still fermenting and around a gravity of 1.04 - 1.05 the take 1 tbs of bread yeast & 1 cup of must and boil that for 15 min. Let cool and pitch that. After that or even if the gravity is too low just whip the must a lot and allow some oxygen to hit it. The smell will go away eventually after a few days if doing that consistently.
If you only add DAP the common yeast nutrients then you have no natural nitrates for the yeast to feed on. This is important in later stages of fermentation & when yeast get stressed due to lack of proper nutrients then you get the rotten egg smell with Skeeter Pee. Yeast energizer has yeast hulls, Riboflavin and Thiamine in it which is also found in active (not dead) bread yeast that has been boiled. Commercial energizer also has complex B vitamins, magnesium sulfate & additional DAP so the commercial stuff will work better but boiled bread yeast works in a pinch. I have also crushed a 100mg b6 & b12 vitamin with the bread yeast to simulate energizer in the past.
Vox
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Actually this looks a little time consuming and more advanced than my rookie cider skills with the degassing and other aspects. May have to wait on this. I wouldn't say this is an easy recipe unless you are a wine maker familiar with these extra steps.
You know it is not that bad. Just follow the recipe exactly & here is the only other "complicated" thing I did with my Skeeter Pee. I took a hanger out of the closet. Clipped the hook part off with wire snips. Straitened it out keeping the two cut ends together and bent it in 4 spots a bit to make it un-even and bowed out a bit. Sterilize it and chuck it into a drill and stick that in the must spinning on high for 1.5 - 2 min 2-3 times a day for the first 5 days. The following racking and such is all standard with any cider/wine/mead making.
kpr121
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Anyone use a beer yeast like US-04 or 05? I have a 04 cake in an apfelwein I just did and was thinking of using it instead of new wine yeast.
TimpanogosSlim
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Vox said:
Just use a few packets of lalvin ec-1118, rehydrated of course.
TimpanogosSlim
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Vox said:
Follow the directions on the packet. It's like any other active dry yeast- rehydration prior to pitching just maximizes the number of viable cells.
The original recipe just has energizer at the beginning and when the gravity hits 1.05. (which is usually 1-3 days from the point you notice active fermentation) so just do the boiled bread yeast then and whip the must daily.
LoneTreeFarms
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okay i skimmed though here alittle bit. i've got a 5 gallon batch going since may, what do i need to do to carb it? gonna do half in wine bottles stilled and the other half carbed in beer bottles....thanks
I use regular sugar. Never used dextrose but I would think both would turn out the same. If you don't have a slurry then two packs of the Lalvin 1118 yeast rehydrated per package directions will work. 1118 is a beast and works in almost any must with a little care. I personally like using either Lalvin 71b or Lalvin D47 if it is winter and can keep the house below 69*F. But I assume both those have to be in slurry form to work for SP.
Well I racked my pee for the last time. This stuff is clear and clean. Now I'm just waiting to make sure the Campden tabs did their job and I can bottle. The grav sample i took was tasty but it definitely needs the back sweetening.
TimpanogosSlim
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Arpolis said:
The bond between the glucose and fructose in a sucrose is fairly easy to break, and this is what the original recipe is referring to when you mix the sugar with water and a bit of lemon juice and simmer it to make 'invert' sugar.
Glucose and dextrose are mirror images of each other, fructose is another simple sugar. Making invert syrup out of table sugar saves the yeast the trouble of making invertase to eat sucrose.
So, yeah, it's going to be the same.
Well, I finally bottled my skeeter pee. I ended up with 24 wine bittles, a 1/2 gallon growler, and a 3/4 gallon growler full. I suspect this song last long so I might start some more this weekend or next 
I might make the regular skeeter pee, with no fruit added to see how that tastes. Or.....what would be a good fall flavor to add?
edmanster said:I guess it would depend on if you were backsweetening with sugar.. I use alcohol sugar thus me not ever using it in skeeter pee
So if I don't have sorbate and would like to sweeten my skeeter pee can I use wine conditioner?
TimpanogosSlim
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Alright, a little more than 3 weeks in the carboy and the yeast has dropped out.
Hydrometer sample looks clear to me, and reads about 0.998.
Hydrometer sample looks clear to me, and reads about 0.998.
TimpanogosSlim
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Hey, a question.
My skeeterpee primary has at least 5.5g in it, and this was a mistake because i was using ec-1118 and not just a slurry left over from some other wine. I suspect that there is a whole gallon and a half in there after racking losses.
Does the secondary carboy need to be small enough that i have limited surface area? That could be a problem because my free carboys at the moment are an 18L carboy that does not hold 5 gallons, a 5g carboy that holds maybe 5.25g, and a 6.5g carboy that holds 7 gallons and change (great for big beers).
Should i rack as much of it as i can into the 5g carboy for addition of k-meta and sorbate and back sweetening and then just bottle the rest of it as-is, or just drink it mixed with some 7up or something?
Or should i get it into the 6.5g carboy and just flush the headspace with co2?
My skeeterpee primary has at least 5.5g in it, and this was a mistake because i was using ec-1118 and not just a slurry left over from some other wine. I suspect that there is a whole gallon and a half in there after racking losses.
Does the secondary carboy need to be small enough that i have limited surface area? That could be a problem because my free carboys at the moment are an 18L carboy that does not hold 5 gallons, a 5g carboy that holds maybe 5.25g, and a 6.5g carboy that holds 7 gallons and change (great for big beers).
Should i rack as much of it as i can into the 5g carboy for addition of k-meta and sorbate and back sweetening and then just bottle the rest of it as-is, or just drink it mixed with some 7up or something?
Or should i get it into the 6.5g carboy and just flush the headspace with co2?
ive done the same once and had about a gallon left so i filled 2 growlers and still have them after 2 years.. idk if i want to try them yet!! lemon lime soda is awesome with unsweetend pee
Captive
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Be cautious using wine conditioner. It's not a bad product, you just need to understand how it works. The sorbate in a bottle of wine conditioner is a measured amount dissolved into the total contents. You'll need to make sure you use enough wine conditioner to properly but not over medicate your wine.
Think of it this way: If you wanted to take two aspirin for a headache, you could take the two aspirin and wash it down with a quarter cup of water. But if you dissolved the two aspirin in a cup of water and then drank the quarter cup of water, you'd only be getting half an aspirin and your headache may not go away. Likewise, if you made a double batch by mixing 4 aspirin in two cups of water, you couldn't drink more than a cup of water without over-medicating.
I usually remind people to treat their batch with K-meta whenever they add wine conditioner too. Without the K-meta, you risk ruining the wine if a malo-lactic ferment starts up in the presence of the sorbate.
There's more information here: Using Wine Conditioner
snortwheeze
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(6)TimpanogosSlim
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2-3 weeks ferment, after that it depends whether you plan to back-sweeten with sugar which requires that you add k-meta and k-sorbate - and the recipe recommends leaving it in secondary w/ the sugar for 2 weeks to verify no new fermentation before bottling, but if you are kegging and have a fridge to throw it right in you may not need to wait that two weeks.
I don't see why you couldn't use a bucket.
OK, I'm going to bottle the Apfelwein tonight, and the first stage of the Skeeter Pee has been sitting with its towel on for two days, with occasional whipping to release the sulfur stinkies. I was planning to add the yeasty slurry from the apfelwein to the bucket the Pee is in.
Question for right away: Is that okay? I don't need to literally pour the lemony pre-pee mixture right onto the yeast that's left at the bottom of the apfelwein carboy, do I? That seems wrong a) because there's 5.5 gallons of lemony pre-pee and the carboy is just 5 gallons; b) because I can't believe it's really okay to just use the same carboy without cleaning it; and c) because I think I need to whip it from time to time while it ferments, and that'll be easier to do in a bucket since I don't have a wine whip but I do have a balloon whisk that works well.
Questions for later in the process, since I intend to backsweeten with Splenda:
1. Is it correct to just use six cups of the Splenda (or store-brand equivalent) that comes in the big bags?
2. I understand I don't have to use the sorbate in the previous step (two weeks before backsweetening). Do I still need to use K-meta?
3. Do I still have to wait the two weeks after backsweetening "to be sure no new fermentation begins" before bottling?
Question for right away: Is that okay? I don't need to literally pour the lemony pre-pee mixture right onto the yeast that's left at the bottom of the apfelwein carboy, do I? That seems wrong a) because there's 5.5 gallons of lemony pre-pee and the carboy is just 5 gallons; b) because I can't believe it's really okay to just use the same carboy without cleaning it; and c) because I think I need to whip it from time to time while it ferments, and that'll be easier to do in a bucket since I don't have a wine whip but I do have a balloon whisk that works well.
Questions for later in the process, since I intend to backsweeten with Splenda:
1. Is it correct to just use six cups of the Splenda (or store-brand equivalent) that comes in the big bags?
2. I understand I don't have to use the sorbate in the previous step (two weeks before backsweetening). Do I still need to use K-meta?
3. Do I still have to wait the two weeks after backsweetening "to be sure no new fermentation begins" before bottling?
I just poured my slurry strait into the new pre-pee Carboy. Everything worked out fine.
Wiki says that splenda is 6 times as sweet as table sugar. So start witha cup and go up from there my taste.
K-meta is not required in your case but helps as an anti-oxidant.
It's up to you on bottling. Just heck gravity 3 days in a row and if it does not drop the you can bottle or bulk age from there.
Wiki says that splenda is 6 times as sweet as table sugar. So start witha cup and go up from there my taste.
K-meta is not required in your case but helps as an anti-oxidant.
It's up to you on bottling. Just heck gravity 3 days in a row and if it does not drop the you can bottle or bulk age from there.
bk0
Well-Known Member
a) It's fine to use the same carboy without cleaning, as long as you don't mind a tiny amount of flavor crossover
b) You won't need to whip it during fermentation. It's just acidic sugar water after all.
1. I would backsweeten to taste, rather than a set amount of Splenda.
2. Nope.
3. No, because splenda isn't fermentable. You only need to wait if you are bottle carbonating.
b) You won't need to whip it during fermentation. It's just acidic sugar water after all.
1. I would backsweeten to taste, rather than a set amount of Splenda.
2. Nope.
3. No, because splenda isn't fermentable. You only need to wait if you are bottle carbonating.
