White Grape Juice measurements

Having had too many years of acid grape juice from my vines (in fact every year) I've decided to try and reduce it by adding WGJ.
I bought a litre each from Aldi and Azda.

Aldi - 85p - SG1065 - Acid 3.2ppt H2SO4
Azda - 89p - SG1067 - Acid 4.7ppt H2SO4

The Aldi juice will be fine for reducing my acid (avg 8.7ppt) and the Azda looks good for making TWW (Turbo White Wine) with added sugar and perhaps a little Malic acid.

Time will tell :pray:

 

[battwave]

May I ask what time told?

 

[tonyhibbett]

I posted a reply but it seems to have gone astray.
My grapes (Riesling, I believe) were even worse at 10 ppt., sg 55, but that's because I picked them once the pigeons got to work. But they only eat the ripest ones they can easily reach, at the top of the vine. Taste alone is no good guide to acidity as the sugar masks it.
At this stage, grapes increase the sugar (and reduce acid) at the rate of 1-2% per day (according to the Larousse Dictionary of Wines), so had I waited another week (late October) they would have been much better. I tested this by leaving a few grapes till November and sure enough they were so low in acid, I would have had to add some!
I've started to put up netting ready for next year, and when the time comes I'll test a sample of the less ripe looking ones by titration.
With my grapes, colour is a good guide. The really ripe ones turn gold but quickly get eaten. Perhaps I should pick these first and strip lots of leaves, which may help the rest to ripen more quickly.

 

[evanvine]

With my grapes, colour is a good guide.

Agreed!

To avoid confusion, my alter ego was ericstd!
I grow Chardonnay in my green house, but have major problems with Botrytis.
It appears that winter washing with “tar oil” is not enough, so next season I am going to remove the leaves around the bunches and have an air circulation fan.
The “Botrytis” even manifests it’s self despite fortnightly spraying with systemic and copper fungicides.
I am very open to any advice.
PS. Do you think you may have misread “Larousse” by a factor of 10; surely 0.1 – 0.2% per day, if that?

 

[screamlead]

What we do here in turkey is once the grapes are fully formed - late august here - we cut off all the long trailing shoots and extra growth from the vines - this in effect forces all the nutrients etc into the grapes and not the plant itself. But only at the ends of the vine not near the ground by the main vine as it will bleed out from there.
Resulting in sweeter grapes.
I have 2 vines and got about 150 ltrs off mine this year.

 

[evanvine]

I have 2 vines and got about 150 ltrs off mine this year.

Sounds like you should forget beer and concentrate on wine :mrgreen:

 

[screamlead]

I have 2 vines and got about 150 ltrs off mine this year.

Sounds like you should forget beer and concentrate on wine :mrgreen:

Lol i do at the moment because of the availability of the fruits etc.
Trying to get things like bilberry, blueberry, redcurrant, white current ang gooseberry. I have blueberry and bilberry plants coming from Georgia next week.
In my garden i have 2 white grape vines, 1 red vine, fig trees, peach, pomegranete, Turkish cherry (eaten green with salt!!) Quince, Loquat (called mushmulla here), Lemon, Key Lime and a young grapefruit tree that produced 1 grapefruit this year!

But - there is no 'Real Ale' here the local stuff is a Pilsner as many will know Efes Beer, they do a Dark too which isnt bad, makes nice crispy batter!
So fancied having a go at making some real british style bitters having made some lager a few years back. At the moment i;m still in the reseach mode by sourcing the barley and wheat and hops etc. I will of course have to lean the art of making my own versions of the different types of barley by roasting etc. Equipment i have for brewing as i use it fro my wine ie Stock pots and FV's big enough to cope with up to 50 ltrs at a time. Got an old Ice coolbox to convert to a mash tun.
Copper bits and pieces out here are a problem so looking into those.
The turks tend to use plastic for all plumbing these days too but the ball valve taps are dirt cheap here and standard mountings.
A lot of the ex=pats put here complain theres no real beer around so thought i would give it a go. :drink:

 

[tonyhibbett]

I thought Botrytis (cineria) was a bonus, the Noble Rot, which does not spoil the grapes, but causes them to shrink and make the sugar content proportionally higher, to make white wines like Sauternes, provided they get infected when the grapes are reasonably ripe. However it destroys the colour of red grapes.
Or maybe it's mildew you're getting, of which there are 3 common types, the commonest, in England, is powdery mildew, affecting the whole plant, the grapes turn powdery and then split. Mine got it one year and despite careful removal of bad grapes and sulphiting the juice, it all went bad. Apparantly Murphys Systemic Fungicide not only prevents it, but can cure the plant as well.
As for Larousse: 'During the final days of maturation, the grape juice often shows a daily increase of 10-20 g of sugar per litre.' Page 159. My grapes had an sg of 55, about 7 g per litre, where 12 g would be ideal. Even 1 g per litre per day sounds optimistic, to say the least, but given this is England, let's say 0.5 g. 10 more days would have taken me to October 13th - plausible, but most of them would have been eaten! by then!

 

[Porkbeast]

Your problem could be related to ventilation. Do you have plenty of vents in relation to the size of your green house?


Porky

Hmmmmm...

 

[tonyhibbett]

Glad you mentioned Chardonnay. My white vine had no label. It's not actually mine. It has its roots in a garden 4 houses along, and there's a labelled Cabernet Sauvignon too. The owners are only interested in the shade they provide and are more than happy for me to manage them, because they are big.
My first guess was that the white was a Chardonnay, on the basis that these are readily available from the local garden centres, but it has many ogf the characteristics of Riesling.
In an attempt to settle the matter I've ordered a book called 'First Steps in Ampelography', which should arrive tomorrow. Meanwhile I contacted Kew Gardens who directed me to the fruit expert at RHS Wisley. They have no less than 100 grapevine varieties there and he said that if I brought a full bunch of the grapes plus a leaf, he could positively identify it. Left it a bit late!
By the way, you could grow a Madeleine Angevine, an outdoor, white early cropper suitable for more northerly climes. My local Wyvales sell them.

 

[evanvine]

Thank you for all your replies; I was pleasantly surprised at the number of you who also grow grapes.
I was aware of the “noble rot” for sauternes, but my bunches were totally covered with the damn thing, may be I should have gone ahead and vinted anyway.
I used to use Murphy’s, but the local garden centre doesn’t sell it any more, I assumed it was another EEC casualty.
I have 3 automatic vents, 2 in the roof and a Louvre in the rear wall (GH is 8x10).
Maybe anno Domini has taken its toll and they’re not so sensitive anymore.
I do have a Madeleine Angevine, but haven’t cultivated it for years, just use the foliage for decoration (the grapes are few and like Petit Poise).

Now I have a maths query!
It‘s my impression that 1kg of sugar would raise the SG of 1ltr by 390 points.
With my suspect figures and maths, this would mean that an SG of 1.055 = 21.45 gms of sugar per litre??

 

[tonyhibbett]

Sounds like Madeleine needs attention. Weeding feeding training and pruning! My maths is poor too. Failed '0' level, but it was a pilot, later discredited, new maths syllabus. One good maths teacher resigned in protest. But nobody short changes me!
As for the greenhouse, try fumigation. As a roll up smoker, I collected the detritus from the ash trays, piled up a pyramid of the stuff, doused it in parrafin, closed all the vents and set fire to it. Nothing survived!
I'll have a look at your sugar calculations.
Meanwhile my 'First Steps in Ampelography' has arrived. It's a reprint of something first published in 1900 and contains id notes of a limited range of all 500 vines, only 16 of which are vinis vitifera and excludes both chardonnay and riesling. Spookily, the reprinting date is 14/11/2010, USA, the pages stamped with 'Library of the University of California'. So i've ordered a guide to the grave varieties of Europe. The real biz is 'A Practical Guide to Ampelography' cheapest copy being £65!

 

[tonyhibbett]

1 kg sugar per litre is sio massive, you you stand your spoon up in it! 5g per litre would take sg 1055 to 1085, which would give 11.3% alcohol. Legally, in France and Germany, you can add 1% grape (not granulated beet or cane) sugar, so with an sg of 1055, thats less than 1 g per litre. Feel free to add more, (I certainly did) but don't expect quality wine, in the 'normal' sense.
The holy grail is to bump up the gravity of the natural juice to 1085 and the acid down to, say, 3.5 ppt.

 

[tonyhibbett]

To return to the original topic, mixing the must with Aldi grape juice is an excellent idea but try this idea. I made a good white 'Burgundy' on the basis of 2 parts Tesco grape juice, 1 part orange juice and 1.5 part syrup consisting of sugar, honey and water, to sg 1085, plus some dried elderflowers. Substitute grape juice with your own. The syrup dilutes the acid and the citric acid in the orange, (cheaper than grape juice) is far more palatable than the tartaric and malic in the must and also is reduced by 25% during fermentation. Orange, honey and elderflowers improve the flavour and aroma. If the water is added to the pressed skins etc. and re-pressed, you get a bit more out of the grapes.
Orange juice contains lots of solids, so after fining, you lose rather more than usual, but you stil get a lot more, better tasting wine as a result,
is my theory!

 

[evanvine]

Now that'a a good idea TH, may give it a go next year!
Can't help but notice hints of WOW!

 

[tonyhibbett]

heard of WOW
Please enlighten

 

[evanvine]

heard of WOW
Please enlighten

Wurzel's Orange Wine!
The posts on it are legion!

 

[tonyhibbett]

Got the WOW recipe, see the resemblance and note the pectic enzyme as a pre-clearing agent. Tannin may not be needed, unless gelatine finings used. As for glycerin, I added some extra to my finished Chianti, which made it taste like that old style Californian stuff, Thunderbird. Far too easy on the palate, like alcopop!

 

[evanvine]

Far too easy on the palate, like alcopop!

Yes, it's a little difficult to get them to appreciate 1/2 a gallon of good beer!

 

[tonyhibbett]

According to the RHS, grapevines benefit from an additional dose of sulphate of potash as well as a balanced fertilzer such as Growmore to get the best grapes