Sour??

[bladeofthemoon]

I was siphoning off the wine yesterday, and some went into my mouth so i could taste it a bit. It had a slightly sour taste to it. i was a bit worried that it might have gotten oxidized. so i smelt it, but it seemed to smell fine. is this normal for an apple and honey wine?? cause i was thinking i could always add some honey to it later on and sweeten it after adding sulphites.

 

[Skyhawk]

Apple wine will look brownish when oxidized, plus oxidized wine has a very distinctive undesirable taste, but I wouldn't call it "sour". Is it sour like vinigar? Did you accidently leave a lot of headspace in your fermentor for a long time? How old is it? Is it a dry wine? Is it still fermenting? There were no filmish or whitish floaties on top of it were there?

Perhaps it's just young. Is this the first time you taste young wine?

 

[bladeofthemoon]

er.. well, yes there was a reasonable amount of head space. i misjudged the jar and the quantity i made so.. hehe well, its about ummmm maybe 1 month old, in the sense that im waiting to add the fining and sulphites as its still at 1.000 SG and it has to reach 0.95 according to the book. well, it is dry as far as i know ( i can add some water and make it wet. hehe sry couldnt help it. ) there was nothign filmish floating. just some foam bubbles patches here and there. well, i'd say it tastes like ummmm not vinegar cause thats strong. this is kinda like orangish sour. i suppose.

 

[bladeofthemoon]

oh and yes, this is the first time im tasting young wine.

 

[Skyhawk]

The "sourness" could very well soften with age. 1 month old wine that is still slowly fermenting isn't suppose to taste good, but there shouldn't be any funny "off flavours" either. I'd go ahead and finish it, and if it's too dry for your in another month or two, you can always sweeten it up then.

 

[Wade E]

This is way to young to judge a cyser which an apple honey mead is called. figure out how to get this wine into vessels with the proper amount of headspace and give it lots of time. Sweetening it will definetly take away some of theis sourness and an acid addition may also be needed to make it a little more tart.

 

[bladeofthemoon]

hmmmm

@skyhawk
yeah, it doesnt have any off flavours far as i can make out anyways.

@wade

yea, i thought it was a bit early too but then this is the first time for me and i didnt wanna guess wrong. so i thought, let's go to the exerts.

@both
yep, im gonna get a new vessal and put it in one more appropriate before it goes bad. as for sweetning it, i think its fine if i add some honey to it rite before i bottle it rite?

 

[Wade E]

I would sweeten it at least a few weeks before bottling for 1 to make sure it doesnt start to ferment again and 2 to make sure that the sweetening process doesnt cloud it up as sometimes it does.

 

[bladeofthemoon]

cool. i'll remember that.