I happen to have a friend that works for a fruit transporting company, and
have 2 cases of grapefruits. I will keep some to eat, but the rest I
figured I would make into wine, using one of the recipes on jack keller's
site (
http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/reques20.asp) I have several
questions about the recipes and hope someone can clarify them.
First, the recipe states "Peel one grapefruit thinly, making sure no white
pith adheres to peel" I assume the pith is the white stuff that attaches
mostly to the grapefruit when it is peeled, but the inside of the peel
itself is a white texture too, how much do i have to scrape off? Do i keep
scraping until it is only the yellowish skin, or simply until there is no
more 'pith' attached to the skin?
My second question is that since I have so many grapefruit to use, I am
going to make a 5 gallon (23 liter) batch. Should I simply take the 1 gal
recipes and multiply by 5? Or is there some other type of adjustment? Do I
need to add more yeast, or should i just give it more time to ferment? Is
one campden tablet enough for a 5 gallon batch?
Lasty, has anyone on the group tried any of the grapefruit or orange
recipes? Do they retain the taste of the original fruit? Are they very
acidic (sharp citrus flavor)? is there a way to give them a bit more body
without sweetening them? should i save some of the initial juice (before
adding yeast) to use to top up?
Sorry for the many questions, but I want to make sure I do everything right
the first time since I wont be able to test out my creation until this time
next year and to be suprised by a bad batch would be quite a dissapointment
indeed! Thanks for bearing with me