Make wine like a beer wart? why not?

sulfates even ....

Sulf_i_tes, you mean. ;^)

The reason is simple: If you cook the fruit before fermentation, it will _taste_ cooked. That's not a good thing with wine.

Beer isn't made from fruit. It's made from grain. AFAIK there are no such issues with grain.

Also, wines are made to have a much longer shelf life than beers. Sulfite is necessary to prolong the shelf life until the wine reaches full maturity, which can take decades. Most beers don't improve much in bottle and are best drunk young.

Tom S

Yeah, with beer you WANT to cook it. To get out all the protein and to preciptate the polyphenols that will maie it taste like grain. And it is wort. Wart is a thing on a frogs ass.

If you boil your fruit your wine will end up tasting like Jam.

Also, sulfites serve more than one purpose. One is to inhibit wild yeast and mold. This is not the most important purpose. Far more important is inhibiting oxidation which is wines' worst enemy.

Ray

In article , Ray Calvert writes

Thanks for that observation Ray. Two points. Can I assume that by sulfites you mainly mean Campden tablets, and what factors in winemaking are likely to lead to oxidation? TIA.

The active ingredient in campden tablets is usually potassium metabisulfite (occasionally sodium metabisulfite).

Oxidation is caused by allowing oxygen acces to your wine, usually in unrestricted quantities. This can happen in several ways, here's the list that I can think of quickly::

1) allowing air lock to run dry 2) stirring too much and whipping air into the wine 3) not using metabisulfites which means that all air access will oxidize wine a bit 4) excessive headspace in carboy

Steve

Tom,

I agree with everthing you said except the above. Good beers most definitely improve with bottle age, some for years and years. Maybe not as long as wine, but the whole Bud born on date is just marketing hype for the mega-swill stuff.

Andy

Steve is right. But even properly bottled wine tends to oxidize when bottled for a long period of time if you do not protect it with sulfites. Somehow air gets to it even through the cork. If you are going to drink it within a year or 2 you may be okay. But if you want to put some back for extended aging it should be protected.

Ray

First ... thanks for the corrections, I didn't take my time at that.

So really, the only reason to do it is for the "quality" thing. You are still gonna make wine but not good enough for the connoisseur. Maybe just lowley fruit alcohol ...and if it will be consumed relatively quickly .. no worry about preservation, right? The alcohol itself should be a good preservative?

Why should the head space cause oxidation? That fills up with CO2, and many many volumes of the headspace are replenished during fermentation..... there should be no O2 left in there. Right?

In article , JEP62 writes

I agree. I only make budget kit beers, which I store in bottles. I find that they mature to a very good standard if kept for 2-3 months.

IMHO, that's a pretty good rule of thumb for normal strength beers. Things like Barley Wines, Russian Imperial Stouts and Belgian Doubles and Triples can take years to hit the mark.

Andy

Answers below:

Yes alcohol will preserve the wine from many infections and will prevent anything really bad from happening to your wine. After all, Oxidation may or may not make your wine taste bad but it will not hurt you. There are no known pathogens found in wine so you are in general safe even if wine tastes bad.

In general you are correct. During primary fermentation is so strong and CO2 generation is so great that you do not really have to protect your wine from O2. Just from bugs. So you do not need to have it under an airlock. When fermentation slows down after 3 to 7 days, then you need to put it in a carboy under an air lock. Even then, there is enough CO2 generated to purge a reasonable head space very quickly. What is a reasonable head space? Probably from 1/3 to 1/6 of the volume of the carboy. This is good as it leaves enough head space to accommodate any foaming that can occur.

After fermentation is when you need to worry about head space. Then there is not enough CO2 coming off to purge a large head space. You need to keep it as small as possible because every time you rack you have a new head space and most of that O2 will react with the wine if the wine is not protected by something like sulfite.

There is another good reason to go with a small head space and use sulfite. That is because the experts say you should. People did this long before anyone knew why it worked. If is not bad for a newbie to question standard practice but it is foolish to go against it. It is seldom wise to do something different just because you do not know why a standard is being followed or because you can rationalize your way out of doing it.

Ray

What are your options for people that are sensitive to sulfites?

You can make a wine without adding sulfites, but it should be consumed realtively quickly or it will oxidize. Possibly synthetic corks would reduce the oxidation (I believe that they seal better)..

There will still be sulfites in the wine from the fermentation but the level willl be reduced. Generally home-made wines have lower sulfite levels than commercial wines anyway.

Consider different sanitizers, eg Diversol (half hour soak minimum), or iodophor (any iodine concerns?). However, the sulfite remaining from sanitizing with sulfite should be very minimal.

Option 2: Drink beer or water??

Warning 1: ascorbic acid is sometimes given as a substitute for sulfites. My understanding from a wine chemist is that ascorbic acid causes rapid oxidation when not used in conjunction with sulfites (I think I got t hat right).

Warning 2: to sweeten a wine requires sorbate to stop the yeast. If you use sorbate without sulfites, a geranium smell results.

Steve