Parsnip

[oldbloke]

First time I made parsnip wine, for some inexplicable reason some of the sugar I used was brown. It came out very sherryish - it may have oxidised a bit too, I was a newb....
So the second time I made parsnip, I used all white sugar and was careful with my procedure.
It's very nice, now it's been in bottle a couple of months, but TOO STRONG
See if you can spot the mistake:

2011-11-26
Scrub 4lb parsnips, slice&boil until tender (30mins-ish);
Strain into another pan onto 3lb sugar, 2Tbsp citric, 1/2lb chopped raisins: simmer 45 mins;
Add crushed Campden tablet, into fermenting bin, water to 5litres, allow to cool,
add nutrient, at 21C add yeast (Gervin GV1) and pectolase
Stirred daily 10 days,
2011-12-06
Strained into demijohn
2011-01-24
Racked
2012-03-07
Bottled. Drinkable. A few rough edges but not bad.
2012-06-24
Very nice. Bit strong

I'm almost surprised GV1 managed to eat all that sugar - it's at the dry end of the scale.

[Pinto]

Nutrient supported yeast can surprise you quite often - The Lidl Sour Cherry Liquer I put on yesterday had an OG of 1.150 ( derived from the natural sugars in the juice bolstered with 1350g of dextrose ) and the consistancy of thin golden syrup !

PItched a GV4 starter in full steam into it and 4 hours later it hadn't done a bloody thing :/.... so added an extra tsp of Nutrient and 2 hours later..... 7in of Krausen

Might seem an extravigance pitching that much dextrose in a brew - but locally, table sugar at the moment is £1.09 a kilo - which makes my LHBS selling Dex at £1.49 a kilo an attractive prospect, given the advantages.

[oldbloke]

7 inches? Is it the infamous "living sponge of death" ?

Parsnip is one of the ones that let me know homebrew could work: back in 71 (IIRC) I had some at a mate's party, that his dad had made. It was very good. Mine is not bad, this time round, but not "very good". Maybe next year.

[Pinto]

Pretty much Given the sugar content, I was expecting fireworks so pitched only 3.5l of juice to start with giving me plenty of headspace in the demi; damn near still spewed out of the airlock !

It fell back a little this afternoon so I squeezed another litre of juice in there - still firing the airlock like a machine gun ! Hoping for a FG of around 1000-1010 which should give me 19-20% abv.

[orlando]

See if you can spot the mistake:

Is it because you used parsnips

[oldbloke]

No, parsnips is delicious, roasted or made into wine. Passable in stews. That's it though, I admit.