Grape Expectations
Member
My orange wine, while fermenting fast and having an acceptable pH level, comes out tasting too acidic. Is there any disadvantage to adding precipitated chalk at the start?
Most info I am reading says only add this when fermenting has completed, but why is that?
If I add a half teaspoon to a gallon, that won't raise the pH above 4.5 and the yeast (in theory) is OK with that.
The reason I want to add it at the start is, I don't like the idea of stirring the wine when it's fully fermented, then waiting 2 weeks for the chalk and everything else to settle down to make the wine clear again.
Last time when I thought my cranberry wine was too acidic, I added half a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda to each gallon and when I mixed that with my (untreated and hence acidic) orange wine, it came out the nicest smoothest wine I have made to date. Precipitated chalk sounds like the best bet but it's not cheap, whereas bicarbonate of soda is, but it does have a taste when tasting just the powder on it's own, although after putting it in my cranberry wine I can't really tell it's been added, when diluted 50:50 with orange wine - so really the bicarbonate of soda content ended up about 0.25 tsp per gallon, which is the amount I have seen bounded around.
Perhaps with the cranberry and orange mix, some of the sweetness of the resulting cranberry wine is hiding some acidity put in by the orange wine, but something else is going on because, the pH level of both cranberry and orange was around the same, yet the taste of the orange is far more acidic than the cranberry.
I just want to add the precipitated chalk (or bicarbonate of soda) at the start, it just makes everything easier. I thought perhaps the yeast might even react better with a slightly raised pH? Hmmmmmmm!
Most info I am reading says only add this when fermenting has completed, but why is that?
If I add a half teaspoon to a gallon, that won't raise the pH above 4.5 and the yeast (in theory) is OK with that.
The reason I want to add it at the start is, I don't like the idea of stirring the wine when it's fully fermented, then waiting 2 weeks for the chalk and everything else to settle down to make the wine clear again.
Last time when I thought my cranberry wine was too acidic, I added half a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda to each gallon and when I mixed that with my (untreated and hence acidic) orange wine, it came out the nicest smoothest wine I have made to date. Precipitated chalk sounds like the best bet but it's not cheap, whereas bicarbonate of soda is, but it does have a taste when tasting just the powder on it's own, although after putting it in my cranberry wine I can't really tell it's been added, when diluted 50:50 with orange wine - so really the bicarbonate of soda content ended up about 0.25 tsp per gallon, which is the amount I have seen bounded around.
Perhaps with the cranberry and orange mix, some of the sweetness of the resulting cranberry wine is hiding some acidity put in by the orange wine, but something else is going on because, the pH level of both cranberry and orange was around the same, yet the taste of the orange is far more acidic than the cranberry.
I just want to add the precipitated chalk (or bicarbonate of soda) at the start, it just makes everything easier. I thought perhaps the yeast might even react better with a slightly raised pH? Hmmmmmmm!
