Yeast

[Wolf1955]

Ive been making wine fir years but i never used yeast in my wine can anyone explain the type and purpisr of it ty in advance

 

[BernardSmith]

Hi Wolf 1955 - and welcome. If you have been making wine for years the only way for grape juice (or any other fruit juice or honey) to become wine is for yeast to ferment the sugars in the juice. There are two basic approaches to that process. One approach is to make use of the indigenous yeast that will be on the fruit or in your locality and the other approach is to eliminate all indigenous yeasts and add your own cultured yeasts. The first approach means you have to live with the yeasts that are available and which may not always produce wines you like. After all the yeast make alcohol for their own purposes. We simply steal their product because we live higher up in the food chain.

The second approach is you have more control over how the wine turns out because lab controlled yeasts tend to result in single strains of yeast with known and very predictable characteristics. The labs also ensure that when they package and sell the yeasts they culture they exclude any volunteer bacteria and other microbes that may infect the yeast and which may then also shape the flavors and aromas of your wine in ways that you may not prefer. But in both approaches you are using yeast .

 

[wildhair]

Also - if you are not killing the wild yeast - you are also not killing the bacteria and other microbial nasties that live naturally on your fruit and that could containment the wine and give it off flavors. Your resulting could be less consistent and impossible to replicate if you got a really good batch.