WOW crystalline sediment

[spangles]

Hi everyone, newbie here after a bit of advise.

I bottled 6 bottles of red grape WOW (recipe below) and left in the garage to mature a few weeks ago. I have noticed that there is a crystalline sediment (like snow flakes) on the bottom which I assume is sugar, though when bottled the reading was 990 :hmm: . I think I over did the sugar at the start, providing 16% abv. Initial taste was tangy and seemed quite potent. My question is, is my assumption correct that it's sugar even though all sugar should of turned to alcohol? If so, why would it crystallise? Is it a temperature thing? as it's a bit nippy at the moment. Should I store in a warmer place?

3 ltr crushed red grape juice not from concentrate
0.5 ltr white grape and peach juice from concentrate
1/2 tsp pectalase
1 large mug of tea
juice of 1 lemon
1 tsp young's super wine yeast compound
1 tsp youngs yeast nutrient
900g caster sugar
Water top up to 5 ltr

Cheers in advance :

Spangles

 

[Moley]

First off, you can't call that WOW.

WOW is a juice wine but not all juice wines are WOW. It can't be a WOW because it contains no Orange, and that's what the O stands for.


I'm not entirely sure what your sediment is, but it's not sugar. I suspect it could be tartrates.

I have encountered this once before with a WOW which I may have bottled too soon and then stored cold. You would probably do more harm than good (through oxidation) if you were to pour these back into a DJ, allow to settle out and re-bottle, so all I can suggest is that you decant very carefully to another bottle before serving.

Some time ago, I also experimented with freezing and defrosting a very young wine. That dropped a similar deposit, perhaps slightly more gritty than snowflake. Topic is here. Anyone trying this, use plastic bottles only!

 

[spangles]

Cheers Moley for getting back to me.

Point taken about "WOW"

Forgot to mention I added 1 tsp of glycerine.

I had it fermenting for about 5 weeks and clearing when racked for 10 days with Young's two part finings, so it didn't seem that I bottled too soon, or should I of racked it again? Could the tartrates be from too much tea? or could this just be a characteristic of the grape juice? Out of interest, I made 1 gallon of apple wine in parallel, same method only apple juice instead of red grape juice which fermented out to 988 and was very tasty at bottling. This did not form the same deposit but did have a haze when chilled in garage. I've read in previous threads that this haze can be quite common.

OK, I'll decant once matured.

Good pointer about the freezing method.

Cheers

 

[tonyhibbett]

What you have is crystals of the potassium and calcium salts of tartaric acid which are insoluble at low temperatures. They are harmless and tasteless. Rack off the wine and clean the container with hot water. Put the wine back in the cold and if more crystals appear, repeat as above.

 

[tonyhibbett]

If you don't move the brew out into the cold, the crystals do not appear, but will appear when you chill a bottle of the wine, as I discovered. It doesn't seem to happen with grape concentrate. The crystals in concentrate are more to do with sugar. It always happens when fresh wine grapes are used, as they are naturally high in tartaric acid, so the grape juice you used seems unusual.

 

[spangles]

Ah, I see.

I used Sainsbury's 100% pressed red grape juice not from concentrate from the fridge section. As it's now all in bottles I'll just decant when serving, as you say it's tasteless. Guess I'll just go with "from concentrate" from now on.

I've currently got a batch on the go using 3 ltr Sainsbury's 100% pressed Italian red grape juice not from concentrate which has been pasteurised and 1 ltr of pomegranate juice. Think I'll chill when racked, then bottle. Though I could always just store at room temperature dependant upon space.

Cheers tony for the info :

 

[tonyhibbett]

My experiences with predominantly dessert (non wine) grape juice were alcoholic grape juice rather than wine, but as a lesser part of a mix (eg WOW), fine. Consider Young's wine enhancer. It's pure wine grape concentrate, from Wilkinsons. I used the white version to improve my apple wine to great effect, but have yet to try the red.