Comments for Frugal Wine Making

Comment on Wine Class November 16, 2011 by John

John — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 15:58:14 +0000

Yes, I will be making Elderberry wine from the elderberries I got from you.

In answer to your question about white specs floating on the wine, this may be “Flowers of wine”. This can be caused by Mycoderma, which if left unchecked can spoil the wine. To treat this, rack the wine into a clean sanitized carboy, and treat with 1-2 campden tablets per gallon of wine. Mycoderma needs oxygen to survive, so make sure you top up the carboy with wine or water to minimize the amount of head space in the carboy. If it starts to come back after treating with campden tablets, the next step is to sterile filter the wine. The sterile filters are fine filters, so you would have to filter the wine twice, once with medium filters and the second time with sterile filters. The sterile filters clog up easily, which is why you have to filter it with the medium filter first. You can still save the wine at this point, but I would definitely treat it if it was my wine just to be safe.

Comment on Wine Class November 16, 2011 by Glenn Marsch

Glenn Marsch — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 05:45:27 +0000

Hi, John

Will you be using those elderberries that you harvisted from my house? How is that process going? I have racked the wine twice that I got from my Marechal Foch grapes. It’s probably going to end up at 11 % alcohol. So far it smells like nice wine and not vinegar, so no acetobacters.

I did notice, after several weeks, there were small white precipitates that formed at the top of the wine. I suspect it is mold plaque, but I am hoping it is precipitate from the Campden tablets. Do you ever get a white precipitate that cyrystallizes at the top of the wine?

I’e tried to keep everything as antiseptic as possible, but I guess not with success…

Comment on Selecting Yeast by admin

admin — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 16:11:13 +0000

Thank you, I’m glad you found the article useful!

I have started wines off the lees of other wines with success. I think the key is to rack the first wine off while it is still fermenting, around 3-4% PA is when I rack. You just gave me a good idea for my next blog post. I have two kits I just started I could use to inoculate the next batches.

(The spelling mistake has been corrected, Thanks!)

Comment on Selecting Yeast by Valerie

Valerie — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 19:07:06 +0000

This is a very helpful article. One of my local wine stores has a convenient chart on the wall, the other one doesn’t (and they charge about 30% less for the same items). I think I’ll bookmark this post on my iphone for future reference.

Have you much experience starting a new batch using the lees or slurry from a previous one? I made a batch over the summer that way. Tried it recently, using my peach wine slurry to start a batch of “Skeeter Pee” (recipe from Jack Keller’s blog). It hadn’t started fermenting yet (weather her just turned much cooler) and I was getting nervous so I dosed it with Lalvin EC1118.

(btw, more folks will find this post on your blog if you correct the spelling — you missed the second ‘L” in LaLvin.)