Newbie Question

Hello All, I have recently tried making my own wine, within the last few months after purchasing equipment from local store and old winemaker who was getting old and couln't handle it any longer. My question is my first 2 batches, 1 was pear and the other nectarine, both fresh fruit, have tasted like vinegar after I went to rack them after the 3 week stage. I don't get, all my equipment is sterilized either with a bleach solution, I know not the best, but I am poor or sodium bisulfite solution. After the primary they were filled to the neck also. My only other guess is that perhaps because I used very hot tap water instead of spring or distilled water, but I don't see how that can do it. Once again I'm only a novice and thought I'd ask the experts for their opinions. Any other info needed let me know. Cheers.

Justin

Reply to
Justin
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Hello, Could you tell us about your initial fermentation? bucket? how long? starting & ending SG? Can you tell us what color the wines are? Do they smell like bleach or vinegar? Sometimes we need a bit more info before we can offer some suggestions. I suppose if you used some old equipment which had vinegar in it then your batch could have gone bad that way. I clean with bleach too, but I rinse well and I've never had a problem. My other thought is that very young wine can taste pretty bad, which you wouldn't realize because these are your first batches; so it might be worth your while to wait a bit longer before you get worried. I look forward to your response, it might help us figure out what happened. Darlene

Reply to
Dar V

Three weeks is pretty early in the process to decide how a fruit wine tastes. Let the wine finish fermenting and settling... Then decide how it tastes.

Reply to
A. J. Rawls

I use bleach all the time with no problems. I don't see how that coulb be the cause of viegar flavor.

I'm not sure 3 weeks is long enough to assess your wine. I've had a few batches I thought were infected, but after aging and clearing they turned out to be fine.

Reply to
Truitt Smith

Thanks for the quick responses. Perhaps I shouldn't go crazy and let time take it course to make judgement on the wine.

Initial fermentation usually lasting 5-6 days, Starting SG was 1.090 for both pear and nectarine. Did not to ending SG on nectartine but pear was .990, lowest hydrometer goes. Pear was off-white, creme colored, clear on top cloudy at bottom and nectarine was rustic orange color, clear at top cloudy at bottom. Pear wine smelled sour when I opened it, nectarine smelled more like a rancid beer, with a yeasty characteristic to it. Didn't smell like bleach at all. Like I said I'm new at this, so I'm quite anxious, but do not want to keep working at a wine if it is already too late by the way it tasted now. Thanks again.

Justin

Reply to
Justin

Reply to
Dar V

Thanks I'm going to let them ride and hopefully they are more pleasing in the future. In the meantime I'll be going to market and picking up more fresh fruit.

Justin

Reply to
Justin

Ah yes, and the compulsion continues...welcome to the world of winemaking. I started with 1 gallon of rhubarb wine and 1 small wine rack. Now I make about 20 gallons of wine a year, and I have a wine rack which can hold up to

108 bottles of w>
Reply to
Dar V

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