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Author Topic: Watery wine - Help  (Read 16564 times)

Dans

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Watery wine - Help
« on: May 23, 2015, 02:58:46 pm »
Well I've been brewing coming on 10 years now. I was always taught 3lbs of sugar to 3lbs of fruit roughly, allanson's bread yeast, one week in a pot stirring daily, 6 weeks in a fermenter, taste and go from there. Generally that worked really well for us, though we had quite a few wines that needed longer, but really nice tasting wines, some a little sweet for other's liking.

Last year I got myself a hydrometer and thought maybe I should be getting a bit more technical with this. Had a year of not doing much brewing (damn phd) but ended up with a freezer full of fruit. Housebound and pregnant and looking to move I thought I'd get my brew on again.

Ended up adding on average 2lbs of sugar to 3lbs of fruit to get a decent reading on the hydrometer to start wines off (between 1.070 and 1.100) and used an actual wine yeast for half of them. Cleared out my freezer of fruit and started tasting last week. They are awful. Every single one of them. Watery and thin, barely any fruit or alcohol taste to any of them and hydrometer says the sugar is completely fermented out. I even tasted a wine that had only been in the fermenter a week (So 2 weeks since the yeast went in) and it was the same. No sugar left and watery as anything. I just don't quite understand what happened?  ???

Anyone know where I went wrong? I'm guessing not enough sugar but it seems such a drastic change considering it was only 1lb less.

Think I shall be going back to my 3lbs to 3lbs again after this, and will try adding sugar to the wines we have done and see if they are salvageable, but it seems like such a waste. Starting to think some things are more of an art than a science. Either that or pregnant women are cursed for brewing. Never had such a bad brewing year.

Dans

1 gallon of white currant
1 gallon black currant
1 gallon of alpine strawberry
1 gallon or raspberry
1 gallon gooseberry
1 gallon of bean wine (yeah I wasn't expecting much from that)
5 gallons of elderflower

 :'(
« Last Edit: May 23, 2015, 04:50:41 pm by Dans »
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Bionic

  • Joined Dec 2010
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Re: Watery wine - Help
« Reply #1 on: May 23, 2015, 04:09:31 pm »
Dans, I'm not very good with wine (making it that is but if you need a taster  ;D ) I don't even understand my hydrometer. Have you made wine with frozen fruit before? I am just wondering if that is the problem.
 
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doganjo

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Re: Watery wine - Help
« Reply #2 on: May 23, 2015, 04:13:39 pm »
There will be more water in frozen fruit so did you cut down on the liquid added?
Always have been, always will be, a WYSIWYG - black is black, white is white - no grey in my life! But I'm mellowing in my old age

Dans

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Re: Watery wine - Help
« Reply #3 on: May 23, 2015, 04:50:24 pm »
We tend to always make from frozen fruit so it's the same amount of water as it has always been. About 3L of water to 3lba of frozen soft fruit gives a gallon once it goes into the demijohn. We always get a good wine from these fruits (not the bean as that was an utter experiment), but it does vary between years so we wanted consistency so thought we'd try being more exact measuring the sugar, but it seems our consistent product is pants lol.

We pick the fruit as it becomes available over the summer then brew in the autumn/winter/spring when we have more time. My hubby's Mum does the same most years from her garden and brings up to us frozen at the end of the season.

Only differences I can tell are:
1) less sugar
2) new yeast but only for some of the wines

Everything else has been done the same as we have done for years. We sterilise everything as we go as well so that shouldn't be an issue.

Only other thing I can think is we have some wild yeast that has gotten in and is affecting the wines when they are in the pot for a week. I've got one more on the go now, still with the reduced sugar and I have tried adding a campden tablet before adding my yeast just in case that is what has happened. I've got some red and white currants left in the freezer and think the wine I start with them as a mixed wine will be going back to the 3lbs of sugar unless I can work out what is wrong.  :(

Dans


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Dans

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Re: Watery wine - Help
« Reply #4 on: May 23, 2015, 04:53:08 pm »
I don't even understand my hydrometer.


I could help you out with the hydrometer. We've used it before to calculate wine strength, just seems when I add the amount of sugar it tells me to for a good wine I get water *sigh*

You need to take a hydrometer reading at the start of the wine making and at the end. It basically looks at how much sugar is there at the start and how much is there at the end. From that you can do a quick calculation (there are calculators on the net) that tells you how much sugar your yeast has turned to alcohol and thus how alcoholic your wine is.

Dans
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oldwolf

  • Joined Sep 2010
  • Livingston
Re: Watery wine - Help
« Reply #5 on: May 24, 2015, 08:29:31 pm »
Have used these fruit varieties before and got good results?  Insipid country wine is usually caused by a lack of tannin, some of them will require more tannin than others I use strong tea, this is what gives wine its bite, you should also be adding some acid (lemon or orange)
Generally for 1 gallon of wine I would use 1kg of sugar
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pgkevet

  • Joined Jul 2011
Re: Watery wine - Help
« Reply #6 on: May 25, 2015, 06:08:16 pm »
I;ve read around the subject at times but never got as far as brewing.
My logic suggests that the starting point should be to try and assess the sugar level in the fruit juice before embarking on dilution and then work out roughly your added water/sugar depending on how alcohoholic you want the wine and that also depends on the yeast variety.
Back in my schooldays it was considered that yeasts died off at 12% alcohol but I understad that yeast strains now can survive to 18-20% (so called super yeasts) with some beer yeasts apparently able to push towards 25% - heck that's nearly spirits levels
The fruit sugar level will obviously vary with seasons weather and may also require additions of yeast nutrients.

Throw is some more fruit and sugar and ferment it again

cloddopper

  • Joined Jun 2013
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Re: Watery wine - Help
« Reply #7 on: May 29, 2015, 11:27:40 pm »
Not trying to teach me granny to suck eggs .. What temperature  did you take the hydrometer readings at?  Is it a wine hydrometer .........isn't it ???

Have you checked your weighing scales with a packet of butter to see if they generally agree on the weight especially if you have digital electronic scales ... guess why I've asked that question ?

 Look up the Pearson square for calculating the alcohol levels .
 If you add a sugar syrup that is warm  a quarter to half a pint at a time  to a fermented out wine you can often take the alcohol levels up to 14 to 16 %.

I found that frozen fruits never gave such a food result as quality fresh especially if the fruit is over 6 months old as it tends to berak down due to the high acid contents.
Adding a bottle of cheap brandy to five gallons of poor wine and a couple of table spoons of glycerine  can give some amazing smoothness and depth that will really warm your tummy if it is finally racked off and left to mature for several months.

 Adding a mashed up ripe banana is also good for adding to the initial gallon of must.
 You used to be able to buy a sort of glass tulip on a glass stem  that has a microbore running through it, so that when you run filtered alcohol through it the weight of liquid drops down to the alcohol reading found present at a specific temperature .

 I found that this tulip alcohol tester and my maths using the Pearson square & wine hydrometer were  very close to each other all the time .


 
Strong belief , triggers the mind to find the way ... Dyslexia just makes it that bit more amusing & interesting

Dans

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Re: Watery wine - Help
« Reply #8 on: May 30, 2015, 01:09:40 am »
Yep used the fruit varieties before (from our garden and my MILs), never added any citric acid or tannin, the guy who taught me to brew used a very simplified method, hence my trying to be a bit more 'sciency' with it now!

Pgkevet yep that's pretty much the line I was going down. Check how much sugar there was in fruit to start, add more sugar to the desired point then let it brew.

Cloddopper you may be onto something with the length of time the fruit was stored, and also possible defrosts/refrosts affecting quality. We have always used frozen fruit but it tended to be that I would brew in the autumn after we had all the fruits harvested, these sat until spring in the freezer and were moved between freezers and reweighed sometime Dec/Jan.

I did actually inherit one of those tulip style testers from a homebrewer, unfortunately it rolled off of a kitchen worktop during a move :-(

Hydrometer readings were taken between 20 and 24C with my wine hydrometer being marked as needing 20C. I've been using this online calculator which does have an option to adjust for differences in temperature:

http://winemakersacademy.com/wine-alcohol-content-calculator/

I'll look up the method you give. The batteries were going on the scale so that could have also affected the amount of sugar, but it shouldn't have been by too much as it's roughly 1lb of sugar that my bowls hold and I used 2 of them for each wine. I'll make sure and calibrate next time, new batteries in now.

The wines are stopped (potassium sorbate), although I'm starting to think that my hydrometer is broken as the white currant and black currant said they had no sugar left but noticed yesterday that they are still popping despite the potassium sorbate! Going to have a go at the oldest one tomorrow (gooseberry and we've never had a bad batch of it before) adding some sugar to see if that helps the taste. If not I may go down your brandy route (although the bean one may get used as slug bait!). Gonna be hubby doing the repeated tastings though as I've got 10 days left before I'm due to pop this baby out!

Thanks for the help and the ideas guys. I feel a bit despairing each time I walk into the kitchen and see the demi-johns at the moment. Was half tempted just to pour them all down the drain the other day, but that may be the hormones.

Dans



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Fleecewife

  • Joined May 2010
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Re: Watery wine - Help
« Reply #9 on: May 30, 2015, 12:03:18 pm »
Maybe the ancients with their old wives tales are correct and pregnant ladies shouldn't make beer - or in this case wine  :D :D  It won't be long til you can try again once your wee girl arrives.
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Dans

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Re: Watery wine - Help
« Reply #10 on: May 30, 2015, 12:22:23 pm »
Maybe the ancients with their old wives tales are correct and pregnant ladies shouldn't make beer - or in this case wine  :D :D  It won't be long til you can try again once your wee girl arrives.

I hadn't heard about it being an old wives tale, but I'm actually inclined to believe. Starting to think that some kind of pregnancy pheromone ruins wine. I have a lemon wine that went on months ago, using my normal 3lb sugar to 3lb fruit ratio, no tannins or anything extra added and that is still popping away and tasting good. These new wines are running out of sugar in 2 weeks. Think I am cursed...

Dans
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Womble

  • Joined Mar 2009
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Re: Watery wine - Help
« Reply #11 on: May 30, 2015, 02:34:16 pm »
Could you use the freezer to concentrate it up a bit, as you would with applejack?
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Dans

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Re: Watery wine - Help
« Reply #12 on: May 30, 2015, 02:56:46 pm »
Woohoo, had a play with the gooseberry. Ended up adding a pound of sugar in post fermentation and it is good. It's not as good as the gooseberry normally is but I would have drunk the rest of the last taster glass if I wasn't carrying this baby! Better than I thought it would ever get. The gooseberry taste is back (my hubby couldn't work out what fruit it was made from at the first taste). :thumbsup:

The raspberry that I put on last, and used a campden tablet before adding the yeast, has had 2 weeks now and was also tasted. It's started to go the way of the others so hopefully caught it early enough that if we stop it and add some sugar it will still be up to the normal quality.

Also tasted the lemon that I started in my first trimester and it is pretty much perfect. Feeling much better about the brewing now and hubby is feeling quite tipsey as he was doing pretty much all the tasting.  :excited:

Will add sugar to the others and once this baby is out I'll try my mixed white and red currant wine, see if I am free of the curse!

Dans - looking forward to a glass of lemon wine this summer.
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Dans

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Re: Watery wine - Help
« Reply #13 on: May 30, 2015, 02:57:12 pm »
Could you use the freezer to concentrate it up a bit, as you would with applejack?

What is applejack?

Dans
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doganjo

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Re: Watery wine - Help
« Reply #14 on: May 30, 2015, 02:59:50 pm »
Followed the link David put up - "Applejack was historically made by concentrating cider, either by the traditional method of freeze distillation or by true evaporative distillation. The term "applejack" derives from "jacking", a term for freeze distillation."
Always have been, always will be, a WYSIWYG - black is black, white is white - no grey in my life! But I'm mellowing in my old age

 

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