The second batch of Raisinette utilized changes from my experience of the first ferment as well as a suggestion from Eric Vitiello, who recently fermented some apples. I soaked four pounds of California Monukka Raisins, in water overnight. They absorbed all of the water and were plump little grapes by the next day.
The 'grapes' were mashed thoroughly to break the skins and liberate all the reconstituted juice. This made a pulp that was not very pleasant to look at, in fact it made me think of what Lyon Mag said about Beaujolais. The pulp was very sweet and juicy though - good yeast food.
The pulp was pressed through a strainer which extracted a viscous red juice along with a lot of fine solids. This 'chunky must' was kept in the refrigerator for six hours to allow the solids to settle, then it was strained again.
EC-1118 yeast was added to the must after assessing the specific gravity to be 1.150. EC-1118 can withstand alcohol levels up to 18-20%. The high gravity means there is a lot of sugar in the must so the alcohol level can also become very high providing the yeast will eat all the sugar in the juice. Fermentation took place in a large glass bowl that was sealed with aluminum foil.
The temperature of the fermenting must was maintained at 30°C ±3° by placing the bowl on an electric heating pad, as Eric did. This sped the ferment (the room temperature was cold.) After two days of intense bubbling, the kitchen was filled withthe aroma of the fermentation, and the (now) wine was filtered and into a half gallon jug.
The wine continues to ferment in the jug, with about one bubble every three to four seconds comming through the bubbler tube. I will let it stand at room temperature (about 15°C) until the bubbling stops. Hopefully the gravity will have fallen to less than one by then. If not I may try to restart the fermentation by bringing the temperture back up, but the wine certainly smells alcoholic. By the way, I did not add the bentonite I had bought, in fact, no chemicals were added at all. All the glassware and utensils were cleaned with Lysol prior to use and filtration was through clean white linen.
