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Hi Thread. I'm relatively new to wine and I'm still trying to get my footing on being able to differentiate between different types and varieties. So far I've enjoyed red wines like cabernet, though a lot of wines still are mainly hot or quite acid. I remember beer being similar, though more tasting like piss and ear wax, but the revelation of being able to taste the hops and malts came from after brewing up a batch and smelling/tasting the hops by itself. After that beer tastes amazing. So I've decided to so something similar with wine by making some. My dad used to be an avid beer/wine maker many years ago, so I've inherited (stolen) his brewing equipment in the cellar and cleaned it up. I started looking online at different wine making kits or whatever, but soon discovered that it was grape harvesting season soon so I decided to buy some grapes instead. I've also read this 150 page free ebook online cover to cover, describing the different techniques and procedures for making the wine, covering the many sugars and acids in grapes and how they affect taste/stability of the wine, the chemistry of pH, free SO2 and how they protect wines, processing and fining, primary and secondary ML fermentation, and a bunch of other stuff. Feeling well-armed with my new found knowledge, I decided to buy 3x 36 lb cases of petite sirah and 4x cases of cabernet sav. I also got a (I think) decent pH meter and cheap materials to build a free SO2 AO test apparatus. I bought the grapes this past Sunday. When I tested the grapes before fermentation, the petite sirah came out to: pH 3.4, brix ~19.5, TA 0.58%, and the cab sav came to pH 3.59, brix 21.5, TA 0.48%. I put in some K metabisulfite and pitched the yeast the next day and let her rip. Now some questions. (I hope it's ok to ask wine making questions here...I've read the entire last thread and there weren't any but I devoured all of the wine making posts) Is it bad that I didn't adjust the must before initiating primary fermentation? I've read to adjust it before pitching yeast, but I've also read people adding sugar a little at a time throughout fermentation if the brix level is a little low. Same question applies for adding tartaric acid after fermentation? It seems like it would be better to adjust it to taste after the grapes have fermented. I added 500 grams of dissolved sugar to the petite sirah today to bring it up ~ 1%. I know that the alcohol will be a little low but that's ok I think, wine in general seems too hot for my palate atm. We'll see how it goes I guess. So far the whole process has been a blast! The grapes are fermenting in my bedroom atm since it's somewhat temperature controlled. It's been holding steady at ~75F. Also my room smells amazing. Hearing the grapes fizz at night makes me smile.
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Oct 12, 2011 20:35
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| # ¿ May 2, 2024 09:46 |
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Eco RI posted:The optimal time to make sugar additions if you don't do them en masse prior to inoculation is in equally spaced intervals during the steepest part of the fermentation curve (during which the second third of the sugar is consumed in fermentation). In fact, there have been some recent papers suggesting that lengthening this phase of fermentation actually encourages glycerol production. That said, adding it too late could potentially leave you with some unwanted residual sugar once the yeast begin to shut down. So, I would recommend adding early and often. Wow that's awesome, thanks! That sugar addition schedule makes sense. I had to look up what glycerol was, and that's an interesting consequence. I've read that burgundy wines usually add sugar which helps increase their mouth-feel, so is this one of the reasons? And thank you very much for the tartaric acid addition advice. The only reason I thought about adding it was because of general (and probably useless) advice for the TA of dry red wines being in the 0.6-0.7% range. I did consider conducting a secondary fermentation but thought against it because the TA was a little low. My limited understanding of it is that it's used on grapes with a high acid content due to being under-ripe and thus have larger amounts of unstable malic acid, and also to help stabilize the wine against other microbes by consuming the more unstable food sources. However the grape must tastes amazing atm and I don't really notice any deficient acid, though I'm not sure if that matters at all. Because of your post I'll get some MLB and play with that. When you said that those varietals wouldn't need additional acid with my current pH/TA, is that because the more tannic wines don't need as high an acid content as less tannic wines? Or should I just forget the .6-.7% TA guideline? There was a graph in the book showing color and tannin extraction over time, where after ~4 days color extraction stopped while tannins increased due to color pigments being soluble in water and tannins extracted from the increasing ethanol. I'll try to press the grapes hopefully this friday. I'll look into cold soaking for the future. How long would you consider extended maceration to be ie. how long is too long? Also, my last classes in biology and chemistry were (sadly) in high school. I'm currently an engineering student, so while I've largely forgotten everything since then I feel I might be able to try to learn some of it without (hopefully) too much difficulty. Are there any resources you would suggest to look into? Such as the more hard-core microbiology/chemistry books or books geared more toward wine-making? Again thanks! Your posts are very enlightening.
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Oct 13, 2011 00:34
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pork never goes bad posted:rangersilme, that's very cool. I've always wanted to brew beer or make wine at home, but space has always stopped me. Hey thanks! I don't know your situation but brewing up a batch of beer surprisingly doesn't take up very much space. All you need is a decently large pot (~3-5 gallons) and a stove to fit it on, a sink, counter and a bathtub (it makes cleaning everything a lot easier). You can shove the carboy under a table if you're careful. If you're innovative you can make it in a pretty small kitchen, though it might take a couple of tries to get your work-flow smooth. The beer extract kits are only 5 gallons and make tastey brew, all-grain would require much more space. Though this isn't a beer thread so I'll stop now. Wine making in a small space would be a lot harder I think. I doubt the concentrate kits are worth it though I could be wrong.
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Oct 13, 2011 01:02
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