Hello All,
I went against the advice of friends and decided to try and tackle orange wine. I used a recipe from an old book I found at the library with a few modifications. Below is the recipe and racking schedule.
Orange Wine:
- The juice of 25 Valencia oranges. I juiced all twenty five which made a little more then a gallon of juice. I triple filtered this and it came out a little less then a gallon, but there was absolutly NO pulp.
2.The Zest of 5 orange peels. I was sure not to grate any of the white stuff in the peels with this zest.
- I mixed the zest in 1 1/2 gallons of water and slowly boiled this. While slowly adding 2 lbs of sugar.
- At this point I mixed up a standard yest starter.
- I added 2 tsp of fermax yeast nutrient to teh must.
- I waited 12 hours and then added the yeast starter to the must.
- 5 Days later I added another 2 lbs of sugar and racked into a carboy with an SG of 1.040.
- 2 months later I racked with an SG of 0.990
I gave the brew a little taste at this point and noticed it still had a yeastie flavor. It was very dry and tasted rather acidy.
My question is, how should the acid content look in an orange wine and what should it be? Further more what rolls does acid play in the fementing process and the aging process?
Any help would be great Thanks Mike T.