Water Wine

[djrockinsteve]

I had to make a "water Wine" to blend with a muskadine wine that I had made but turned out too high in acid and very low ph.

Making a water wine is just like a skeeter pee except you leave out the lemon juice. Inverted sugar water to your desired specific gravity. Nutrients and yeast.

Ferment dry as other wines, clear and sulfite as a normal wine. It takes on the color of a weak ginger ale.

For reference the Water wines final readings were..
specific gravity .990
ph 3.66
acid .30%

The muskadine's final readings prior to blending were..
specific gravity .997
ph 2.85
acid .86%

I blended 2 parts muskadine and 1 part water wine.
The final readings after blending were..
specific gravity 1.004 (I added 10 ounces of inv. sugar)
ph 2.89
acid .675%

I wanted to reduce the acid and raise the ph a bit more but was cutting it close with the amount of water wine I had, and the wife loves it just where it is. A very intense grape flavor.

Learning juices from eastern U.S. are normally higher in acid than the west. I'm happy with the results and will bottle in a few days.

Current sulfite levels are 35ppm

 

[deboard]

Turning water into wine....I've heard of this once before. That guy had some bad stuff happen to him later.

 

[djrockinsteve]

NO one's invited over for dinner!

 

[deboard]

Ha!

This is a great idea though, I worry about acidic wines I've made and this would help.

 

[djrockinsteve]

It would be best to either add water or add potassium bicarbonate prior to fermenting. You can reduce some by cold stabilizing.

I had a small amount of tartaric crystals on both my muskadine and now my noble I'm doing.

I did not have a ph meter before I started these 2 and it would have helped.

I purchased 4 juices from Walker's in NY, they are all high in acid and one of them (can't recall which now) has an acid reading of 1.00% These will be delt with shortly.

 

[DrJerryrigger]

cool idea. It's basically a sugar wash as a distiller would use. Some sort of pH buffer would be good to add to this before fermentation , as yeast can do crazy things when given nothing but pure food and nutrient.
Did you use sucrose or dextrose? I would think Dextrose would give a more neutral wine, though it may make no noticeable difference when added to your original wine.
An alternative would be to buy some grain alcohol or very neutral vodka, add water and use that... but that would be less fun.
Another though would be to add activated charcoal (call distillers charcoal at brew stores, also sold for fish tank filters) to absorb off flavors.

 

[djrockinsteve]

I inverted granulated sugar making it sucrose.

Both the Noble and Muskadine came out really nice. Now if I can keep the wife away from it until bottling time...

 

[Hokapsig]

Steve, could you post a recipe for a gallon batch of water wine based and any recommendations on your experiences? I'd like to use this to top up some of my wines.

 

[djrockinsteve]

It's sugar water to match the ABV of the wine you intend on blending with. Instead of juice you would mix up inverted sugar water. You will need to stir often and may need more nutrient.

It will go slow as there are no nutrients in the water that normally would be in the juice.

Keep it warn, definitely use a starter and suggest using Lalvin EC-1118

Near the end add some super ferment to boost the yeast. Do everything you can to keep this fermenting.

When it's thru, sulfite and clear. Blend.

If you have clorinated water be sure to allow it to aerate a day or two.

 

[Hokapsig]

I always run the water through the Britta water filter prior to use.

So, basically, add enough sugar to get to 1.080, add some super ferment (diammonium phosphate---it includes ammonium ion and phosphate ion, plus yeast hulls (for lipids), sulfate ion, B-complex vitamins, and growth factors (biotin and pantothenic acid), as well as trace amounts of calcium, magnesium, manganese, and zinc.), add an 1118 starter and stir daily?

 

[djrockinsteve]

Correct Sir.

 

[GreginND]

Hw do you get a pH of 3.66 with just water? You must be adding acid?

 

[Hokapsig]

adding some acid blend to the water should bring the pH to where you need it. I'm wondering how much the super ferment will affect the water pH. When I add the super ferment to the juice, the juice has acid in it already and can hide the affect of the super ferment.