Help with the recipe --- SOS

Help with the Orange Wine --- SOS

Started the wine with Jack Keller's Orange Wine 2...

8 Med oranges - Cut the peel and pith and removed the skin and blended / hand crushed the juice
1/4tsp tannin
2.5lb sugar
1lb 7oz banana - To be peeled and simmered for 30 minutes and juice added to must.
1lb raisins per gallon
Papaya peel for pectic enzyme - Works good!


Boiling water was added to Oranges and Raisins.

Made a mistake with the sugar and the SG shot up like crazy... I had the SG at 1.22 for 5 ltrs!! Now I have added more oranges viz.

totally used 31 oranges
1.4kg of banana
750 gms of Raisins.
The total quantity of the must is 11.75 liters and the
SG is 1.082.

The recipe however does not resemble keller's anymore! Can anyone tell me if what I have is good or should I adjust? I want a wine with an ABV of 14% the current one would get me to around 11% So should I add the sugar as banana juice? Also I dont feel much acidity right now had added like A tablespoon of lemon juice... the must tastes sweet... the only thing that stands out is the orange flavor and sugar. Plan to add orange zest when I move to secondary.

Today is my day 1... Pls pls let me know what I should / not do....

Hi Chessdunk and welcome. Others may have different opinions but for me recipes are ideas and suggestions. They are not formulas. Basically, I think, you are making an orange fruit wine. You are adding bananas to help add body (and mouthfeel) and perhaps neutralize some of the acidity. The raisins may be there to add some nutrients and to add some complexity to the flavor.
There are two aspects to acidity as I see it. The first part is - is the acidity too HIGH for the yeast. (ie the pH too low) If the pH is at about 3.00 or less then that will stress your yeast and perhaps stall the fermentation. So if the must does not seem to be acidic enough at the moment, note that but don't necessarily repair it. The sweetness is masking the bitterness. The second part is how much zing the wine has when you drink it... Increasing the acidity is perhaps best done when the wine has fermented and you are balancing the acidity with the dryness (or final sweetness).
You tasted the must. Excellent. Can you focus on the flavor while ignoring the sweetness? If you can, how does it taste? Would you enjoy that FLAVOR if it were a wine? If you think you would then stay the course. I have made orange fruit wines and found them to be very acidic, very tart.

Thanks so much Bernard. Your reply was really encouraging!

The wine hardly seems to have any tartness at this point. The flavor is going down. .. the flavor is mild oranges, however the taste seems to be more of banana's. The wine is still sweet but can feel hints of the tartness and the bite.

Have to wait and see how it develops. Have I added enough body or should I add some more banana liquid? Or should I decide it as the alcohol level increases...

Some oranges have very little acidity-think tangerines. It is possible you may have to add a fair amount of acid. I would us citric before acid blend or other.

Stressbaby said:

Some oranges have very little acidity-think tangerines. It is possible you may have to add a fair amount of acid. I would us citric before acid blend or other.

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Thanks... the yeasties are pretty active. And I did taste the acidity in the oranges when I tasted some. My last wine was too acidic and had to fight a battle to bring it down. Ended up thinning the wine .

Fermentation is on and SG increased. Is it the raisins?

My SG looks skewed... Yesterday my Hydrometer read 1.08 and today its reading 1.09. Is this the 750 grams of raisins that is doing this? There is definite change in the taste of the must. The flavor has changed from bananas to oranges and there is a tiny bite of alcohol that I could taste... The must is pretty frothy and there was definitely enough fermentation happening. What could be going on??

My SG figures below...

Day Actual SG Brix ABV
Day 0 1.080 19.8 11.3
Day 1 1.090 22 12.9

You should wait until after the wine is stabilized to adjust the acids/tannin.As oranges have citric acid they may need malic and tartaric.Have only made orange one time,a 9 gallon batch in which I used 1 gallon of white grape juice and left out the bananas and raisins,it turned out well

Chessdunk said:

Is this the 750 grams of raisins that is doing this?

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Yes, probably is. Raisins are about 2/3 sugar by weight. So you added about 500 g of sugar. Fermcalc says that this is enough sugar to raise 11.75 l from 1.080 to 1.094.

What do you recon would be the ideal alcohol % for this wine? Should I keep it around 13% or take it higher?

Personally, I would not take it higher.

Regarding acids, I do make preferment adjustments most of the time. Then fine tune afterwards. I frequently see a 2/10ths change in pH with fermentation.

Also, I subscribe to the notion that the acid you add should mirror the acid in the fruit in that particular wine. So in this case I would probably use citric. YMMV.

My yeast starter has worked well.

Day one my sg was 1.08, day 2 1.09 and day 3 its 1.065. I would assume my og to be 1.1 or 1.15!! Guess time to dilute a bit.

Day one the flavor was of Banana's, day 2 oranges and today it was all raisins. But tasted weird... when will I know the real flavor and taste to adjust??!! Kind-of impatient

Chessdunk said:

Day one my sg was 1.08, day 2 1.09 and day 3 its 1.065. I would assume my og to be 1.1 or 1.15!! Guess time to dilute a bit.

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There is absolutely no reason to think your OG was 1.150. Please do not continue to monkey with your must!

Sour_grapes, Lol thanks a ton for that Here I was reading about dilution... I guess I better wait till Secondary.

Chessdunk said:

My yeast starter has worked well.

Day one my sg was 1.08, day 2 1.09 and day 3 its 1.065. I would assume my og to be 1.1 or 1.15!! Guess time to dilute a bit.

Day one the flavor was of Banana's, day 2 oranges and today it was all raisins. But tasted weird... when will I know the real flavor and taste to adjust??!! Kind-of impatient

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Chessdunk,
See the other post by sour_grapes. Your OG was almost certainly around 1.094.

To quote an old professor of mine, "Do just do something...stand there!"

Lol... actually I saw a post that mentions that 1lb raisins in 6 gallons would increase the abv by .3 or .6%? I based my calculations on that... My day 2 SG was 1.091 and day 3 was 1.065 so even approximately the must should have fermented by .02 sg atleast... but this was my thought process.. I might be wrong.

Have read Sour_Grapes's posts and know he is pretty experienced and would go with his views on the OG.

I just tasted my must... the sugar is fermenting pretty fast and Only today I can taste a bit of the sourness in the must and it tastes good over all.

I can feel a slight bitter taste at the back of my tongue not very prominent but its there... will it reduce with aging? Should I be concerned? Plan on adding 1kg of bananas when SG is close to 1.04 or so...

I have two methods...

Just peel and chuck in the bananas
or simmer the bananas for 30 minutes without peel and transfer the juice to the must. I am more for this method as this is part of the Keller recipe.

Or should I not add it?

Appreciate your thoughts?

This is the first time I am using a lot of fruit in my wine. Previous one was severely adulterated due to sour grapes and was more of an alcohol recipe than wine! But this one tastes amazing so far, my thanks to Keller and the forum members.

What I thought as bitterness was the tannin and astringent taste and not the bitterness of the orange seeds at all. There is just that hint of sourness that balances the wine well for now. As suggested by some in the forum plan to add the peeled rind of one orange to my secondary to 12.5 ltrs of the liquid. One thing I have learned from the experts in this forum is to go slow and make only gradual addition.

Would like to know if I should add yeast DAP and nutrients at this stage or leave it out?

My SG today morning was 1.04. Added half kg banana juice simmered from frozen bananas and today evening the SG is 1.03. I guess I am in for secondary in a day or two.

I have been tasting the must / juice anytime I took a reading. I am surprised at how the taste was constantly changing.

Personally, I wouldn't add any more nutrient at 1.030. And I don't know that the bananas won't provide a little bit of nutrient as well.

Stressbaby said:

Personally, I wouldn't add any more nutrient at 1.030. And I don't know that the bananas won't provide a little bit of nutrient as well.

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Have not added any nutrient and the SG is steadily going down, today morning it was 1.02. Plan to transfer to the secondary by today evening when it would be close to 1.01.

The liquid is pretty cloudy at this stage... hope it stabilizes on its own.

Should I add the Potassium Metabisulphite now or a couple days later? Since I boiled the must I have not added any till now.

Chessdunk said:

Should I add the Potassium Metabisulphite now or a couple days later? Since I boiled the must I have not added any till now.

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Wait until fermentation is complete and you rack off the lees in secondary.

JimmyT is correct. Just to expound a little more, you should transfer to your secondary vessel sometime after your wine reaches 1.010, just as you said. Let it sit in secondary for two weeks or even longer, until the SG bottoms out and stays there. At this point, the SG will likely be in the range of 0.990 to 0.996. At that time, you will rack off the lees into a clean container, and then you add the k-meta.