Newbie here in need of some advice.

[NCFCcrazy]

Firstly hello, I am actually a really keen gardener and have been training some grape vines in the garden for the last couple of years. This year, for the first time, I actually have enough to make some wine.

So, I though I would have a crack at some red wine which is already on the go. The grapes have been put in a straining bag in a fermenting bucket, mashed up, left for a week and have now drained away the must.

All good so far, however the remaining liquid is very cloudy and adding finings has not made much difference. Could this be Pectin haze? If so, how do I deal with this?

I had planned to syphon it off into a demi-john this evening, and then "Racking" its off again at a later date. Should I add more finings at this stage?


As with most things, I dont do things by half. I have picked a stack of Sloes so starting some sloe gin and then plan to make wine with whats left.

I also followed some recipes on this forum to start of some Blueberry wine from Blueberry juice. Was a little annoyed though to find that the expensive branded Juice actually has less Blueberrys than the cheap supermarket brand!!

I noticed too that many recipes include a cup of tea, what is the purpose of that? I havent added that yet though, want to understand it first.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Welcome to the forum.

You can buy powdered tannin which is a bit of a pain to mix in as it tends to clump or you can use very strong black tea, put 3 teabags in a mug of boiling water and stir it evey couple of minutes while you put the rest of the recipe together.

 

[chewie]

If your using real fruit its best to add the pectolase to your grape mash as it will help give you quite a bit more juice due to it breaking down the fruit on a cellular level, its best to do this at fermentation temps a day before you add yeast.

The tea is to replicate the tannin that is in fruit skins, it can also be added in powdered form, i just throw in 1/2 mug of stewed tea per gallon DJ, if you want the wine to have more bite like you would perhaps feel with a mug of tea with 4 teabags in it then adjust accordingly, white wines have lower tannins present usually than red's as whites are traditionally not fermented with there skins.

 

[NCFCcrazy]

Ah, ok, so the grape mash wasn't need tannin but the blueberry will.

Thanks.

 

[NCFCcrazy]

Ah, ok, so the grape mash wasn't need tannin but the blueberry will.

Thanks.

Sloe wine started tonight, had 14lb of sloes so have done 2 bottles of gin and the rest used for wine. I have added pectolase and have now added yeast so should be rocking by the morning.

Another question. Is there a detrimental effect by adding too much yeast?