Apple Cider / Juice Wine - 1.100 and holding.

Do you still have the container from the Apple Cider? If so, check the label. It probably contains preservatives such as Sodium Benzoate or Potassium Sorbate. Both of those will stabilize your juice, i.e. keeping fermentation from developing. You could get this going by doing a yeast starter, and adding that to your apple cider. The preservatives don't allow yeast to multiply, but if introduce a very healthy starter culture of yeast, the yeast you do add will start the fermantion process, they just won't multiply.

Van

Back before the days of additives for wine making, wasn't wine made without all the additives we currently use?? Pectin enzyme etc?? Wasn't it good wine??? Mike

We weren't around then so who knows.

It's all relative. My grandfathers wines were considered good and he used no chemicals. He learned how to make wine in Italy before he came across and that was close to 100 years ago. The only thing he did that seems a little odd was that he used mint to 'sweeten' the barrel. Do I know what that means? No; I was too young to have an opinion on his wine. I do know he was a fanatic about cleaning the barrels. His wine always disappeared in time for another batch; they were simple table wines consumed young. That said, I use chemicals judiciously and I'm sure he would like our wines.

Joe

Well, It appears Van was correct, the Apple Cider orchard must have used potassium sorbiate, cause still I am getting no bubbling. I am building a nice fine, white lees at the bottom, but hydrometer still is 1.100. Dang, guess I'll rack in 8 days and see what happens. Too early to toss yet, but this doesn't seem to be working.

Thanks, Van.

maybe i need a new hobby, DAve

DAve Allis> Well, after much reading thru Jack's website and talking to a neighbor

I ran a wine & beer making supply store some years ago, and among my customers were a number of guys of Italian ancestry who made wine "the old way". Fermentation was with whatever yeast grew on the skin of the grapes and the only additive was lemons to adjust acid. [All they bought from me was corks. :-) ]

The guys often brought in samples. I tasted some really nice wines; I also received bottles of fantastic drain cleaner that I couldn't get past my nose.

In contrast, one man made his wines using what additives the grapes needed. He measured pH, TA, etc, and adjusted the wines accordingly. His wines rivaled the best commercial wines I've had. Wines he considered failures were successes by most standards. I would have been proud to serve some of his "failures".

That's the long answer.

The short answer is consistency. Commercial yeasts and additives make up for the widely varying conditions in nature. They enable us to take mediocre grapes and produce pleasing wines.

Bryan

Pectic enzyme is not as widely used as you might think. Many, if not most, red winemakers don't use it at all.

OTOH, to find wines that were made without the use of sulfur dioxide I suspect you'd have to go back hundreds, if not thousands, of years.

In the days before that I suspect that wines were typically consumed quite early - before they had a chance to spoil. I understand that olive oil was poured on top of the wine to keep air away from it and to lengthen somewhat its shelf life.

It may have been good while it lasted - but that probably wasn't very long. I'll bet the stuff at that famous wedding at Cana was superb! ;^D

Tom S

SO2 - hundreds, even thousands, of years? How do you figure? The concepts of bacteria and microbial spolage date only to the late 19th century, don't they? (Pasteur's work was mid to late 19th century). If SO2 was used, what was the purpose, and - most interesting - what was the vector for delivering? I can't imagine meta powder or Campden tablets were easy to come by!

They learned empirically that it helped them to make better wine? I really don't know. I wasn't there. :^/

and - most interesting - what was

No, but sulfur was. They simply burned sulfur in the container before adding the wine. The French call it "mechage". It's not a very well controlled way of adding SO2, but it does work.

Tom S

You weren't there? Damn. Thought I'd found a source for some REALLY aged French wines. chuckle

Interesting point about the "mechage". I knew I'd learn something if I asked. Part of the allure of making wine is the history that comes with doing so. When I'm groveling on my knees under the vines, trying to pick some difficult to reach cluster; or when I'm watching a vat of must fermenting away, I can't help but think that what I'm doing is pretty much exactly what's been done for thousands of years.

Belive it or not - I wasn't there either!

Cheers,

There is no doubt that the wine at Cana was the BEST wine ever made, period. Anyone who can make wine from water, can make the BEST wine.

Gary

Make a starter of about a quart using sugar and water, then add that in when it's going really well. It can't hurt to get the yeast going really well and then try adding it in equal increments, a quart to a quart, and so on.

Joe

Make a starter of about a quart using sugar and water, then add that in when it's going really well. It can't hurt to get the yeast going really well and then try adding it in equal increments, a quart to a quart, and so on.

Joe

This really worked nicely. Plus I realized it was too cool, so I used a heating blanket under it, and now it's bubbling away (and also my pumpkin is alive again because of the heating blanket under it). I see regular heater platforms for sale online, but this heating blanket is working - anyone have any experience using heating blankets instead of the retail heater pads?

I guess I should buy a thermometer that floats > Make a starter of about a quart using sugar and water, then add that in

You know it's a hobby when it starts consuming all your daydreaming thoughts (see below).

Gene

DAve Allis> This really worked nicely. Plus I realized it was too cool, so I used a

Shoot, I just put a small light bulb in the spare bedroom closet where I do my fermentations... 50W to slowwwwly raise the temperature after cold soak. Once my zinfandel fermentaion is underway, I use 75-100W bulb during day to push temp to 70-80F (and 100-125W at night to keep temperature from dropping; 25W difference day/night is all it takes to hold temperature constant in my closet winery).

For whites, I use no heat, but instead surround the fermentor pail with closed 5 gallon jugs of tap water (for big thermal mass), then cover the whole shebang with blankets.

These combos hold the fermentation temperature within 2deg F, and it's all run on outlet-type timers.

You could buy an el cheapo digital indoor/outdoor temperature gauge (with wire-remote thermistor sensor for the 'outdoor' temp reading). I attached the 'outdoor' sensor of mine to the outside of my fermentor pail (near the bottom), then covered the sensor with 'shipping peanuts' insulation, held onto the pail with masking tape. Can see what temp my fermentor is without even opening the closet door, LOL.

Come to think of it, I could insulate my open-top 10 gallon fermentor by standing it up off the bottom inside a 33 gallon garbage can, wrap the fermentor with two strings of miniature christmas lights for heat... [Off / Low(~10W ) / Med (~25W) / High (~35W) as needed] and fill the empty space with more shipping peanuts. [...wonder if that's too much work --- I'll think about it for the next batch.]

I use a heating pad and strap it on with old belts, then I wrap a few blankets or towels around all of that. It works well. Eckerd still sells regular heating pads that don't have an automatic timeout feature. They are getting harder to find.

Joe