JDesCotes
Senior Member
- Joined
- Jan 12, 2014
- Messages
- 221
- Reaction score
- 27
I started a batch of SP last night and noticed that I am fresh out of tannin with my order of extra tannin not coming in for another week or so...
I could run to a local shop and spend $3 of a minuscule amount of tannin (15g I think) or I could be resourceful (read: cheap) and find an alternative!
So I've done some research and found a couple alternatives. Can somebody with a bit of experience help me out?
1. strong, steeped black English breakfast tea: will this change the colour or taste of the wine? I would hate to have a batch of grey wine... Not too appetizing!
2. Oak chips: normally when I use oak chips I add them after clearing has completed and let it age for months on the shelf... Will the short fermentation/clearing time of SP be sufficient to extract the tannins from the oak chips?
3. Oak powder: I'm out of this too!
4. "Roasted/dried Apple peel": saw this on a very sketchy site but they said Apple peel can be roasted until dried and then ground and used as a substitute with roughly 2x amount of grape tannin...
I started this batch of SP on the gross lees of my last batch so it should have SOME of the leftover tannins from that batch... But fermentation has already taken off so I want to add whatever I decide to add as soon as I get home from work.
Any other suggestions?
I could run to a local shop and spend $3 of a minuscule amount of tannin (15g I think) or I could be resourceful (read: cheap) and find an alternative!
So I've done some research and found a couple alternatives. Can somebody with a bit of experience help me out?
1. strong, steeped black English breakfast tea: will this change the colour or taste of the wine? I would hate to have a batch of grey wine... Not too appetizing!
2. Oak chips: normally when I use oak chips I add them after clearing has completed and let it age for months on the shelf... Will the short fermentation/clearing time of SP be sufficient to extract the tannins from the oak chips?
3. Oak powder: I'm out of this too!
4. "Roasted/dried Apple peel": saw this on a very sketchy site but they said Apple peel can be roasted until dried and then ground and used as a substitute with roughly 2x amount of grape tannin...
I started this batch of SP on the gross lees of my last batch so it should have SOME of the leftover tannins from that batch... But fermentation has already taken off so I want to add whatever I decide to add as soon as I get home from work.
Any other suggestions?