Last spring, I started two patches of Dandelion wine. They are just now getting ready to bottle. I was sampling the first batch prior to bottling, when I discovered it was pretty weak. I top up my wine with water, and this wine was pretty light to begin with, so by bottling time I was not happy with the body.

All is not lost when this situation occurs. Blending is always and option with a weak wine. I didn’t really have anything I wanted to blend this with, so I chose a different. route. One suggestions from Winepress was to add a can of grape concentrate juice to the wine. I choose to add a can of frozen apple juice to the 5 gallon carboy.

After adding juice, I gave the wine some time to adjust. It had already been stabilized, so it did not start fermenting again. However, I did have to wait for it to clear again. I took about 1 month for the wine to clear after adding the apple juice. After it was clear, I tasted it, and it was pretty good, far better than before. After just 1 month in the bottle, it has become respectable enough to be given away. I think it will age well.

Not every problem with wine making turns into disaster. Sometimes what you think is a problem, is really a blessing in disguise.This is not the first time I had some kind of issue with Dandelion Wine. A couple of years ago, I had a batch of Dandelion Wine that had cleared but started fermenting again. I could not get it to stop, the sugar level was below 2%PA, I needed the carboy, so I made sparkling wine out of it. That was some of the best Dandelion wine I have ever made!

Sadly, that sparkling wine is long gone, but my point is to not give up. Wine making is part art as well as science. A little creativity can help turn what otherwise might be a problem, into a success. Do some research, read everything you can about wine making, and don’t be afraid to experiment. You just might be surprised by the results.

Enjoy!

November 23rd, 2009 | Category: Wine Making | Comments Off

We were racking wine this weekend. Some we bottled, some needed racked. One of the last ones we racked was Apple Wine. The carboy we racked from had a ring around the neck on the inside. This is normal, and of course, needs cleaned.

Now we could have just scrubbed the carboy with a brush. I’ve done that plenty of times. but I was pressed for time, so I used an alternate method. I mixed 2 tablespoons of B-Brite with two gallons of water. I put this in the carboy. I got an old coffee can and filled it with water and placed it in my wash tub. I then placed the carboy with the B-Brite into the coffee can upside down. The water in the coffee can will keep the B-Brite solution from draining from the carboy. The B-Brite solution, will attack any residue in the neck of the carboy.

I left the carboy upside down in the coffee can in the wash tub over night. The next day, the neck of was clean and I didn’t have to scrub the carboy! This is a nice trick to use if you don’t have the time to clean the carboy. It is also good if you can’t get some stubborn residue cleaned. Just make sure what ever you are trying to get cleaned is covered in B-Brite solution.

Enjoy!

November 2nd, 2009 | Category: Wine Making | Comments Off

There are many ways to help a wine clear prior to bottling. One of the easiest is to just wait. Given enough time, just about every wine will clear. It may take 6 months to a year, but they usually clear on their own. However, if you want to speed up the process, there are some things you can add to the wine to help it to clear.

One thing I add to every fruit wine I make is Pectin Enzyme. Pectin is naturally in fruit. It helps jelly to thicken. In wine, it will cause a haze in the wine. I add Pectin Enzyme at the beginning of the process. This enzyme helps remove the pectin from the wine and aids in clearing.

Bentonite is another type of clarifier. It is a clay based material. It has a negative electrostatic charge that will bind with proteins to remove them from the wine. It also will remove some off flavors and help prevent oxidation of the wine.

Isoglass is another clarifier. It has a positive electrostatic charge. It is pure gelatin clarifier that binds to yeast and other particles suspended in the wine. It is popular because it is gentler on the wine that some other classifier’s.

Sparkolloid is another positively charged clarifier that can be added to the wine to remove yeast and other particles from the wine. You will need to boil some water and mix the Sparkolloin very well before adding it to the wine.

Kieselsol/Chitosan, also called SuperKler, is a two part clarifier. It works by binding with both positive and negativly charged particles and settleing out of the wine. If I can’t get a wine to clear, this will usually do the job.

Time is my first choice for getting wine to clear. However, sometimes the wine just won’t clear on its own. If you are having problems, or just want to speed up the process a bit, feel free to use any of these clarifiers. I have used them all at one point or anther to clear wine. They all work for the particular particles you have in your wine.

Enjoy!

October 26th, 2009 | Category: Wine Making | Comments Off

A few weeks ago I talked about how I was going to try to make a frugal version of R.J.  Spangles White Chocolate Port wine. Today I am going to give an update on that wine. A couple of weeks ago, the wine had cleared nicely and I racked it off the sediment. I took a PA reading and it was at 5% PA. That was sweeter than I had planned, but it tasted good. I added Chocolate and Raspberry flavoring to it and decided to give it some more time. Well it started fermenting again. I expected that since the sugar reading was so high. Now I am back to waiting for it to finish fermenting.

If I wanted to stop the fermentation now, I could try a couple of things. First, I could add Potasium Sorbate and Campden tablets to try and stop the fermentation. I don’t like to do that though because I haven’t had consistant results stopping fermentation early. The other option is to try and cool the wine to get the yeast to settle to the bottom of the carboy then rack the wine off the sediment. I have never tried this myself, so I don’t know how well it works to stop fermentation.

I just like to wait. Patience is a virtue in wine making. Sometimes a wine just needs time to do its thing. If it wants to start fermenting again while in the carboy, I will let it do that. I prefer to let my wines ferment to dryness. If it needs sweetened after the fermentation has completed, I will back sweeten the wine.

Remember, you can’t rush a good thing. Give the wine time to finish fermentation before you bottle the wine. Sometimes, after a racking, wine will start fermenting again, especially if there is residual sugar in the wine. This is normal and usually not something to worry about.

Relax, have some patience and remember; Good things come to those who wait!

Enjoy!

October 19th, 2009 | Category: Wine Making | Comments Off

Last Saturday we had wine class again at the Porter House Brew Shop. It was a good class with some new wine makers learning the basics. I always enjoy getting new people started in this hobby, and we will have some new wine makers now.
I made an Apple Wine for class that night and I tried a new recipe. Usually I make my apple wine from apple cider, but we did not get any apples from our trees this year. We had a late frost. I decided to buy some apples from the store and make apple wine with fresh apples. We used McIntosh and Golden Delicious apples for this recipe. I used 15 pounds of apples, 8 pounds of sugar, and 4 gallons of water for this batch. I added yeast nutrient, tannin, and acid blend. The complete recipe will be on my Wine Recipe Page so I encourage you to check it out. This is a perfect time of year to get apples, so give it a try.
Enjoy!

October 13th, 2009 | Category: Wine Making | Comments Off

I’ve been trying to grow wine grapes for years. I am still climbing the learning curve and Mother Nature likes to make it interesting, so I only got a couple of pounds of grapes this year. We had a late frost in my area, and my vines got hit pretty hard. I harvested 3 lbs of Catawba, and no Niagara this year.

Being the stubborn wine maker that I am, I decided to make wine out of my grapes. Now, 3 pounds of grapes is not a lot to work with, so I added 2 cans of frozen grape juice to the crushed grapes from my harvest. I added water to bring it to 1 gallon,then checked PA and acid. Acid was fine, PA was a little low, so I added 1 cup of sugar to bring PA to around 10%. I also added 1 teaspoon of yeast nutrient and 1 Campden tablet to the must. I will pitch yeast tomorrow.

I’ve made wine out of frozen grape juice before, so I feel pretty confident that I will have a drinkable wine when it is done. The fresh Catawba grapes should add their own flavors to the concentrate, so we’ll see how it turns out. I’m just kind of winging it with this recipe, but this is the Art part of wine making.

Which brings me to the lesson I want to leave you with today. After you understand the basics, don’t be afraid to experiment. Winemaking is part Art. We are trying to create something unique that we can share with others and enjoy ourselves. I grew these grapes, so I wanted to make wine from them. I added some frozen grape juice, got the numbers where they needed to be, and wha la, I have a gallon of grape wine being made.

Next fall, when I am harvesting next years grapes, I will open one of these bottles of wine, and enjoy it after the harvest. Hopefully I’ll be thinking, this is a great wine! This year I can make a full 5 gallon batch! Or I might be grateful that I have enough grapes to repeat this recipe. I don’t know for sure, but I am hopeful.  I just need Mother Nature to cooperate with this plan.

Enjoy!

October 5th, 2009 | Category: Wine Making | Comments Off

Last week I made a nice discovery in my wine cellar. I found a bottle of wine I did not know I had. I did not know I had it because it was labeled wrong. Here is the story.

Back in 2005 I made an Orange Wine. The recipe called for adding orange peels to the must. Well, I guess I added too many orange peels because that was all I could taste when the wine was done. I really don’t like orange peels, but I bottled it anyway, hoping it would improve with age.

Every so often, when the mood struck me, I would open a bottle of this Orange wine, taste it, and dump it down the drain. It was getting less worse (better) with each tasting, but not something that I liked.

Well last week the mood to try this wine struck me again and I selected a bottle from the cellar. Upon examining it, I noticed it looked kind of dark for an Orange Wine, since my Orange Wine was a white. Intrigued, I took it upstairs to see what happened to make it turn so dark.

Upon opening it, I was greeted with an nice dark red cork and the aroma of grape wine. Could this really be, I thought to myself. When I tasted it, my suspicions were confirmed, I had a 4 year old bottle of Concord Grape Wine! Oh I was so happy!

The 2005 Concord Grape Wine was one of the best Concords I have made. The growing season in my area was perfect. I had the vine pruned correctly. The grapes were very sweet and made an excellent wine. That was the first time I made a good Concord Wine and learned what this under-appreciated grape could produce under the right circumstances.

Needless to say, we enjoyed that wine.

I guess when I was labeling the Orange Wine, one of the Concord Wines got labeled with the Orange Wine label by mistake. I am glad for that mistake.

Let me leave you with a couple of thoughts because of this event. First, give your wine time to age. I am always pleasantly surprised by what a couple of years in the bottle will do for a wine. Second, if a wine is made correctly, but you just don’t like it, bottle some anyway. It will get better with age.

My first instinct was to throw out the Orange Wine. I’m glad I didn’t because if I had, I would not have had the opportunity to enjoy the 4 year old Concord that I did. That experience alone is worth the Orange Wine I do not like.

Enjoy!

September 21st, 2009 | Category: Wine Making | Comments Off