Fruit wine recipe

[ree]

Hi folks,
TOTAL newbie here!!
I used this "basic" recipe to make both plum and pear wine....

I have three 3-gallon carboys in the cellar now. I've racked them all once.

My hydrometer went to 1.0 in about 2 weeks.

In the racking process, I sampled some of the pear wine. It has quite an alcoholic kick to it. Tastes pretty dry though.

Two issues:
1/ Is there a way to make it less dry and more sweet? It doesn't taste that bad, but I wish it had more body and flavor, and less dryness. Will the taste improve as it ages? So far, it's been about 2 - 3 weeks since I made the wine.

2/ I had a few glasses and ended up getting quite a headache from it. I didn't over do it... certainly I can drink A LOT more red wine and not get a headache. I'm wondering if there is something in the recipe I put in that is making me get a headache?

Thanks for any advice. I appreciate anyone looking over the recipe and giving me some feedback.

 

[Dend78]

you can back sweeten with juice or sugar or anything you want for more flavor. if you can get your hands on more pears/plums freeze and thaw them rob the juice and add it to the wine possibly with some simple syrup to get the desired flavor you want.

here is the bad news you gotta give the alcohol time to smooth out, as it ages its supposed to get better, my problem is i gotta wait and the wine seems to "evaporate" as someone else put it

as for the headache it may be due to the young alcohol i cant say for sure because i honestly dont know.

 

[saramc]

Two to three weeks from the start of fruit wines to consumption is rarely ever seen, unless you simply just want to get drunk. The wine is still working at this point, too soon to drink pear or plum wine--check back in six months, maybe even a year.

It is easier to allow a wine to ferment dry and then stabilize after it is clear with k-meta/Campden plus sorbate and then backsweeten. There are ways you can have a "natural" residual sugar, but it can get complicated--involves stepfeeding, alcohol toxicity and hoping you killed off the yeast...or cold crashing/racking/sterile filtering and hoping...or pasteurizing. Much easier to ferment dry and backsweeten.
As far as body, there is not much you can do after the fact. You can add body to a recipe by using raisins, banana(s), 100% grape juice concentrate in the ferment. After the fact, you may try a bit of glycerin--tread lightly, do bench trials.
But in all reality, park the carboys and once they are clear and no longer dropping sediment park them some more. A year will do amazing things, and sometimes it takes more than 12 months.

 

[ree]

It is easier to allow a wine to ferment dry and then stabilize after it is clear with k-meta/Campden plus sorbate and then backsweeten. There are ways you can have a "natural" residual sugar, but it can get complicated--involves stepfeeding, alcohol toxicity and hoping you killed off the yeast...or cold crashing/racking/sterile filtering and hoping...or pasteurizing. Much easier to ferment dry and backsweeten.

Thanks to you both for replying to my questions.

Sounds like I'm headed in the right direction, in terms of dryness. The above quote uses some vernacular I'm unfamiliar with... so I need to ask more questions:

1/ The stabilization process occurs no less than 6 mos. and the wine is clear. Correct? You mention k-meta/Campden... is k-meta an acronym for something I should know about? Is this k-meta different from Campden and how so? I have Campden tablets already, so hopefully they will still be effective by the time I need to stabilize 6-12 mos. down the road. It sounds totally like a dumb question... but Campden tablets are stabilizers? I guess I'm curious about what stabilizing it actually means...? Also, k-meta OR Campden tablets AND sorbate, correct?

2/ What is stepfeeding? And alcohol toxicity? Cold crashing? These are all new terms to me, so I'd be grateful for a bit more elaboration.

3/ I have more pears I could freeze and use for sweetening, which would be ideal. After adding juice to the stabilized wine, are there any other things I need to do?

Again, thanks so much for taking the time to reply.

 

[Dend78]

1/ The stabilization process occurs no less than 6 mos. and the wine is clear. Correct? You mention k-meta/Campden... is k-meta an acronym for something I should know about? Is this k-meta different from Campden and how so? I have Campden tablets already, so hopefully they will still be effective by the time I need to stabilize 6-12 mos. down the road. It sounds totally like a dumb question... but Campden tablets are stabilizers? I guess I'm curious about what stabilizing it actually means...? Also, k-meta OR Campden tablets AND sorbate, correct?

to stabilize basically is to stop all fermentation

2/ What is stepfeeding? And alcohol toxicity? Cold crashing? These are all new terms to me, so I'd be grateful for a bit more elaboration.

saramc would be better at answering this one but i will give it a shot, stepfeeding would be to add sugar as it is fermenting to get the higher ABV
alcohol toxicity would be what is required to kill the yeast to stop any further fermentation
cold crashing would be to basically refrigerate to stop fermentation

3/ I have more pears I could freeze and use for sweetening, which would be ideal. After adding juice to the stabilized wine, are there any other things I need to do?

from there you can add a fining agent like superkleer or insinglass or sparkolloid something to that nature to speed clearing or you can allow father time to do it all for you, and you may have to rack it another time or two but be careful not to disturb the sediment when re-racking

 

[cohenhouse77]

If you want to make something that you can drink right away lookup the recipe for Skeeter P. I have made a batch of this not only does it taste pretty amazingly awesome, but start to finish you can be drinking it in as little as about 6 weeks. You have to make something like this otherwise you might go a little crazy staring at your wine that you're not allowed to drink for years.

 

[UBB]

Just a FWIW post. My plum wine is now at 11 months in the carboy. There was a HUGE difference in taste at 5 months and 10 months. I'm VERY excited about this wine.

 

[Julie]

Hi ree

Welcome to winemakingtalk

 

[ree]

Wow, Julie!!! Your list amazed me!!!

I'm a complete greenhorn... Does any one know a good educational website that explains all the fermentation stuff? I really need to read up on it. Thanks... I am completely ignorant.

If you want to make something that you can drink right away lookup the recipe for Skeeter P. .

Is there a link for that? (Forum newbie, thanks.)

Ohh, just noticed this thread. It helps a lot.

 

[UBB]

Wow, Julie!!! Your list amazed me!!!

I'm a complete greenhorn... Does any one know a good educational website that explains all the fermentation stuff? I really need to read up on it. Thanks... I am completely ignorant.

Is there a link for that? (Forum newbie.)

You are already there!

 

[Luc]

About the pear wine.
Think of it this way.
Would you have your apple juice dilluted with water ??? Of course you would not. That is why you should use pure pear juice when making the wine. Pears have a very delicate flavor and therefore should not be dilluted.
This is why you notice it has little body and flavor.

For the plums I must say they can be dilluted but that is depending on the kind of plums (there are dozens of varieties each with their own flavor). Again I make my plum wines from pure juice. I just dillute the juice a bit to get the high acid down to an acceptable level. They way I do this is by adding sugar dissolved in water. It takes some calculating but is worth the efoort.
The wine is full flavored and full with body. I make about 120 liter every year.

You can find my method here:
http://wijnmaker.blogspot.nl/2007/07/soms-lopen-de-dingen-in-het-leven.html

Luc