review of my first wine
 

awhile back, i posted my first wine recipe for critique, the original
recipe can be found he
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.c...b6a6c96a041271

due to delays in my personal life, i haven't had the chance to taste it
until tonight. my initial thought was that it was too dry, but i know i
had a decent amount of sugar for a very sweet wine. after thinking
about it, i suspect that the problem was that i didn't include enough
blueberries. i'm going to eventually try the recipe again a few times,
adding about a pint of blueberries each time.

also, for those of you who have used teabags for tannin, how many bags
would work for a single gallon batch?

and any other advice very highly welcome =)

review of my first wine
 

sdragon1984 wrote:
> ... my initial thought was that it was too dry, but i know i
> had a decent amount of sugar for a very sweet wine.

You really didn't have very much sugar at the start. 3lbs of honey in
a gallon (not added to a gallon) will produce a sweet mead. I'm not
sure how much sugar is in 3 pints of blueberries, but your recipe only
included 2 cups of sugar and 0.25 cups of honey. This is roughly
equivalent to a pound of honey, or maybe just a tad more. Would 3 pints
of blueberries have as much sugar as 2 lbs of honey? I suspect not.

Greg

review of my first wine
 

sdragon1984 wrote "i suspect that the problem was that i didn't include
enough
> blueberries. i'm going to eventually try the recipe again a few times,
> adding about a pint of blueberries each time."

You may know about Jack Keller's winemaking site. If not check out
http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/index.asp. Jack has recipes for blueberry
wine...this may save you lots of experiments.

Bill Frazier
Olathe, Kansas USA

review of my first wine
 

I make blueberry wine every year and I use a minimum of 5 lbs of blueberries
per gallon. On my last batch, the SG read 1.015 before adding any sugar,
which means about 6 oz sugar /gal (or per 5 lbs of fruit, or 1,2 oz of
natural sugar per pound of fruit).

I also tried fresh elderberries as a source of tannin on my last batch.

Marc

> a écrit dans le message de
ups.com...
> sdragon1984 wrote:
> > ... my initial thought was that it was too dry, but i know i
> > had a decent amount of sugar for a very sweet wine.
>
> You really didn't have very much sugar at the start. 3lbs of honey in
> a gallon (not added to a gallon) will produce a sweet mead. I'm not
> sure how much sugar is in 3 pints of blueberries, but your recipe only
> included 2 cups of sugar and 0.25 cups of honey. This is roughly
> equivalent to a pound of honey, or maybe just a tad more. Would 3 pints
> of blueberries have as much sugar as 2 lbs of honey? I suspect not.
>
> Greg
>

review of my first wine
 

wrote:
> sdragon1984 wrote:
> > ... my initial thought was that it was too dry, but i know i
> > had a decent amount of sugar for a very sweet wine.
>
> You really didn't have very much sugar at the start. 3lbs of honey in
> a gallon (not added to a gallon) will produce a sweet mead. I'm not
> sure how much sugar is in 3 pints of blueberries, but your recipe only
> included 2 cups of sugar and 0.25 cups of honey. This is roughly
> equivalent to a pound of honey, or maybe just a tad more. Would 3 pints
> of blueberries have as much sugar as 2 lbs of honey? I suspect not.
>
> Greg

actually, it was double that; the correction was in the second post.

would 9 cups of sugar work better? as for the berries, my main problem
with measuring by the pound is that i don't have a scale at the moment.
about how many pints should i use?

review of my first wine
 

> actually, it was double that; the correction was in the second post.
>
> would 9 cups of sugar work better? as for the berries, my main problem
> with measuring by the pound is that i don't have a scale at the moment.
> about how many pints should i use?

A starting gravity of 1.090 will finish as a dry wine with ~12%
alcohol. To achieve this, you need to start with 2 pounds of sugar. I
use 2.125 (2 and 1/8) as the conversion factor. That is, 2 pounds of
sugar equals approximately 4.25 cups. As far as I can tell, pound for
pound honey and sugar are roughly equivalent.

But if you doubled your original recipe, you would have used about this
much sugar at the start. I would think that would produce a slightly
sweet wine given that the sugar in the berries was in addition to this.

Jack Keller's mixed berry recipe calls for 4 lbs of berries and 2 lbs
of sugar, but he also suggests that you "sweeten to taste" as a final
step. Ultimately, I think that's the best advice. Bulk age for a few
months, stabilize, then sweeten it as your taste buds dictate. After
adding any sugar, give it another month to see if there are any signs
of life before you bottle it.

If you start the batch with the gravity too high (too much sugar) you
may have trouble getting the yeast started and in the end, you may
decide that the resulting wine is too sweet. In that case, your only
option may be to blend with a drier wine.

Regards,

Greg G.

review of my first wine
 

Another wrinkle in this is yeast selection. Some yeasts give up at 12
to 14 percent alcohol, while others can reach 17 or 18 percent fairly
predictably. If you used a champagne yeast, it may have simply consumed
the extra sugar in your must, giving you a drier wine than you planned
for.

This is another good reason to sweeten to taste after fermentation and
bulk aging.

Greg G.

review of my first wine
 

wrote:
> > actually, it was double that; the correction was in the second post.
> >
> > would 9 cups of sugar work better? as for the berries, my main problem
> > with measuring by the pound is that i don't have a scale at the moment.
> > about how many pints should i use?
>
> A starting gravity of 1.090 will finish as a dry wine with ~12%
> alcohol. To achieve this, you need to start with 2 pounds of sugar. I
> use 2.125 (2 and 1/8) as the conversion factor. That is, 2 pounds of
> sugar equals approximately 4.25 cups. As far as I can tell, pound for
> pound honey and sugar are roughly equivalent.
>
> But if you doubled your original recipe, you would have used about this
> much sugar at the start. I would think that would produce a slightly
> sweet wine given that the sugar in the berries was in addition to this.
>
> Jack Keller's mixed berry recipe calls for 4 lbs of berries and 2 lbs
> of sugar, but he also suggests that you "sweeten to taste" as a final
> step. Ultimately, I think that's the best advice. Bulk age for a few
> months, stabilize, then sweeten it as your taste buds dictate. After
> adding any sugar, give it another month to see if there are any signs
> of life before you bottle it.
>
> If you start the batch with the gravity too high (too much sugar) you
> may have trouble getting the yeast started and in the end, you may
> decide that the resulting wine is too sweet. In that case, your only
> option may be to blend with a drier wine.
>
> Regards,
>
> Greg G.

so I had the sugar right? I think i probably could have gotten away
with another cup, but at least now I know that 4 1/2 cups of sugar is
enough. I don't need to alter that anytime soon.

Yes, i really think there just wasn't enough blueberries. my next few
batches of blueberry wine will take in more (again, no scale, but if i
just adjust the blueberies one pint at a time...).

review of my first wine
 

> Another wrinkle in this is yeast selection. Some yeasts give up at 12
> to 14 percent alcohol, while others can reach 17 or 18 percent fairly
> predictably. If you used a champagne yeast, it may have simply consumed
> the extra sugar in your must, giving you a drier wine than you planned
> for.


Just a heads up about Red Star Champagne Yeast; it's actually the
opposite. It doesn't ferment to higher alcohol; it seems like a silly
name for that yeast. I do agree there are yeasts out there that get to
the alcohols Greg mentions though. I think Lalvins K1V 1116 gets up
there. When I do sparklers I use one yeast for the initial
fermentation then switch to another when I add my carbonating sugar. I
usually use D47 at first and switch to EC1118. (I use Lalvin because
it works for me, just a personal preference.)

Joe

review of my first wine
 

>> Another wrinkle in this is yeast selection. Some yeasts give up at 12
>> to 14 percent alcohol, while others can reach 17 or 18 percent fairly
>> predictably. If you used a champagne yeast, it may have simply consumed
>> the extra sugar in your must, giving you a drier wine than you planned
>> for.

> Just a heads up about Red Star Champagne Yeast; it's actually the
> opposite. It doesn't ferment to higher alcohol; it seems like a silly
> name for that yeast. I do agree there are yeasts out there that get to
> the alcohols Greg mentions though. I think Lalvins K1V 1116 gets up
> there. When I do sparklers I use one yeast for the initial
> fermentation then switch to another when I add my carbonating sugar. I
> usually use D47 at first and switch to EC1118. (I use Lalvin because
> it works for me, just a personal preference.)

Lalvin works for me also. My preferences are (in order) DV10,
EC-1118, K1V-1118, and D47. D47 has a 14% ATL (alcohol toxicity
level). The others have an 18% ATL. They all have a LFTB (lower
fermentation temperature bound) of 50F (10C). EC-1118 has a LFTB
of 45.6F (7C).

Yeast die due to age/starvation, alcohol toxicity, and heat which
are inter-related. While cold fermentation (my preference) takes
longer, it reduces the effect of heat on the yeast and increases
the ATL. This results in a shorter age/starvation period which
translates into less time between secondary storage and bottling
and a lower probability of fermentation after bottling.

Dick

review of my first wine
 

A strong suggestion. If you are really going to make several batchs of
wine, get a hydrometer. It may seem scary to use such a tool but they are
cheap (less than $10) and they are really VERY easy to use. They will turn
the about of sugar used from a guess to a science. You really will get it
right. If you get confused, any of us will help you out.

If you think your wine is too dry, add some sugar. I would rather make dry
wine with the alcohol level I want and then sweeten it to taste. If you try
to add enough sugar to make it sweet at the start the yeast will just eat
more and make more alcohol. That is OK if all you want is alchohol, but
15-16% alcohol does not make good wine. It makes strong wine.

Ray

"sdragon1984" > wrote in message
oups.com...
> awhile back, i posted my first wine recipe for critique, the original
> recipe can be found he
> http://groups.google.com/group/rec.c...b6a6c96a041271
>
> due to delays in my personal life, i haven't had the chance to taste it
> until tonight. my initial thought was that it was too dry, but i know i
> had a decent amount of sugar for a very sweet wine. after thinking
> about it, i suspect that the problem was that i didn't include enough
> blueberries. i'm going to eventually try the recipe again a few times,
> adding about a pint of blueberries each time.
>
> also, for those of you who have used teabags for tannin, how many bags
> would work for a single gallon batch?
>
> and any other advice very highly welcome =)
>
>