Hot answers tagged wine
5
I think secondary "fermentation" is kind of a misnomer, since fermentation is largely complete by this point. It's more of a secondary "clarification" stage where yeast and other stuff falls out to the vessel bottom.
Given this, I think it would certainly be safe to try. All of the alcohol is already in there, acting as a natural preservative. If anything ...
3
I've never had a problem with it (come to think of it, I've never bothered to check if my raisins were processed with oil).
I would not advise pre-boiling the raisins (or the strawberries!) as you are probably going to lose a signficant amount of tannins and other compounds that are desirable in your wine. That's why you use them after all. If you are ...
2
Yes, you can make mead without campden tablets. I only use them for stabilizing the mead at the end. 1 campden tablet per gallon to ensure fermentation does not kick back up. I have never added them to the beginning.
Some people will pasteurize/boil their meads, claiming that pasteurization will kill all impurities. That is an old school mentality, as ...
2
I think the neck diameter for screw top water bottles is smaller than corked bottles. That is, I don't think a cork will fit that bottle. If you can find a closure that gives a good seal, the other factors shouldn't matter, though without the atmosphere exchange provided by a cork, the wine will not "age" in the bottle. Since the glass is clear, keep the ...
2
The oxidation in wine you get from vigorous degassing is minimal compared to beer, and those flavors are actually beneficial.
The cardboard or paper flavors that brewers fear from post fermentation oxidation are a result melanoidin based molecules. Melanoidins are very low in wine.
They sell those wine whips that attach to a drill for a reason. Whip away ...
1
If it's just a little (a few centimetres) sediment at the bottom, then I'd say to just pour slowly when you near the bottom of the bottle, and try to avoid shaking/disturbing the bottle too much when handling and transporting. Wine I've bought commercially sometimes has sediment and as long as you're careful, it's not a major problem.
If it really is as ...
1
I go through this with many gallons of wine in our kegs. In time, all sediment drops out, most within 1 week of transfer. This might seem too obvious and simple, but you must give it time. Any more "movement" and you will get more oxidation than you want.
Rajanatha
Head Brewer of Kauai's Hindu Monastery
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It's said that lemon juice and raisins can provide nutrients to the yeast. Despite the fact that "yeast nutrient" is an ingredient in the dandelion wine recipe I'm using, so are lemon pulp and raisins, so maybe it will be okay in the end.
My official answer is 2 Tbsp of brewer's yeast. Time will tell...
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You should be agitating the wine or mead without sloshing it. The agitation happens under the surface, which causes the co2 to be released. There should be little or no motion on the surface, and certainly no splashing.
This next point is a bit controversial - for mead, don't worry about oxidization - the oxidization of honey is apparently actually ...
1
I'd say you might be fine. Since a carboy has a slim neck, you probably didn't get too much oxygen in while the CO2 escaped. Is there any reaon not to do the "puff" test now?
If you were to bottle with a lot of gas in the bottles, you could get exploding bottles, corks shooting off or simply sparkling wine - depending on the amount of CO2 left.
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Honey is aseptic. The water content is too low for microorganisms to develop, so there is no need to pasteurize or use campden. Campden is used in winemaking to eliminate the wild yeasts which exist on grape skins, this helps ensure a more consistent product by eliminating the variation introduced by wild yeasts. None of this is necessary with mead and in ...
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