Skeeter Pee

[Cheesy_Goodness]

You might be able to get away with it but personally, I wouldn't risk it.
I'd leave at least an inch or two and rack the rest in the bottling bucket. If you want to use the rest, you could always rack directly to a wine bottle from the carboy and label it as a "Trub bottle" and keep it tucked away for personal consumption.

 

[Texconsinite]

You might be able to get away with it but personally, I wouldn't risk it.
I'd leave at least an inch or two and rack the rest in the bottling bucket. If you want to use the rest, you could always rack directly to a wine bottle from the carboy and label it as a "Trub bottle" and keep it tucked away for personal consumption.

This is what I do. Especially if you bottle two small batches in one night, you can combine the dregs of both into one bottle. I just stashed away a 12oz of Blackberry/pomegranate wine like this

 

[flyer12]

My first batch of this has seem to stalled. It was racked to secondary on July 27 with SG=1.015. The airlock is bulling about once every 20-30 seconds (has slowed from original 10 seconds) but when I took an SG reading last night it was 1.012. Temps are constant @ 72.5F. About 3/4" of setiment on the bottom of the carboy. The 1 gallon jug of the extra from the primary is done (SG= 0.995 on Aug 2).
How do I get it started again - more nutrient, energizer, give it a stir or shake, increase the temp a bit, etc?? Or do I just wait for another week and see?

 

[TheCollector]

Ok bottled the 5 gallon better bottle but I've got an extra gallon in a separate jug that is untreated with yeast still in tact. Would like to carb this AND sweeten it in bottles. I know I'll have to stovetop pasteurize but how much sugar do I add to sweeten it? Then just time the pasteurizing right? Thanks guys!

 

[Arpolis]

I just sweeten the SP like normal and after about a week I pasteurize.

 

[TallahasseeBrew]

Just backsweetened mine today, got it in another carboy to make sure it's not going to start fermenting again, it shouldn't, the yeast should be dead. But I did sample it and, damn it's tasty, not overly sweet like commercial stuff, but very tasty, can't wait till it's fully ready and cold.

 

[Sudsyone]

I love Pee!!!

Got another in secondary now and going to back sweeten with 2 cans of strawberry daiquiri and sugar to taste


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[TallahasseeBrew]

That sounds good, my next batch i may backsweeten with raspberry puree

 

[justineaton]

That does sound good.

 

[Renegades_Brew]

So I bottled mine over the weekend.

I used all three bottles of the lemon during the original stages like the recipe calls for. After backsweetening and tasting It seemed like very watered down lemonade and added another half bottle of the lemon and a half bottle of lime. Still seemed very weak and not tart at all.

I am used to very tart lemonade and this batch didn't hit the tartness factor at all.

 

[Arpolis]

So I bottled mine over the weekend.

I used all three bottles of the lemon during the original stages like the recipe calls for. After backsweetening and tasting It seemed like very watered down lemonade and added another half bottle of the lemon and a half bottle of lime. Still seemed very weak and not tart at all.

I am used to very tart lemonade and this batch didn't hit the tartness factor at all.

What yeast did you use?

 

[Cheesy_Goodness]

This might be silly but how big of a batch did you do?

 

[Renegades_Brew]

I used US05 yeast

I made a 6 gallon batch as the recipe calls for.

 

[Arpolis]

As shown below a copy/paste from the SP web site I always considered this a 5 gallon batch and always used a 5 gallon water jug or better bottle. That may be why this was a bit watered down.

The yeast you use is fine. Some yeasts metabolize malic acid which takes a lot of pucker out of the SP.

For a 5 gallon batch

3 bottles of 32 oz 100% lemon juice (e.g ReaLemon in the green plastic bottles or equivalent)

7 lbs sugar (or 16 cups) to ferment

3/4 tsp tannin

6 tsp. yeast nutrient (3 now, 3 later)

2 tsp. yeast energizer (1 now, 1 later)

Approx, 4 1/2 gallons water

Yeast Slurry

Potassium metabisulfite (Kmeta)

Potassium sorbate (sorbate)

Sparkolloid

2 1/3 lbs sugar (or 6 cups) to sweeten finished Skeeter Pee. Use more or less for your tastes.

 

[Cheesy_Goodness]

Unless you scaled up your recipe from 5 to 6 gallons, that's probably your problem there. The original recipe basically says to top off after you've got your simple syrup and lemon water, so if you're going from 5 (really 5.5 per the recipe) to 6, you're diluting it more.

Although, in my one finished batch of SP I backsweetened with the 6 cups of sugar AND a reduced bottle of simply lemon* because I was hoping for more tartness as well. The results were exactly what I was hoping for. The good thing about this recipe is it's relatively cheap, so you can afford to play around and screw it up more than you could with a fruit wine.

*It wasn't until well after I bottled that I realized a reduced bottle of simply lemon is probably nothing more than more lemon juice and sugar drunk so if you want to go the inexpensive/easy route, lemon juice and sugar would probably do you right.

 

[Renegades_Brew]

Except that increasing from 5-6 gallons is only a 20% increase. I increased the amount of lemon juice by 33% in total.


Sent from a happy little yeastie.

 

[Apple_Jacker]

When I upscaled to 6 gallons, I figured out how many ounces of lemon juice per gallon is used in the original recipe then multiplied by 6 to get the number of ounces of lemon juice for a 6 gallon batch. It hasnt failed me yet.

 

[Sudsyone]

Strawberry Skeeter!! Added 20oz frozen daiquiri concentrate and only made Pee turn a light pink color. Drove out to grocery store and picked up a 33.8oz. Daiquiri mixer and pored til it was right, which was the whole bottle. Damn lemon is hard to conquer, geesh. Next I will incorporate strawberry into primary and see what happens...




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[Honda88]

I tried this recipe once and couldn't get a good fermentation going..maybe ill just try a one gallon batch this time.

 

[flyer12]

My first batch of this has seem to stalled. It was racked to secondary on July 27 with SG=1.015. The airlock is bulling about once every 20-30 seconds (has slowed from original 10 seconds) but when I took an SG reading last night it was 1.012. Temps are constant @ 72.5F. About 3/4" of setiment on the bottom of the carboy. The 1 gallon jug of the extra from the primary is done (SG= 0.995 on Aug 2).
How do I get it started again - more nutrient, energizer, give it a stir or shake, increase the temp a bit, etc?? Or do I just wait for another week and see?

No help? Still sitting at SG=1.012, bubbling about once every 30 seconds. I increased the temp to 74F.

Lalvin EC1118

 

[Cheesy_Goodness]

What kind of yeast did you use?

 

[flyer12]

lalvin ec1118

 

[Arpolis]

No help? Still sitting at SG=1.012, bubbling about once every 30 seconds. I increased the temp to 74F.

Lalvin EC1118

It sounds like a stall or at least slow ferment. The good thing is that the SG is well within the range of sweetened SP if not on the low side. I personally would let it ride. Add finnings here in a few weeks if needed and then go about racking, stabilizing, topping up with your dry 1gallon batch and then sweetening to taste.

For next time you may just wait for first racking till after you get to the 1.002 - .996 range. So that way IF racking and loosing that large yeast count was what got you stuck, you don't worry about that next time.

 

[justineaton]

I didn't leave enough room in my carboy to add the third bottle of lemon juice, I put the last of the nutrients and energize in and about a third of the bottle of lemon juice but had no room to shake it up. I'm planning to rack to secondary in a couple days and add the rest of the lemon juice then. Think it will be ok?

 

[Cheesy_Goodness]

flyer: If it were me, I'd give it a quick stir (assuming you're not in a hurry for it to clear), then let it ride. You'd probably be ok just waiting it out though.

justin: Should be fine, just don't forget your second round of energizer and nutrient.

 

[flyer12]

ok - I am off for vacation for a bit so I will give it a shake to disperse the cake on the bottom and will see what that does after I am back. I am not in a big rush for this as I bottled the 1 gallon jug already and it is coming with us on vacation.

 

[BradTheGeek]

First batch of SP is in process here. Hope it comes out well.
I started by making a must with some all natural white grape juice from a local vendor (.5 gal). The wine tasted like crap, but I just wanted to get some good yeast going.. EC-1118. I poured off most of the wine, stirred up the slurry in the rest and added another pack of yeast to this and some clean water as a starter. I kept it stirred and at about 80F while I made my invert sugar.

Tossed it all in my fermentation bucket, added two bottles of lemon juice, topped off and aerated really good. Put on a lid and an airlock. OG was a tad low, but I am okay with that I guess.. it cam out about 1.059.
Aerated again one more time about 24 hours in.
Fermentation has been really slow compared to the beers I am used to. If I pop the top, it looks like a poured mountain dew. Clear yellow with tiny champagne like bubbles coming up. Nothing super vigorous. A couple yeast rafts will float up from time to time. This is fermenting at about 65F. Is this how it normally ferments or could there be a problem here?

I haven't looked in a couple days, going to sample/test gravity today and add more nutrient and energizer as well as the last bottle of LJ.
Any pointers or things I may have missed? Thanks

 

[Apple_Jacker]

Sounds good to me.

 

[BradTheGeek]

Thanks..gravity is 1.030 @65F (uncorrected). Looks clean, still bubbling. Added nutrient, energizer and remaining LJ. Grav sample tasted good. Cant wait to have the finished product.

 

[justineaton]

Strawberry Skeeter!! Added 20oz frozen daiquiri concentrate and only made Pee turn a light pink color. Drove out to grocery store and picked up a 33.8oz. Daiquiri mixer and pored til it was right, which was the whole bottle. Damn lemon is hard to conquer, geesh. Next I will incorporate strawberry into primary and see what happens...

View attachment 217551


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My skeeter pee had one pound of BlackBerrys in primary and I'm planning on backsweeten with the frozen strawberry concentrates. I picked up four. My wife wants a sweet dessert type strawberry wine so that's what I'm going for.