Wine conditioner

[TJsBasement]

I'm new so give me a break for using wine conditioner, I'm learning. I told my HBS about my lemon wine and after the "What, lemon" and explanation he said to try the WC. I tried the recommended 15ml per liter but ended up doubling that, so a full 500ml bottle to a 5 gallon batch. I must be used to way too much sugar. As an after thought is it bad to have that much extra sorbate and if was to sweeten anymore should I add any more sorbate, its potassium sorbate right.

 

[Runningwolf]

TJ I having a little troupble reading and understanding your post but I think I can tell you what your looking for. First off Wine Conditioner is not a good thing to use. It will give your wine an off taste and you doubled up on it so it will even be stronger yet. Sorbate is only used at a rate of 1/2 tsp per gallon, no more regardless of how much sugar you used. I hope this helps.

 

[TJsBasement]

The wine conditioner is sugar and sorbate, maybe it said sucrose, but it has a minimum recommended amount per liter on the bottle of conditioner and I double that amount just from tasting and thinking it needs to be sweeter, now I'm wondering if that is too much sorbate. The conditioner bottle doesn't say how much sorbate is in it per volume, is it still safe to drink.

 

[Runningwolf]

It will be safe to drink if you like it. Learn from this mistake and don't show this off to your friends you wish to impress. Your next batch will be better. Next time use kmeta and sorbate to stabilize your wine and sweeten with sugar. Stick around, try again, ask questions and we'll walk you through it. Don't feel bad, I have a batch I'm getting ready to dump myself.

 

[TJsBasement]

Ya most of time I only make a mistake once so its less of a mistake and more learning bump. The conditioner sounded like a good idea but now I see it leaves me with no control over ratio. Live and learn but have a drink in between.

 

[Arne]

If you don't like the taste right away, don't pitch it. Let it sit for a month or two and taste again. It is amazing how things will get better with a little aging. Arne.

 

[Julie]

I agree with Arne, aging will help. In the future us an f-pac or take some wine, warm it up, add sugar to melt and then put that back into the wine after you add sorbate.

 

[Sirthomas42]

When I added sorbate to a batch of Apple wine 6 months ago, I screwed up and *doubled* the amount by mistake. It gave the wine a bad off flavor, but we cracked a bottle last weekend, it's quite tasty now. Time seems to fix anything.

On wine conditioner, with my very first batch, before I knew anything, I backsweetened with WC. But, I didn't use enough, so there wasn't enough sorbate in the wine, so it refermented in the bottle. Blew a few corks. :-( Now I sweeten with sugar/sugar syrup, and add sorbate a few days before sweetening.

 

[TJsBasement]

Thanks for the tips all, last time I use the stuff thats for sure. So I may not be bottling my first batch of SP for a while, oh well I'll start another with the slurry from some cherry I have planned, I ordered a gallon and a half of some tart cherry concentrate, they claim #45 of cherry per half gallon of juice.

 

[TJsBasement]

Ok it's time to do something with this batch, I tried to do an acidity test but I think the test was bad or it's over 1.3%, I have a fresh acid test coming from Doug at Brew and Wine so I can test that again maybe this weekend but I did a ph test and a TDS test. The PH was 3.0 using a Horitcare ph meter and the ppm was 637 using a Milwaukee T75 meter. Hey I got my wife to believe a sc-300 is a absolute must have so I'm getting one soon. I got a SG of 1.002 that's after the wine conditioner I added back in whenever that was. I take good notes now.

What should I target the SG to be after sweetening. And due to using double the recommended amount of conditioner I shouldn't add more sorbate right just 1/4 teaspoon of kmeta then bottle it up.

 

[TJsBasement]

Should I take the lack of response to mean you guys would just dump it. I added 3 cups of white sugar in and my SG is now at 1.014-5 but it still has a very bitter finish, taste somewhat like that bitter taste you get if you bite an orange peel. Other then the finish it's ok, was a good equipment run down and practice if nothing else.

 

[Deezil]

You could try thinning it out some - with white wine, water wine, or water maybe

See if the bitter taste goes away or if it just gets lesser but never leaves - would take some bench trials to figure out.

Is it just lemon-flavored? What brand was it?

You could try adding frozen concentrates to both sweeten & flavor the wine, you might be able to mask the bitterness some... More bench trials, to do it right.

How old is it?

At this point, letting it age wont cost you anything but the space it takes up - i'd let it clear and then store it however is best for you to keep it 'out of the way' for a while... Check on it in 3-6 months and if nothing improves maybe make a dumping decision there..

Just thinkin..

 

[TJsBasement]

Ya know, I did end up using one bottle of other lemon stuff and one bottle of Realemon, bet that's where the weird bitter is coming from. I have only added lemon for flavor but your right, maybe blending some concentrate in is the ticket, or even some plain juice, that would add flavor and thin it at the same time. Your right Ima have to do some bench trial.

I checked SG after work today and had a little sip, SG is the same and it tasted a touch better then it did last night. It kinda gave me hope that it could be drinkable one day.

 

[Brew and Wine Supply]

Wine Conditioner has just enough sorbate in it to take care of the sugar that is in it. If you have/add more sugar in your wine fermentation can take off again.