Introduction from a brewer

[Shemagra]

Hello, I just joined yesterday after looking at posts for a couple of weeks. I have been mainly brewing since 2006 and currently make mostly lagers and IPAs, although my most recent batch was a sour saison. Mainly do 5 gallon temperature controlled (chill and heat) batches. My cousin started making wine and I was impressed with how they came out, and in listening to his process, I figured it was just a bit different than what I was used to.

Did my first kit batch a few months ago and bottled a couple of weeks ago. Master Vintner South Africa Sauvignon Blanc. Only difference with the kit instructions was that my ferment was very slow, about 4 weeks in primary. It was steady, but very slow. I reconstituted with distilled water, omitted the oak, let it sit and clear for an extra month and a half or so, and I filtered it with Buon Vino #2. I am really pleased with how it came out and I'll be starting another batch this weekend of an Italian Pino Grigio. I'm going to swap yeasts to two packs of KV-11116, and ferment around 60F. I have Spike Flex+ fermenters on glycol for beer, so I plan on using that for primary, and a steel brew bucket for secondary. Also use a tilt for remote gravity readings to limit o2 exposure. I'm also trying to be patient with the steps and not rush things. I am really happy with how much less time it takes to do a wine batch versus beer.

Does anyone here serve wine out of corny kegs? Does co2 absorption ruin it? Would it work for a sparkling wine? My wine batch was the first time I bottled anything outside a contest in more than 15 years, but at least it's only a couple of dozen.

When I do lagers, I usually start cool to avoid the production of undesirable yeast compounds and then let it rise to about 68F to clean up any byproducts. Do winemakers do something similar?

I read about sacrificial oak. I omitted the oak because I prefer unoaked whites as does my wife. Am I missing something? She is very sensitive to tasting oak in a wine, so I'd like to not get a bad review!

I like more acidic and floral whites, so soon I'll be learning about adjusting that beyond what the kits say. Does anyone dose acid into a finished wine to experiment?

Finally, any good home wine making podcasts that focuses on the technical side of winemaking?

Thanks for welcoming me!
Joe

 

[vinny]

Hello, I just joined yesterday after looking at posts for a couple of weeks. I have been mainly brewing since 2006 and currently make mostly lagers and IPAs, although my most recent batch was a sour saison. Mainly do 5 gallon temperature controlled (chill and heat) batches. My cousin started making wine and I was impressed with how they came out, and in listening to his process, I figured it was just a bit different than what I was used to.

Did my first kit batch a few months ago and bottled a couple of weeks ago. Master Vintner South Africa Sauvignon Blanc. Only difference with the kit instructions was that my ferment was very slow, about 4 weeks in primary. It was steady, but very slow. I reconstituted with distilled water, omitted the oak, let it sit and clear for an extra month and a half or so, and I filtered it with Buon Vino #2. I am really pleased with how it came out and I'll be starting another batch this weekend of an Italian Pino Grigio. I'm going to swap yeasts to two packs of KV-11116, and ferment around 60F. I have Spike Flex+ fermenters on glycol for beer, so I plan on using that for primary, and a steel brew bucket for secondary. Also use a tilt for remote gravity readings to limit o2 exposure. I'm also trying to be patient with the steps and not rush things. I am really happy with how much less time it takes to do a wine batch versus beer.

Does anyone here serve wine out of corny kegs? Does co2 absorption ruin it? Would it work for a sparkling wine? My wine batch was the first time I bottled anything outside a contest in more than 15 years, but at least it's only a couple of dozen.

When I do lagers, I usually start cool to avoid the production of undesirable yeast compounds and then let it rise to about 68F to clean up any byproducts. Do winemakers do something similar?

I read about sacrificial oak. I omitted the oak because I prefer unoaked whites as does my wife. Am I missing something? She is very sensitive to tasting oak in a wine, so I'd like to not get a bad review!

I like more acidic and floral whites, so soon I'll be learning about adjusting that beyond what the kits say. Does anyone dose acid into a finished wine to experiment?

Finally, any good home wine making podcasts that focuses on the technical side of winemaking?

Thanks for welcoming me!
Joe

Welcome.

Sacrificial oak is to account for the tannin that is eaten up in fermentation. It offers nothing in the way of oak flavor. That is a secondary vessel additive if you want flavor.

If you want to serve in a keg you would get a carbonated product. I believe folks are using argon if you just want to push your product through.

White wine is more sensitive than red to temps and off flavors. It's not so much about starting cold, just don't let the temps rise too high. Around 20 C for a white and 25C for a red. You can push higher, but getting close to 30 is really pushing it on a red. I think some will try to keep whites in the teens, around 16. Refrigeration, or some cooling option is required for this.

As far as adding acid, yes. and dosing finished wines to experiment. Yes. Some open bottles and tweak them to see what could have made it better to add earlier for knowledge on the next batch. Wine is finished when you like it so there is no time to lake to mess with it. You could do some bench tests and add acids and fruits to smaller batches to punch up the aromas. Just make sure you replace anything you take out or your wine will oxidize.

I prefer Rieslings and the like. I have found kits lacking in the bright acids and fruits that I like, but I keep searching for the way to make it happen. Never be shy to post before starting a batch to get some advice on how to achieve your goals.

Other than that all I can say is this hobby is addictive. Carboys reproduce like rabbits somehow. The next thing you know you have 20 wines in secondary and three ferments on the go... And we will only encourage you!

 

[vinny]

I will also note that I have carbonated some pretty mediocre wines and turned them into something much more enjoyable, so don't shy away from carbonation. You can experiment with smaller batches if you have a soda stream. Not sure how much CO2 you would wast testing small batches in a keg, but I suppose you could always degas again if you weren't excited about it.

Dragon's Blood is a fun wine most new vintner's try. It is a very palatable and easy to drink fruit wine. Fun to try something from scratch ingredients. I carbonated mine and had some fun with it. If you search you will find lots of posts on this site and the recipe is easy to find too.

 

[ceeaton]

Hello, I just joined yesterday after looking at posts for a couple of weeks. I have been mainly brewing since 2006 and currently make mostly lagers and IPAs, although my most recent batch was a sour saison. Mainly do 5 gallon temperature controlled (chill and heat) batches. My cousin started making wine and I was impressed with how they came out, and in listening to his process, I figured it was just a bit different than what I was used to.

Did my first kit batch a few months ago and bottled a couple of weeks ago. Master Vintner South Africa Sauvignon Blanc. Only difference with the kit instructions was that my ferment was very slow, about 4 weeks in primary. It was steady, but very slow. I reconstituted with distilled water, omitted the oak, let it sit and clear for an extra month and a half or so, and I filtered it with Buon Vino #2. I am really pleased with how it came out and I'll be starting another batch this weekend of an Italian Pino Grigio. I'm going to swap yeasts to two packs of KV-11116, and ferment around 60F. I have Spike Flex+ fermenters on glycol for beer, so I plan on using that for primary, and a steel brew bucket for secondary. Also use a tilt for remote gravity readings to limit o2 exposure. I'm also trying to be patient with the steps and not rush things. I am really happy with how much less time it takes to do a wine batch versus beer.

Does anyone here serve wine out of corny kegs? Does co2 absorption ruin it? Would it work for a sparkling wine? My wine batch was the first time I bottled anything outside a contest in more than 15 years, but at least it's only a couple of dozen.

When I do lagers, I usually start cool to avoid the production of undesirable yeast compounds and then let it rise to about 68F to clean up any byproducts. Do winemakers do something similar?

I read about sacrificial oak. I omitted the oak because I prefer unoaked whites as does my wife. Am I missing something? She is very sensitive to tasting oak in a wine, so I'd like to not get a bad review!

I like more acidic and floral whites, so soon I'll be learning about adjusting that beyond what the kits say. Does anyone dose acid into a finished wine to experiment?

Finally, any good home wine making podcasts that focuses on the technical side of winemaking?

Thanks for welcoming me!
Joe

Joe,

I'm a big brewer too (since 1993). I've kegged a Sauvignon Blanc before and force carbonated to serve on New Years eve as a Champagne replacement. Worked really well, but I will warn you not to leave it in there too long, the higher acidity can "pit" your stainless steel corney keg.

Welcome to WMT!

 

[vinny]

Worked really well, but I will warn you not to leave it in there too long, the higher acidity can "pit" your stainless steel corney keg.

Hmmm. A reason to drink more, faster.. What could go wrong?

 

[sour_grapes]

Welcome to WMT!

 

[Christopher Anderson]

Welcome to WMT! wine, like beer, is all in what YOU want. it is all experimental. Try anything. Since you already have the equipment, try and do what you know. The hobby can be as expensive as you want. You know you are addictive when you start moving from kits to buy grapes by the ton!!
or Grains and Hops by the large bag! My personal issue, is not having enough space to store what I make!
Welcome again! Salute!

 

[David Violante]

Welcome to WMT!

 

[ibglowin]

Welcome aboard!

I found that many Kit white wines just did not have the zing I wanted on the tongue compared to what I liked in commercial white wines esp Sauv Blanc, Pinot Gris etc and tweaked them with Tartaric Acid to my liking. Get yourself a decent pH meter and calibrate it and then test the pH of a commercial white wine you really like and then compare the pH and taste to one you made. It it seems flat and boring in comparison then its time to do some bench trials and adjust slowly more to your liking. Adding tartaric acid post AF doesn't seem to have any downsides that I ever noticed compared to adjusting pre AF.

As with any Kit wine higher (bigger kits with more juice and less water needed to make 6G) usually equate to a better quality wine down the road.

 

[winemaker81]

Welcome to WMT!

When I do lagers, I usually start cool to avoid the production of undesirable yeast compounds and then let it rise to about 68F to clean up any byproducts. Do winemakers do something similar?

Nope. Beer and wine fermentation are completely different animals.

A few thoughts:

99% of what you know about beer making does not apply to winemaking. Both involve yeast fermentation ... beyond that, the two are different.

Live vicariously though the mistakes of others. Anything you want to try, ask about it. 99.9% of everything has been done by a forum regular or we know something about it. It's a lot more fun to learn from the mistakes of others than to make your own. Trust me on this point!

If you're fermenting at 60 F, the ferment will be slow. This is perfectly fine, and it works.

Air exposure is not the same as for beer. Due to the longer timeline and numerous rackings, O2 exposure is a given. K-meta is used to address it.

For bulk aging, DO NOT use a container with a wide top. Carboys are commonly used for many reasons -- one is the head space is tiny due to the contricted neck. Any bucket shaped container, even if filled to the brim, has too much air space.

Sacrificial tannin mostly applies to reds, but any white kit that includes fermentation oak does so with that purpose in mind.

 

[Shemagra]

Welcome aboard!

I found that many Kit white wines just did not have the zing I wanted on the tongue compared to what I liked in commercial white wines esp Sauv Blanc, Pinot Gris etc and tweaked them with Tartaric Acid to my liking. Get yourself a decent pH meter and calibrate it and then test the pH of a commercial white wine you really like and then compare the pH and taste to one you made. It it seems flat and boring in comparison then its time to do some bench trials and adjust slowly more to your liking. Adding tartaric acid post AF doesn't seem to have any downsides that I ever noticed compared to adjusting pre AF.

As with any Kit wine higher (bigger kits with more juice and less water needed to make 6G) usually equate to a better quality wine down the road.

If you were to lay it out:
measure good commercial ph and then match my batch with tartaric?

 

[Shemagra]

Welcome to WMT!


Nope. Beer and wine fermentation are completely different animals.

A few thoughts:

99% of what you know about beer making does not apply to winemaking. Both involve yeast fermentation ... beyond that, the two are different.

Live vicariously though the mistakes of others. Anything you want to try, ask about it. 99.9% of everything has been done by a forum regular or we know something about it. It's a lot more fun to learn from the mistakes of others than to make your own. Trust me on this point!

If you're fermenting at 60 F, the ferment will be slow. This is perfectly fine, and it works.

Air exposure is not the same as for beer. Due to the longer timeline and numerous rackings, O2 exposure is a given. K-meta is used to address it.

For bulk aging, DO NOT use a container with a wide top. Carboys are commonly used for many reasons -- one is the head space is tiny due to the contricted neck. Any bucket shaped container, even if filled to the brim, has too much air space.

Sacrificial tannin mostly applies to reds, but any white kit that includes fermentation oak does so with that purpose in mind.

I appreciate the comments and I have read a few of your white papers on your site already. The o2 difference is probably the biggest thing I have been surprised by. Also the idea that we can just add something (k-meta) to negate the problem is really different. I don't see any of my beer until it's in the glass, done, and carbonated; because of fear of oxidation. Opening a fermenter and spinning a drill into something to degas it still makes me anxious!

Not sure about 99% different of what I know. Embracing "relax, don't worry, have a homebrew" seems to align a bunch with wine making. In your posts, you seem to encourage folks to build from a base and adjust from there. Seems pretty consistent. Honestly the biggest reason why I didn't do this early was the pace of feedback. When one is young, it's hard to sign up to multi-year feedback loops. It's the reason why I am focusing on whites for a while.

 

[Shemagra]

I will also note that I have carbonated some pretty mediocre wines and turned them into something much more enjoyable, so don't shy away from carbonation. You can experiment with smaller batches if you have a soda stream. Not sure how much CO2 you would wast testing small batches in a keg, but I suppose you could always degas again if you weren't excited about it.

Dragon's Blood is a fun wine most new vintner's try. It is a very palatable and easy to drink fruit wine. Fun to try something from scratch ingredients. I carbonated mine and had some fun with it. If you search you will find lots of posts on this site and the recipe is easy to find too.

I checked out the Dragon's Blood recipe and from the looks of it, I don't know if I could turn over that inventory. My wife and I like visiting wine regions and vineyards. Last month was a trip to Paso Robles. I need to match what we are getting from the shipments we are getting from the vineyards we have visited. I was super happy to get the following review on my first batch: "If I was at a restaurant where their wine choice was "red and white" I would be really happy to get this." "a good option to open for the third bottle". I might try a Frankenstein wine (sugar/fruit/etc) when I have a good handle on process, but until then, I am banking on covering up sins with quality.

 

[Rice_Guy]

welcome to WMT

Vinney gave you a good intro. From a industry point of view:
* red wines are very forgiving, one can be sloppy and have a reasonable wine. Whites require more care as watching oxygen and low temp ferments. Country wines close to white but one needs to add chemicals/ organic chemistries that grape would naturally contain. Beers have less alcohol and typically high pH so one has to have a squeaky clean process.
* Beer as well as wine is a traditional food preservation system. They are a continuum. Other than tax rate (license) changes they are quite similar.
* Know your ingredient, I do a lot of country wines and will say “this crop off the garden is missing NN which red grape has. What can I add in the must to provide NN”
Country wines/ meads/ ciders are cooking, ie acid and aromatics and sugar etc. ,,, A lot goes to thinking through your balance.
* Sure I am adding acid to almost everything from 2022. I started harvesting apple and probably have Lactobacillus infections (MLF) that are pushing pH up.
Have a reason for adding acid. My reason is that chemistry (preservative effect) is pH related. Taste on the finished wine is TA related (a linear function against residual sugar/ sweetness).
*. You are from a less severe preservation system. I hope you can help me learn where the rules are for a good hard cider.

 

[ibglowin]

If you were to lay it out:
measure good commercial ph and then match my batch with tartaric?

Thats what I ended up doing. Some of them didn't need much others needed a bit more adjustment. For example I made a Riesling kit a few years back that was LE or limited edition and it finished out at a pH of 3.33. It was good but just kinda not what I would call "racy" on the tongue which is what I expect from that (and many other ) white varietals. A favorite Riesling I was really liking tested out being pH 3.06. I slowly added ~20gms of tartaric to the 6G of finished wine and little by little it went from just OK to wowser!

This all depends on your liking and your palette but this was my "aha" moment with white wines for sure.

 

[Jusatele]

Welcome
Many here have brewed beer also
I started in the early 80s with wine, in the 90s started to brew beer and really got into that. I had a full Herms system cold storage to lager and a 4 tap system. I started doing 4 step infusion mashes in a brew in a bag set up I designed just to prove it could be done. Like I said I went overboard into it at one time.
Now I mainly just do wines, about once a year I look up an old brewing partner and do a high gravity Xmas ale or a Scotch Beer.
Having said that, I really like the wine thing better, plus If I have a lot and it is not getting drank, just age it.
Good Luck.

 

[Jovimaple]

Welcome to WMT!

 

[winemaker81]

Not sure about 99% different of what I know.

I may have exaggerated a bit -- it's actually 95%.

Like many on the forum, I make both wine and beer (mostly wine in recent years), so my comment on wine and beer making being different is experience.

Last year I decided to try sparkling a wine, the first time in many years. Previous attempts were not successful. I applied the same amount of sugar as I would for beer, and while the wine sparkled, it wasn't impressive. Folks on the forum pointed out that wine needs a LOT more sugar than beer to sparkle.

I applied what I knew about beer to wine ... and it was wrong. I should have known better ... but obviously not.

 

[Shemagra]

I may have exaggerated a bit -- it's actually 95%.

Like many on the forum, I make both wine and beer (mostly wine in recent years), so my comment on wine and beer making being different is experience.

Last year I decided to try sparkling a wine, the first time in many years. Previous attempts were not successful. I applied the same amount of sugar as I would for beer, and while the wine sparkled, it wasn't impressive. Folks on the forum pointed out that wine needs a LOT more sugar than beer to sparkle.

I applied what I knew about beer to wine ... and it was wrong. I should have known better ... but obviously not.

I have enjoyed reading a few articles on your website. Thank you for spending the time to write them out! I can see on the recipe and ingredient side really diverging. The cleaning seems about the same though!

 

[vinny]

I checked out the Dragon's Blood recipe and from the looks of it, I don't know if I could turn over that inventory. My wife and I like visiting wine regions and vineyards. Last month was a trip to Paso Robles. I need to match what we are getting from the shipments we are getting from the vineyards we have visited. I was super happy to get the following review on my first batch: "If I was at a restaurant where their wine choice was "red and white" I would be really happy to get this." "a good option to open for the third bottle". I might try a Frankenstein wine (sugar/fruit/etc) when I have a good handle on process, but until then, I am banking on covering up sins with quality.

Everything is scalable. I made a gallon batch of DB just to play around. 5 gallons is a bit excessive for sure.