Acid Blend?

[Xandra]

What is the purpose of adding acid blend? Versus, say, a measure of maybe lemon juice or another acidic-type fruit? Is it about taste, or is there other chemistry?

 

[Julie]

acid blend is a blend of three acids, malic, citric and tartaric. Lemon juice would only be citric acid.

 

[Geronimo]

Tartaric acid is the kind that's in grapes. Using a blend is just the easiest and cheapest way to add acids and taste to a deficient wine. If you add just citric acid, you'll impart an obvious lemony flavor to the wine.

Getting the acid right is important. You don't need to worry about it with kits, they did the testing and adjusting for you. If you can't run the tests and do the math, then it becomes a guessing game that most often fails.

 

[JohnT]

We never asked what type of wine you are making. in essance, you could use lemons to up the acid, however you need to be careful.

With lemons (or any kind of fruit) you will have the same problem as you do with grapes. You will never know exactly how much acid you are adding or its concentration. Acid blend or tartaric acid can be exactly measured. They also do not add any fruit flavor to your wine, which is preferred when attempting to make a classic wine.

As Geronimo stated above, most folks here would advise against using acid blend. Tartaric acid is naturally occuring in grapes so it is a much better fit. It also does not seem to add as high of a degree of harshness to the resulting wine.

If you decide that a lemon flavor fits to the wine you are making, I would advise on adding the lemon in small doses and test the acid level after each dose. This was you can increase you acid level slowly and not risk adding too much.