Foul taste of pectin enzyme?

Hi!

I have a problem wine, a cab/merlot made from a kit. It refused to clear so eventually I did the pectin haze test found on Jack Kellers site. It showed that it was definatly a pectin problem.

I consulted with my homebrew shop and they recommended to first add some pectin enzyme and to filter. The problem is with the pectin enzyme. After I added to the wine it has a nasty taste. I can't really describe it but it's a unpleastent bite to the wine. The pectin enzyme did smell when I diluted it with water but I thought that was normal. Is it?

Is this something that will go away?

Worried regards, Joaquin

Reply to
Joaquin
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I generally use the liquid type. Even in it's most concentrated form, it has almost no odor. And, if you place the tiniest of drops on your tongue, it has a slightly sweet taste and very little after taste. At the levels normally used in winemaking, there should be no noticeable effect on the wine other than taking care of pectin problems. Wine doesn't like to be handled too much. I suspect that what you are tasting is a kind of "bottle shock" effect (which will go away in time)

-or- if you didn't add enough extra sulfite, all the extra handling may have caused some oxidation in the wine (which_won't_go away). HTH

Reply to
frederick ploegman

I kinda like the taste of pecin enzyme. It kinda tastes a bit sweet and light, and has a pleasant smell. I'm concerned that if it has a nasty taste that perhaps it could have been spoiled in some way, or wasn't in fact pectin enzyme but was something else.

LG

Reply to
LG

Yes, I thought that it might have been spoiled in some way too. I bought some more pectin enzyme in another shop and it wasn't the same. More or less the same smell but way weaker than the first batch.

The wine is probably oxidized too due to all the racking and filtering I've done. I'll probably just filter it again and bottle and hope for the best. If it doesn't turn out ok I'll just dump it.

Reply to
Joaquin

Doh.. don't give up yet! I hate to hear of a perfectly unrepaired batch going to waste! :D

Maybe try a few things..

  • fining with gelatain/kieselsol (tends to strip a wine a little, but may also strip some bad flavours/spoilage too)
  • cold stabalization
  • filtering again, after the above two

After it's stripped a little but not completely horrible.. you could just freeze it, collect the 1st half of the runoff, then toss the leftover ice.. add some sugar to 1.020 and now you might have some instant port that might not be half bad! (oxidization isn't as bad for something that ends up as a port wine methinks) Then bottle it! Worst case is you've bottled half the amount you would have had to. :D

LG

Reply to
LG

Nah, I haven't given up yet. That was my frustration talking :)

I tasted the wine again today and it seems that the bad taste of the pectin enzyme has gone away now after a week or so. It still has a slight haze, even after filtration, but I think I'll leave it as it is. Would it be a Bad Thing to bottle a wine with a haze? If it hasn't settled by now I don't think it'll settle in the bottle either, right?

I've already done the gelatin/kiselsol fining and the cold stabilization so I don't think that would help.

Talking about the pectin enzyme. Is it supposed to break down the proteins to smaller molecules so that the wine looks clear or does it make the pectin proteins settle?

Reply to
Joaquin

Close. Pectic enzyme, oddly enough, breaks down pectin, a polymer made up mainly of strings of a derivative of galactose (a sugar). If you do have a pectic haze (which you can test for with methyl alcohol additions to a small sample, I think), pectic enzyme will clear it right up.

I can't remember what kind of wine it is--have you tested for protein haze, which is a different problem than a pectic haze? Bentonite is used to clear proteins, but it's normally done before they agglomerate into a visible haze.

Dave

**************************************************************************** Dave Breeden snipped-for-privacy@lightlink.com
Reply to
David C Breeden

Time usually never hurts. :) If you have a bit of a haze, it might be smart to be on the safe side and let it age a few months and see if it drops anything, in which case you can make a decision then.

Ian

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Reply to
LG

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