Weird wine colour

[gitface]

Hi All

I'm posting this as I'm not sure what is going on with the colour of a recently started wine.

I recently posted in the recipe section my Rosehip and Damson wine I was making. This was started on Monday and I racked it off the pulp on Friday. During this it would seem that I had underestimated the amount of juice that would come out the fruit so I decided that since the sg was 1.000 that the extra must left over after topping up (about 400ml) I would put in a bottle and remove any excess space and mix it back in when the main had finished fully fermenting.

So to make sure I didn't get a bottle boom I stabilised and added campden and as I said squeezed to bottle to remove the air, figuring if there was any residual fermenting going on then the bottle had plenty of room to move before going bang.

Within 10 minutes of sealing the bottle up I noticed that I'd got a lot of separation and the colour of the wine was a pale cream, were as I was expecting a more rose red from the hips. What has also thrown me is the main bulk that is still fermenting is still red as shown in the pick below.



One on the right is the still fermenting and crushed bottle on the right is the over spill. It looks a little browner in he pick as my camera phone white balance is off and has warmed the picture up.

Mark............

[kirk]

A lot of the colour in the fermenting ones will be the yeast, which tends towards pale brown.
The fermentation will also take colour out of the must, it reduces as it is fermented and to get colour in also requires that the skins are well coloured and in the ferment.

The pale bottle simply may have little colour in it owing to not a lot of fermenting time, damsons have a pale flesh and a pale juice, basically colourless. Hips are a light colour as well, they are not going to add a great deal to the resultant colour. If you had looked at the hips after fermentation they would still have been pink, so not much from them.

If you make blackberry wine say 3-4 lbs in a gallon this would come out a pale red, somewhat rose in colour, and that is 3-4 lbs of blackberrys.

Rosehips will impart a slight reddish tinge to an otherwise pale wine, if there is sufficent of them, and if you go looking for it.

[gitface]

I knew I was not going to get a lot of colour but was expecting a light rose as the rosehips were the main ingredient and included a lot of juice. I think what's throwing me is the small bottle cleared in ten minutes to leave the pale colour.

The main is starting to slow now and some of the suspended crap is starting to fall out and you can see a distinct colour band with the top being a darker, richer red and the bottom a brown red. So I guess I'll just have to wait and see what happens.

Still looks strange

Mark............

[kirk]

I have a stranger one. It is getting darker, and by that I mean DARK
Usually they lighten up somewhat, this has gotten to the stage that shining a 1 Watt LED bicycle torch through it is difficult to see on the other side of the 1 gallon DJ.
It isn't exactly a naturally dark wine, it is a mead, water, honey, acid, nutrient etc with about 1lb raspberrys thrown in.
Hold it up to a sunny window and you cannot see the sun through it.
And it is clear, not sediment and no suspension.

I also made one as just mead, no raspberry's, that is a deep rich amber. Several shades deeper then the honey it was made from and that disregards the water added. This one you can just see the torch light through it.

It smell OK, and tastes pretty good.
What the hell is going on with it I have no idea.

I would rather have your problem then mine.

Yeasts I have found do 2 things:
They extract colour from the fruit skins etc, and,
They reduce colour in the must.

Depending on which is the most prevalent will I suspect determine the final colour balance. Perhaps what gives the rose hips their colour is something that the yeast feeds on so destroys the colour from them.

Actually amazed that a redcurrent I made has come out as red as it has, that was about 5 or 6 lbs of redcurrents in a gallon. Had a large crop from a bush and they all went in a couple of years ago.

Have a sarch round and see if there is a yeast that preserves the colour more, I suspect one aimed at the red wine production side, and maybe for the 13-15% area. I could understand a higher alcohol yeast removing colour.

[lockwood1956]

The yeast wont remove or add colour, fermentation on skins normally extracts colour, thats why we do pulp ferments. to maximise colour extraction.
Extra enzymes such as rohapect c or even pectolase will aid in colour extraction during fermentation.

hope that helps
regards
bob

[goldseal]

The sulphite in the campden tablet will take colour out, too.