Orange & Pineapple wine from 1L carton - advice please re sweetening

[Guest]

Hi,

I'm relatively new to wine making and would appreciate some feed back.

I need to sweeten some orange & pineapple wine I made. When I checked the SG first time around it was off the scale!!!!! OOOOPS! After adding 4oz of sugar (29/07/07) it is now down to 0.993 and still tastes disgusting (too dry and strongly alcoholic!!)

I'm concerned that if I keep adding more sugar it will start to referment. I'm also not sure how to calculate how much sugar to add to a demijohn to get this wine to somewhere around an SG of 1.0.

I have racked the wine once (23/07/07) and added one campden tablet. There's currently a sediment of about 4mm in the demijohn and the wine isn't quite clear.

I used the following recipe:-

1Litre of orange and pineapple juice from Morissons.
1KG Sugar
1 tsp Youngs wine yeast
1 tsp Tannin
1tsp Pectolase
1 tsp Nutrient
1/4 tsp citric acid.

Any comments on how to improve the wine would be appreciated. Thanks

[Hippie]

You need to stabilize with sorbate, wait a month, sweeten to taste, degas, clear, bottle. The clearing part could take months.

[StockeyDAW]

Hi,

I'm relatively new to wine making and would appreciate some feed back.

I need to sweeten some orange & pineapple wine I made. When I checked the SG first time around it was off the scale!!!!! OOOOPS! After adding 4oz of sugar (29/07/07) it is now down to 0.993 and still tastes disgusting (too dry and strongly alcoholic!!)

I'm concerned that if I keep adding more sugar it will start to referment. I'm also not sure how to calculate how much sugar to add to a demijohn to get this wine to somewhere around an SG of 1.0.

I have racked the wine once (23/07/07) and added one campden tablet. There's currently a sediment of about 4mm in the demijohn and the wine isn't quite clear.

I used the following recipe:-

1Litre of orange and pineapple juice from Morissons.
1KG Sugar
1 tsp Youngs wine yeast
1 tsp Tannin
1tsp Pectolase
1 tsp Nutrient
1/4 tsp citric acid.

Any comments on how to improve the wine would be appreciated. Thanks

Hippie is correct! It takes more than a couple of weeks to make a batch. I would rack again, degas - add one more campden and let it clear and age for approximately 6 months.

I would prepare a sugar syrup - 2 cups of sugar and 1 cup of water - boil on the stove until clear approx. 1 minute, let cool and then you can use this to do the sweetening - add slowly and taste every so ofter to get it to you likes. Hippie stressed the sorbate - don't forget this and make sure you add correct amount -- to much sorbate will make the wine taste like geraniums add the sugar syrup to taste stir to make sure it is mixed in well. You can then filter if that is your preference or bottle. Cheers DAW Pineapple/orange- pineapple/banana or pineapple/coconut that works for my taste also..

[madscientist]

Thank you to both of you.

Thanks for the hints.......I'm now off to read about sorbate and degassing.

I've a lot to learn, so thanks for being patient with a beginner. I'm sure to you old hands it seems simple, but I'm still finding my way!

Thanks again.

[madscientist]

Thank you all for your comments - wine now maturing

Wine is now a lot better.

Not sure I've degassed it, but the SG is now nearly 1.0 ( after adding the sugar syrup concoction) and it is starting to look at lot clearer. Still got it on my kitchen side though, keeping an eye on it. Temporarily covered in newspaper in the hope that keeping the light out will stop any convection currents starting.

So it's now wait and see.

So I started a Ribena wine so that I've got something else to watch too!

[Duffbeer]

Wine is now a lot better.

Not sure I've degassed it, but the SG is now nearly 1.0 ( after adding the sugar syrup concoction) and it is starting to look at lot clearer. Still got it on my kitchen side though, keeping an eye on it. Temporarily covered in newspaper in the hope that keeping the light out will stop any convection currents starting.

So it's now wait and see.

So I started a Ribena wine so that I've got something else to watch too!

Lmao welcome to the crazy world of winemaking.
You have it bad too?

[madscientist]

Curiosity I think

Yep, I've succumbed. It all started out from an argument at school whether wine making was biology or chemisty.

Having never tried to make any wine, I thought I should really try it and see what happens.

Now I appear to be hooked. My husband is amazed as I normally don't have the patience to wait a year!!

In Asda today tinned strawberries were 33p, so I will also be making the strawberry wine mentioned in the tinned section. Debating whether to add some raspberry to it as well, as I bought a tin.

I also read Lockwood's article on SO2 and trying to think out a method for testing it myself. So lots happening here. Even put together my 42 bottle wine rack yesterday. Desperately trying to hold off bottling a demijohn of white wine (from a kit) that I made in early June, but running out of demijohns!

Still it's a great distraction from my continuing studies!

How did you start?

[lockwood1956]

Do you have access to lab equipment?

if so see here for a method of accurately testing for SO2

http://www.winepress.us/forums/index.php?showtopic=10147

posted by Jay Spence (hes gone commercial now)


I'm still not sure if I understand it properly, I have test kits that can test white wines, but for reds, the colour change is difficult to see


oooo and I got into winemaking because we bought a house that had lots and lots of fruit trees in the garden (there are now grape vines there too!)

[lockwood1956]

The raspberries may add a little sharpness to it, I make the strawberry on its own and it is really nice, but experimentation is always a good thig, let us know how it turns out.

regards
Bob

[lockwood1956]

You may also wish to consider using Glycerene as a sweetener/body additive, and perhaps even some artificial sweeteners that cant referment, just another option. The wine sweetener sold in home brew shops doesnt have the nasty aftertaste normally associated with artificial sweeteners. I use it in my strawberry wine and it works just fine. Not used glycerine in it yet though, but I will on my next batch (I can buy Glycerene for £10 a gallon now)

some of the guys have tasted my strawberry wine so they can give you some extra feedback (they didnt know it contained artificial sweeteners when they drank it though )

regards
Bob

[madscientist]

Thanks Lockwood

Thank you for your comments Lockwood.

I have printed the SO2 testing article, but I didn't understand it on my first read through. Seemed complicated to me. Got to put my thinking cap on!

I will also try the glycerine. The original wine that started this thread is now clearing, but definitely needs sweetening even more. At the moment the alcohol still hits you!

I'll let you know if I progress with the article on SO2 testing. I've a feeling I will be chatting to a chemist about it!

The Ribena wine has been started, but I don't think it will work as I think I overdosed on the Ribena! The SG was off the scale, and after 10 days of fermentation was still in the 'start wine' range on the SG scale! Still it could well be excellent for cooking with summer fruit!!

I'm a firm believer in just giving things a try and learning from my 'experiments'! I think the Ribena wine could well fit into the 'experiment' category!

[lockwood1956]

ALL of my wines fit into the "experiment" category I think

I still cant get a handle on the SO2 thing that fat boy Jay posted, but I'm trying as he swears by the method, I thought with your username, you may have been a chemist!

SO2 test kits are available in the UK from vigo

http://www.vigoltd.com/commercial/productInfo.asp?id=118

they run about £55, gfreat for white wines, but it is very difficult to see the colour change in Red wines

Brouwland also do SO2 test kits too and will do mail order to the UK, or your home brew shop may be able to order stuff from them for you
http://www.brouwland.com item No 013.060.9 its 60 euros + P+P

hope this helps

regards
Bob

[madscientist]

More SO2 stuff

Thanks Bob for your help and guidance.

After reading a little bit more I found this article.

http://www.brsquared.org/wine/

Don't attempt to read the lot in one go, it's quite technical, but I hope it helps you.

Go straight to the section describing testing for SO2. It will describe the standard Ripper method and the AO or Rankin Method that is described in your post and their associated problems.

I've obviously got more reading to do when I get time. From what I've gathered so far this is a problem for the wine industry too. Quick whiz on Google bought up research articles into Amalgamated piezoelectric sensors for measuring free SO2. (Analytica Chimica Acta Vol 535, issues 1-2 , 11 April 2005, pg 65 - 72).

So it seems the wine industry have only recently been successful at research level, and even the above method had small inaccuracies!

They still manage to turn out decent wine, so I'm sure for our purposes the Ripper and Rankin methods must be sufficient. You could always use both!

[lockwood1956]

The guy that wrote those articles (Ben Rotter) is a member here, and is one of the most respected dudes on T'internet

its a great site he has isnt it?

[lockwood1956]

The Australians are blazing the trail when it comes to new thinking, from what I recall it's something like 8% of the worlds wine is made in Australia, but more than 50% of the technical papers on how to do it come from there....