Thank you Frederick - that's more the kind of feedback I was digging
for. Especially appreciate your SG relative to sweetness listings - I
usually judge that by residual sugar, but it's more helpful at this
stage to estimate it by SG. Thanks.
I went ahead and started the wine (recipe #2 - the sweet wine) day
before eyesterday. I first pressed out a bunch of plums and ran tests
against that juice (SG, TA, pH). I then tinkered with the amount of
sugar to achieve what I hoped would be a satisfactory residual sugar
(after first selecting a yeast that has an alcohol tolerance opf only
14%). I did adjust acid (tartaric).
It's fermenting away now, and I'm testing the SG twice a day.
Somewhere around halfway down I'll test taste and acid again and make
any final nudges one way or the other. Then cross fingers.
Intersting ancedote: the plum juice has considerable titratable
acidity - 1.1, but a high pH - 3.97. After adding sugar and water,
then adjusting back with tartaric acid, I was able to get the acidity
into more 'normal' ranges for a wine --- .85 TA, and 3.49 pH. We'll
see how those numbers look at the halfway point and again after
primary.
R
In article >
"frederickploegman" > wrote:
> Ax
>
> The second recipe on Jack's site is a kind of "old fashioned"
> recipe for a sweet wine. Trying to design such a recipe "by
> the numbers" can get very complicated indeed. Most folks
> can't handle it or just don't want to be bothered. In the old
> days this was done by trial and error rather than "by the
> numbers".
>
> The easy way is to use the "modern" method. Make the first
> recipe there. The dry one. Original pH ~3.6. If no Tartaric
> acid is used, the pH will drop during the ferment. If Tartaric
> is used, set original pH at <3.5. OG ~1.090-1.100. You
> need this little bit of extra alcohol because adding post
> ferment sugar will dilute the wine and you don't want the
> end alcohol to drop below 10%ABV. Use a strong yeast
> such as P. Cuvee to insure it goes bone dry. Ferment and
> clear. Add sorbate and sweeten to taste. Take an end SG
> reading so you know what your perference in sweetness is
> for future reference.
>
> There are lots of kinds of plums and not all of them are
> created equal. For older recipes you can usually "assume"
> they are talking about the prune plum. If you have some
> other kind, you will have to guesstimate the quantity needed
> for the flavor intensity you want. Start with the recipe as
> given and see how it turns out. HTH
>
> Frederick
>
> PS - FWIW. An old sweetness scale that I used to use
> went something like this:
>
> 0.990 to 1.000 was the dry to off dry range.
> 1.000 to 1.008 was the medium dry to medium sweet range.
> 1.008 and over was the sweet range. Late harvest type
> wines generally run in the low teens. Port style wines in the
> mid 20's. Ice wines in the low 50's. And some kosher wines
> well up into the 60's.
>
> But, bottom line, it's still like asking "...how sweet is sweet..."
> HTH
>
>
>
> "AxisOfBeagles" > wrote in message
> ...
>> Appreciate the responses - but maybe I was unclear. I was looking
>> for any metrics for a sweet (dessert) plum wine that others may
>> have; what ideal sugar levels should be; what acidity should be;
>> etc. I can measure these things, but neither the recipe, nor my past
>> grapes winemaking experience give me any insight as to what the
>> target numbers should be a sweet plum wine.
>> Thanks for any suggestions.
>>
--
I'm using an evaluation license of nemo since 49 days.
You should really try it!
http://www.malcom-mac.com/nemo