There is a slight dilemma I will be faced with in the not-too-distant future, which I'd appreciate some advice on.
I'm both a winemaker and a brewer, and have made successful iterations of both. My trademark wine, to date, has been Loquat wine made from fruit grown on a large tree in my backyard. It's this tree that first got me into winemaking in the first place two years ago, when it produced a bumper crop that I couldn't let go to waste.
The issue is, over winter, I've been making a lot of beer, and paying particular attention to temperature control. Boy, what a difference it makes. Being in a climate where our winter temps are generally between 5 and 15 degrees, with a little assistance from my hot water cupboard, I've been able to attain a perfect temperature of between 16 and 18 degrees.
So I'd like to convert my chest freezer into a fermentation chamber, except that will leave me with nowhere to store the Loquat fruit I pick this summer to make wine out of. Two years ago, I picked about 14kg of the stuff, so there's just no way I can put that all in the inside freezer.
Question is, is there some other way of preserving fruit without freezing or cooking it? I did consider the idea of storing it under water in a vessel with minimal headspace and using K-meta solution to stabilise. But I'm not sure that would work. Right now I'm having to decide between making wine and making beer this summer.
Thoughts, anyone?
I'm both a winemaker and a brewer, and have made successful iterations of both. My trademark wine, to date, has been Loquat wine made from fruit grown on a large tree in my backyard. It's this tree that first got me into winemaking in the first place two years ago, when it produced a bumper crop that I couldn't let go to waste.
The issue is, over winter, I've been making a lot of beer, and paying particular attention to temperature control. Boy, what a difference it makes. Being in a climate where our winter temps are generally between 5 and 15 degrees, with a little assistance from my hot water cupboard, I've been able to attain a perfect temperature of between 16 and 18 degrees.
So I'd like to convert my chest freezer into a fermentation chamber, except that will leave me with nowhere to store the Loquat fruit I pick this summer to make wine out of. Two years ago, I picked about 14kg of the stuff, so there's just no way I can put that all in the inside freezer.
Question is, is there some other way of preserving fruit without freezing or cooking it? I did consider the idea of storing it under water in a vessel with minimal headspace and using K-meta solution to stabilise. But I'm not sure that would work. Right now I'm having to decide between making wine and making beer this summer.
Thoughts, anyone?
