I Put Too Much Sugar In My Wine!

Posted on June 18, 2020 by AIH

To keep a long story short, while mixing ingredients for the first fermentation, instead of 2 pounds of sugar called for in the wine recipe, 4 pounds made it into the bucket. I let it go for the first fermentation. The hydrometer reading is 1.106. Could I add water to lower sugar concentration for the fermentation?
Thank you.

Name: Jan R
State: Ohio
—–
Hello Jan,

Adding an additional 2 pounds of sugar to the wine must is not as serious as you might think. Assuming this is a 5 gallon batch, the extra sugar will raise the final alcohol level by about 2%, so while you may have put too much sugar in the wine, it is far from being a disaster.

The general rule-of-thumb is for every pound of sugar you add to a 5 gallon
batch of wine, you increase the potential alcohol by 1%.

Based on your beginning Specific Gravity reading of 1.106 you took with your hydrometer, you have a beginning potential alcohol right at 14%. That means you have enough sugar in the wine must for the yeast to ferment 14% worth of alcohol content. If you can live with this, then doing nothing is your best course of action. Just finish the fermentation as you normally would.

If you would like, you can dilute the wine with water, but this will bring up another problem and that is the wine’s acidity or its tartness. Diluting the flavor profile of a wine with water is one thing. You can get away with reducing the intensity of the flavor without having too much noticeable overall affect on the wine. But you are diluting the acidity at the same time. Acidity is something that is very noticeable when it’s diluted. Because of this, an adjustment would need to compensate for the lowering of the acid level. This can be done by adding Acid Blend to the wine must.

Now the question is: how much water and Acid Blend should you add? Again, I am going to assume this is a 5 gallon batch of wine.

You can use something called a Pearson’s square to calculate how much water to add to bring the potential alcohol down to its intended level, but I’ll do that for you, now. You need to add .83 gallons of water to the entire batch to bring the potential alcohol down from 14% to 12%. This works out to 3 quarts and 8.5 fluid ounces of water.

Now, you need to figure out how much Acid Blend needs to be added to compensate for the addition of .83 gallons of water. This leads me to my second rule-of-thumb:

For every teaspoon of Acid Blend you add to a gallon of liquid,
you will raise the total acidity by .15%.

With a target range of around .65% to .75% TA, this means you would want to add between 4.33 and 5 teaspoons of Acid Blend per gallon of water. You would be adding .83 gallons — not a whole gallon — so this would adjust the range of Acid Blend needed for the batch to somewhere between 3.6 and 4.1 teaspoons. You could also use an our Acid Test Kit to take an acid reading after the water has been added and adjust according.

You can add both the water and Acid Blend anytime you like during the winemaking process. The effects of both are immediate on the wine. The only thing you need to know is that if you add the water after the fermentation has completed, it needs to be distilled water. Using tap or bottled drinking water at this time would be introducing free oxygen into the wine and promote oxidation. Distilled water has no free oxygen.

As I’m sure you can start to see, there is a lot to be said for just leaving the wine alone and let is go as is, but if you feel that 14% alcohol is something you can’t live with, there are options. As I mentioned before, while you did put too much sugar in the wine must, the total effect on the resulting will not be disastrous or out ruinous. Either way I’m sure you wine will come out just fine.

Accidentally putting too much sugar in a wine must is something that happens from time to time. I know I’ve added to much sugar to my wine before, and I know lots of others have. Just realize that regardless of how bad the situation, there is usually a solution to remedy the problem.

Happy Winemaking,
Ed Kraus
—–
Ed Kraus is a 3rd generation home brewer/winemaker and has been an owner of E. C. Kraus since 1999. He has been helping individuals make better wine and beer for over 25 years.

3 Tips to Make Fruit Wine With More Fruit Flavor

Posted on June 16, 2020 by AIH

I recently entered a homemade blackberry wine into a judging contest. I did ok but two judges said my wine needed more fruit flavor. I used the wine recipe from Kraus. Do I need to add more fruit at the beginning of the fermentation? How do I get more fruit flavor in my wine? I usually make 5 gallons at a time.

Name: Thomas S.
State: Tennessee
—–
Hello Thomas,

Thanks for the great question! Flavor is a subjective topic. One person’s perception of a wine can be completely different from another’s. In fact, two of the tips I’m going to give you to make fruit wine with more fruit flavor (number 2 and 3) are based on perception and not reality:

Tip #1: Use more fruit – just as you suggested. This will also require you to add less acid blend than called for in the wine recipe. The reason for this is that more fruit acid is being provided by the fruit. An acid test kit may be the best way for you to tell how much acid blend is needed. The additional fruit will also provide more sugar to the wine must. You will want to use a hydrometer to know how much to add. This brings us to the next tip for getting more fruit flavor in your wine.

Tip #2: Make your wines with less alcohol. Lower alcohol wines tend to have more fruit flavor. High-alcohol wines numb the tongue, making flavor sensations tougher to experience. This wine can take on a watered-down characteristic. Instead of making your wines at 13%, 14%, or higher, try making them around 10% or 11%. Controlling your wine’s alcohol level is easily done by adding less sugar to the wine must. Again, a hydrometer is your friend in this situation. Add sugar to the wine must until the hydrometer gives you a potential alcohol reading in the 10% to 11% range.

Tip #3: Back-sweeten the wine at bottling time. Don’t make your wine bone dry. When you pop a blackberry into your mouth, a lot of what makes a blackberry taste like a blackberry is its sweetness. The fermentation takes all that sweetness away by fermenting the sugars into alcohol. Sweetening the wine back just a little bit can give the perception of the wine having more fruit flavor. You don’t necessarily have to make the wine sweet. Use just enough sugar to take the bone-dry edge off the wine can make quite a difference. It is important that you stabilize the wine by adding potassium sorbate when sweetening. This will help to eliminate any chance of a re-fermentation in the bottle.

There are a couple of caveats that need to be brought up.

Adding more fruit to increase the wines fruit flavor means that it will need more time to age. Bigger, bolder wines are harsher when they are first fermented. Aging plays a more important role in mellowing the harshness of these big wines.

There is a limit to how much you can increase the fruit in a wine recipe. The limit is based on the acidity or tartness of the particular fruit being used. You do not want to add so much fruit that the wine ends up being too tart even without adding any acid blend, at all.

So Thomas, there you have it… three simple things you can do to get more fruit flavor into your homemade fruit wines. You can try just one of them, or you can try all three at the same time, on the same wine.

Using A Blender To Crush Wine Making Fruit

Posted on June 15, 2020 by AIH

Just started a blueberry wine. Ran the berries through a blender instead of crushing them (lazy I guess). I did not add Campden tablets to it in the beginning, not sure if this is a problem. There is a pulp crust forming on top right now, I stir this each day, should I remove it after 5 or 6 days before I transfer the wine to a carboy?

Name: Lee P.
State: TN
—–
Hello Lee,

The fact that you did not add Campden tablets before the fermentation is probably not going to be a problem in this case.

The big issue here is that fact that you are using a blender to crush your wine making fruit. What this typically does is cause the resulting wine to be bitter. The over chopping and destroy of the pulp and seeds releases too much tannin into the wine. In turn, the wine will have a lower pH from excessive tannic acid, giving it an unpleasant, bitter-dry, puckering taste.

For future reference, you only want to crush the fruit. Using a blender is way overkill. You only need to make sure that the outer structure of the fruit has been busted in some way. This is something that can quickly be done by hand when dealing with 10 lb. or 15 lb. of fruit such as blueberries. If you are dealing with more fruit than this, then you may want to invest in a fruit crusher, but never use a blender to crush any kind of wine making fruit.

When the fermentation starts the wine yeast will produce enzymes that will naturally break down the fruit in a more natural, gentler way. The pectic enzyme that is called for in most fruit wine recipes will also help in the regard. For this reason you do not need to do a lot; let the yeast do if for you.

With that being said, there are still some things you can do to counteract using a blender to crush wine making fruit:

Shorten the amount of time you leave the fruit in the fermentation. The shorter the better. I would recommend 2, maybe 3 days at most. This will give less time for the bitterness to leach from the fruit.

Treat the wine with bentonite after the fermentation has completed. This will help to drop out the excessive tannin and other proteins that where extracted from the fruit. You may even want to use the bentonite more than once.

Age the wine longer than you normally would. Many of the flavor affects of having too much tannin in the wine can be resolved with additional aging. Instead of 3 to 6 months, think more along the lines of 9 to 15 months. Quite often this will be enough to bring the wine back into a flavorful balance.

I hope this helps you out, and I hope your wine turns out great, regardless. Just remember that using a blender to crush your wine making fruit is not the way to go.

Best Wishes,
Ed Kraus

—–
Ed Kraus is a 3rd generation home brewer/winemaker and has been an owner of E. C. Kraus since 1999. He has been helping individuals make better wine and beer for over 25 years.

3 Reasons Freezing Wine Making Fruit Should Be On Your Radar

Posted on June 12, 2020 by AIH

Question, is it better to make wine with fruit that has been frozen?

Thanks,
Gerald
—–
Hello Gerald,

Thanks for the great question and bringing up a great wine making subject. Freezing wine making fruit is a great tactic for the home winemaker. It’s one of the wine making tips I share with people quite often.

Just like you said, freezing the fruit breaks down the fiber that is holding it together. When it comes time to actually use the wine making fruit, just thaw it out and process as you normally would. You will find that the color and flavors will release from the fruit into the wine must more readily. This means you are getting more out of your wine making fruit.

Not only does freezing the wine making fruit have this subtle advantage, but there are a couple of more-obvious advantages as well. Freezing the fruit affords you the luxury of being able to make the wine when you are ready to make the wine. If the strawberries are ready, but your not… freeze ’em!

Another advantage is sometimes you don’t have enough fruit to make an entire batch of of a particular fruit wine recipe. Not all fruits come in evenly. The solution is to freeze the fruit as it comes in. Freezing the wine making fruit allows you to hoard until you do have enough to make a full batch of wine.

There’s really not much to know about freezing the fruit. Its okay to chop up your larger fruit. But for berries, you are better off leaving them whole. I strongly suggest sanitizing all wine making fruits in a bath of sodium metabisulfite and water solution before freezing. Drain the fruit thoroughly. Also, common sense would dictate that the “bad ones” be pick out and discarded.

If you plan on freezing the fruit for a longer period of time, say six months or more, you may want to consider packing the fruit in sugar syrup. This will help to eliminate any negative effects from freezer-burn. Just like it sounds, you use just enough sugar syrup to cover/submerge the fruit before freezing.

If you do decide to pack your fruits in sugar syrup you will want to add less sugar then your wine recipes calls for. This is to allow for the additional sugar that will be incorporated into the wine must along with the fruit.

A simple way of handling this adjustment is to rely on your wine hydrometer. Use the hydrometer to tell you how much sugar is needed in the recipe instead of adding the amount called for in the wine recipe. Just add sugar until the desired alcohol level is reached the the hydrometer’s potential alcohol scale.

Freezing wine making fruit is not a necessity to making wine. You can make incredible wines without freezing the fruit at all. Freezing fruit is just one more method you can use to help the fruit keep while waiting from more.

7 Wine Making Ingredients You Should Have On Hand!

Posted on June 10, 2020 by AIH

Time to stock up on your basic wine making ingredients.

It looks like it’s going to be a great year for fruits in most regions of our nation. It won’t be long before a cornucopia of fruit will be in season and ready for your wine making pleasure: blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, watermelon…

By stocking up on just a few, key wine making ingredients you’ll be ready for any type of fruit that may end up coming your way. You won’t need each ingredient in every recipe, but you’ll need most of them in all recipes.

Except for the wine yeast, just get one container of each. With the yeast you’ll want to have a variety of three or four different types to have on hand. Stock these wine making ingredients, and you’ll be ready for anything:

Yeast Nutrient – Just like it sounds, this wine making ingredient is nutrient for the yeast. It helps to invigorate the wine yeast and get it fermenting more quickly.

Yeast Energizer – A combination of Yeast Nutrient, vitamins and proteins. It is used for wines that lack the types of nutrients the wine yeast expect: Dandelion, honey, rose hips, etc.

Pectic Enzyme – Aids in pulling flavor from the fruit. It breaks down the fruits fiber so that more flavor will release. It also aid in the clearing of the wine.

Acid Blend – Brings the fruit acids up to a flavorful level. Any wine recipe that calls for water will need this wine making ingredient to bring the wine’s acidity up to a proper level.

Grape Tannin – Adds zests to the wine. It is the peel flavor of the fruit. Grape tannin also helps the wine clear and age properly.

Wine Yeast – This wine making ingredient is what actually turns the sugar into alcohol. There are several different types for various wines. I would recommend, at minimum, having some of the Red Star Montrachet and Pasture Blanc on hand.

Campden Tablets – This is used to sanitize the juice and equipment. The tablets are crushed up and added to water to product a sanitizing solution that is safe and can be added directly to the wine to destroy any wild mold or bacteria.

You may also want to get Potassium Sorbate a.k.a. Wine Stabilizer. This is added to a wine if you decide you want to back sweeten it up before bottling. It keeps the residual wine yeast from fermenting the new sugars while in the bottle.

Recipes and Directions…
We have several wine recipes on our website for the more common fruits that utilize these wine making ingredients. We also have easy to follow wine making directions that are listed there as well. They will help you to stay on the right path.
—–
Ed Kraus is a 3rd generation home brewer/winemaker and has been an owner of E. C. Kraus since 1999. He has been helping individuals make better wine and beer for over 25 years.

Pickle Beer: A Sour Summer Favorite

Posted on June 8, 2020 by AIH

Ahh summer.

There’s nothing like a cold, refreshing drink on a hot, sunny day in the thick of this beloved season.

As the country slowly begins to reopen, our summer is off to a sluggish start. But that doesn’t mean your favorite summer drink has to be put on hold.

So, let’s crack open a cold pickled beer.

What is Pickle Beer?

We admit, pickle beer sounds… weird.

But it is a surprising new trend that is loved by many. This sour beverage has the taste and aroma of pickles.

Here are some popular pickle beers, and recipes to make your own!

Sweet and Sour

We all know pickles can taste sweet or sour depending on the fermentation of the cucumber. This also applies when crafting your pickle beer. The most popular version of pickle beers are the ones that are sweet, but pack a sour punch.

Here are our personal favorites:

El Gran Pepinillo

ABV: 5.8%
Mexican-style beer made with Best Maid pickles and Mexican chili peppers. This beer has a spicy kick, but is light and refreshing.

Best Maid Spicy Pickle Beer

ABV: 4.7%
This beer has spice at first sip! This is best for those who really like a kick.

Urban Artifact Pickle

ABV: 4.3%
German-style goose beer using cucumber, fresh dill, sea salt, and coriander. Try this beer with a burger or rueben to enhance the flavor.

New PKL FKR Pickle Berliner

ABV: 3.2%
This brew uses refermented Berliner weiss ale with bacteria and wild yeast. Pickle juice is added to the blend after fermentation.

Making Pickle Beer

There are many different ways you can make your pickle beer ranging from quick and easy, to long and challenging.

Depending on time and skill level, give one of these two recipes a try!

Just Add Pickle Juice

The easiest way to make pickle beer is adding pickle juice to your favorite beer.

If you’re brewing your own batch at home, simply add the pickle juice to your mixture. This is the most common way home brewers make their pickle beer.

*Pro tip* – Add spices such as coriander, chili pepper, etc to give your beer some extra flare.

Fermenting Cucumber

If you want to get really creative, make your pickle juice from scratch!

Here is a step by step on how to create various types of pickles and pickle brine.

After making your own pickle juice, you can add it to your beer’s fermentation process. This creates a stronger aroma and taste.

If you’re new to brewing beer, check out our blog just for beginners!

Cheers!

Fruit Wines: The Perfect Gift for Mother’s Day

Posted on May 6, 2020 by AIH

Did you know over 60% of wine consumers are women?

While we’re not entirely surprised, it’s a pretty staggering number. From wine tasting groups to girl’s night out, women are finding all kinds of reasons to

indulge in this timeless drink.

As winemakers continue to experiment with varietals, tannins and flavors, many have started to explore other fruit based mixtures. Fruit wine is wine made from fruit other than fermented grapes or grape juice.

This fun new wine makes a great Mother’s Day gift or an exciting kick off for warmer weather!

Choosing Your Fruit

Depending on the time of year, there are plenty of fruits to choose from when buying or making your wine. Fruit seasonality and their fermentation period should be considered when selecting your fruit.

Here’s a guide to help you pick the perfect fruit wine for Mom or yourself:

SPRING FRUITS

Strawberries: A sweeter wine – long fermentation period.
Cherries: Bold flavor that can be as sweet/sour as you like – long fermentation period

SUMMER FRUITS

Blackberries: Bold red wine that tastes great when blended with apples. 2 years to age.
Blueberries: Creates a light rose wine – short fermentation period.
Peaches: White wine with a great aroma – short fermentation period.
Plums: Rich color and flavor – short fermentation period.

FALL FRUITs

Apples: A light white wine. Great base for blending wines – 2 years to age alone.

Now that you’ve chosen your fruit, let’s start wine making!

How to Make Fruit Wines

Gifting this to Mom or that special woman in your life? Try making fruit wine from scratch.

Similar to making regular wine, there are many recipes for any skill level. We’ve got a great general recipe to get you started.

What You’ll Need:

Ingredients:

Fruit of your choice
Wine yeast
Sugar

Tools:

2 glass containers – 1 for primary and secondary fermentation
Fermentation bag
Wine bottle

Optional Supplies:

Hydrometer
Tartaric
Citric/malic acids for better balance and quality

Instructions:

Step One:

Mix sugar, water, and your cut up fruit into a fermentation bag, cover it with a towel and let it sit for a day.

Step Two:

Add the yeast, and replace the towel covering it. Squish the bag once a day, and let this sit for another 5 days.

Step Three:

Drain all the liquid from the fruit and place into the carboy. Cap with an airlock for proper fermentation
- You can use a siphon tube for more accuracy, but if you don’t have one it’s fine

Step Four:

Store this in a cool and dark place for another month before repeating the fermentation process.

Step Five:

Once all the bubbles are gone, you can pour the wine into your glass bottle and seal it with a cork!

Congrats! You’ve made your first bottle of fruit wine.

Whether you’re buying or making fruit wine, it’s sure to be a fun experience for all. And if you’re giving to Mom, or even creating with Mom, it’ll be a fun way to celebrate Mother’s Day.

Cheers!

Nut-Flavored Beer: The New Trend Worth a Taste

Posted on April 15, 2020 by AIH

Stuck at home? Pass the time with a new brew.

Spending time at home can get a little stale, which is why you need a new companion by your side as you organize your closet or watch mindless hours of television (no judgments).

We recommend taking this time to try something new, daring, and exciting, like… nutty beer. It’s a rising trend in the beer community, definitely worth a taste, and a great way to pass the time.

Of course, if you or a family member has a peanut allergy, please do not try this at home. Check out our other ideas instead here.

Popular Peanut Butter Beers

It’s important to note that many breweries craft their nut beer differently, so you can’t go wrong as you experiment. There are a variety of nut types, textures, and flavors to use, so grab whatever you have at home!

Here are some popular peanut flavors from breweries around the United States to help you get an idea of where to start:

Rusty Rail Brewing | Fool’s Gold

Fool’s Gold is Rusty Rail’s best-selling beer in Pennsylvania. It’s an imperial peanut butter hefeweizen combining banana esters and peanut butter to make a distinct, popular nutty brew.

If you’re ever in Pennsylvania, try it out. They are the largest brewpub in the state too!

Mast Landing Brewery | Gunner’s Daughter

Gunner’s Daughter is a best-seller for a reason. With peanut butter and milk stout flavors, this brew pays homage to a beloved Halloween candy – Reeses’ Peanut Butter Cups. This beer was supposed to be a one-time special release, but it quickly became a year-round staple.

If you have Reeses’ at home, consider adding them to your recipe.

Lakewood Brewing | Peanut Butter Temptress

Peanut Butter Temptress was a popular brew that constantly sold out because it was delicious, but difficult to make. They used a combination of dry peanuts and milk stout to capture the rare taste.

DIY Nutty Brew

Since you can’t go to the brewery, we’re bringing the brewery to you. Let’s look at how a couple different breweries make their batches so you can see how to replicate it at home.

Remember, making the perfect nutty brew takes time, so be patient.

Tin Whiskers Brewing Company

Tin Whiskers uses PB2 powdered peanut butter by pressing the nuts to remove most of the oil. It’s important to get the oil out so the head retention does not reduce.

Once the peanuts are powdered, this brewery adds the mixture into the brew after fermentation when the temperature of the brew is cooled.

Key Ingredients: Nut Goodie Porter and Salted Nut Roll Ale candy from Pearson’s Candy Company.

If you don’t have this candy at home, no problem. Although it’s a little messy, you can use organic peanut butter as a substitute, and add it after fermentation. (Just make sure it’s not too hot!)

O.H.S.O Eatery & Nano-Brewery

This brewery does a three step process when making their nut-flavored beer. You can choose to do all three or just one!

The team uses powdered, whole, and extract peanuts for their three layer nutty beer. The first step they take is adding honey, lactose, and sea salt to the boil, and then finish by adding PB2.

Similar to dry hopping, the next step is to add dry honey roasted whole peanuts after fermentation, and then let this mixture sit for no more than five days. After this, they add a little bit of peanut extract to enhance the aroma of the beer.

If you don’t have peanut extract or PB2, regular peanut butter and nuts will work fine for this recipe. Just add the peanut butter to the boil, and the nuts after fermentation. You can also substitute the peanut extract with vanilla extract and see how that goes! (Either way, it will be fine without it).

There are many different combinations of nuts and methods you can try in order to achieve the brew you want, just keep trying different flavors from your pantry!

Stay safe, always practice good kitchen hygiene, and let us know how you’re enjoying your nutty brews in the comments below.

Happy brewing!

What are Hops? A Guide to Adding Hops to your Beer

Posted on March 13, 2020 by AIH

“I said a hip, HOP…”

Today, we’re talking about hops, and it’s not the kind Rapper’s Delight told us about.

Hops are a popular ingredient used to give the beer a certain smell and taste. You might have heard people refer to a beer as “hoppy” before, but what does that really mean?

The Hop Plant
A hop is a flower used for bittering, flavoring, and adding aromas to your beer.

Each hop has elements that can intensify smell, sweeten, or strengthen the bitterness of beer. There are different types of essential oils that control the aroma and flavoring of a hop, and different levels of alpha acids that control the bitterness.

You can use a variety of hops to achieve the smell and flavor of your choice!

Hoppy Strains

There are 3 main types of hops: Noble, American, and English. And each type offers a variety of options for your brew.

Noble Hops

Noble hops are found in Germany and the Czech Republic. They have a high amount of essential oils that intensify flavors and aromas, and a low alpha acid level that reduces bittering. Here are some of the classic Noble hops:

Saaz
          Acid level: 3-5%
          Style: Traditional Noble hop
          Flavor Profile: Earthy, spicy, herbal

Lubelski
          Acid level: 3-5%
          Style: Substitution to Saaz
          Flavor Profile: Floral, magnolia, lavender

Tettnanger
          Acid level: 3-6%
          Style: Traditional Noble hop
          Flavor Profile: Spicy, floral

American Hops

American hops are grown right here in the U.S. They’re known for having high levels of myrcene that create stronger aromas. Here are some of our favorites:

Brewer’s Gold
          Acid level: 6-10%
          Style: Bittering hop
          Flavor Profile: Spicy, blackberry currant

Cascade
          Acid level: 4.5-7%
          Style: Strong bittering and intense aroma
          Flavor Profile: Citrus, grapefruit

Amarillo
          Acid level: 8-11%
          Style: Substitution to Cascade
          Flavor Profile: Orange citrus

English Hops

English hops are found in (drumroll please) England. They have a low level of myrcene oil which makes their aroma milder. Here are three of the most popular English hops:

Sovereign
          Acid level: 4.5-6.5%
          Style: Balancing hop
          Flavor Profile: Fruity, floral, earthy

Sussex
          Acid level: 4.3-5.8%
          Style: Tropical
          Flavor Profile: Citrus

Target
          Acid level: 8-13%
          Style: Strong bittering and intense aroma
          Flavor Profile: Sage, floral, spice, citrus

Now that you know the types of hops, let’s talk about how to use them.

Hoppy Brewing

There are a variety of ways to achieve your perfect hoppy brew. So whether you’re a first timer or a seasoned brewer, there are multiple methods to get you hoppin’ along.

Dry Hopping

Dry hopping is best used with hops with strong flavors or aromas that are added after fermentation.

This method can take up to 10 days, but we promise it’s worth the wait. We recommend using a Sussex hop for this method.

First Wort Hopping

First Wort Hopping relies on hops with low acid-levels to achieve a balanced taste and smell. It produces a smooth bitterness that compliments the smell of the beer. Brewers should toss 30-50% of the hops into the kettle before boiling the wort.

Though not as common, we suggest trying this method using Tettnanger hops.

Randall

Hoppy brews can also be achieved using a Randall device. This device filters the beer through the hops, allowing the strong flavors to seep into the beer – similar to a water filter! Randall devices are a no-stress, no-mess way to brew the perfect hoppy beer.

*CAUTION*

This method brews large quantities. So throw a party to share the amazing beer you just made!

Cascade is a great hop to use in your first batch.

Remember, there are more hops and methods to try than what we’ve shared… So HOP on over to Adventures in Homebrewing and learn more about different tools, methods, recipes and more.

Hoppy brewing!

Tips For Clearing Wine With Clearing Problems!

Posted on March 11, 2020 by AIH

Please give me any advise on clearing wine. I have a Red wine not clearing?

Name: Bruce K.
State: CA
—–
We get asked this quite often: how do you clear a cloudy homemade wine? Clearing wine can be a big concern for the first-time winemaker, especially after they see just how cloudy a homemade wine gets right after fermentation – not to worry, though.

If given enough time, it is most likely that the cloudy wine will clear up and stabilize completely on its own. Gravity will take over and eventually everything will settle to the bottom as a deposit. But there are still some things you can do to speed things along and make sure it happens and to avoid any wine clearing problems.

If the wine has just completed its fermentation, it is typical to add a dose of bentonite. This is a wine clearing agent, also referred to as a fining agent. Adding bentonite to a wine will help the proteins in the wine (including yeast) to clump together and drop to the bottom more readily. After a few days you can then rack the wine off all the sediment.

Most winemakers would stop at clearing wine with bentonite, but if you wished you could also add Sparkolloid. This is another wine clearing agent. It was designed to compliment the bentonite. While bentonite will collect and drop negatively charged particles, Sparkolloid will collect and drop out positively charged particles. Again, you would wait until the sediment stops accumulating and stabilize, then rack the wine off of it.

One could then follow up by treating the wine with a polish fining agent before bottling. This could be something like isinglass, Kitosol 40 or gelatin. Either of these will add a brilliant clarity to the wine. Just like the others, it works by dropping sediment out of the wine, so racking will be necessary before bottling the wine.

Beyond these things you could use filtration for clearing wine. There are filtration systems specifically designed for filtering the finest of particles from a wine. So fine, that you can not see them with the naked eye.

These wine filters are not at all effective in clearing a cloudy-looking wine. They work so good that the filters would clog very quickly. The wine needs to look clear before filtering it. That’s what you can use the bentonite or other wine clearing agent for.

What wine filters are good at is adding a luster to the wine that can at times bring astonishing beauty to the wine. A wine filter can take a perfectly clear looking wine and make it look like a solid hunk of glass in the wine bottle.

Now that you know all these ways you can clear a cloudy homemade wine, here’s the bad news: it is possible to over-treat a wine. In fact, if you did all the things mention above to the same wine, the wine would suffer. It would lose more body and color than necessary. The character of the wine would be diminished, leaving you with a flatter, more uneventful wine.

So, how do you clear a cloudy homemade wine without ruining it? Treatment for clear wine must be used in moderation and with a plan.

As mentioned earlier, you could do nothing. Just wait and see if the wine will clear up sufficiently on its own. Most of the time it will clear to some successful degree and stabilize.

You could do everything possible to make sure you have the clearest, most beautiful wine possible, but nothing you can really enjoy.

Or you could do what most winemakers do and hit a happy-medium. Many wine makers are happy with clear their wine with bentonite and be done with it. Another typical course of action would be something like clearing the wine with bentonite after fermentation. Then clearing the wine with gelatin before bottling. Or one might: bentonite after fermentation; then filtration, then bottle. Or, bentonite, Sparkolloid, bottle.

As you might be starting to see there are many possible answers to the question: how do you clear a cloudy homemade wine? Any of the courses of action in number 3 above, will get you a wine that is not cloudy, but what is the best way for you is something you’ll need to figure out. There is some art to clearing wine. You need to be able to know when to hold back, and you need to be able to choose with method is right for you situation at hand.

Bruce, to answer you question more directly, since you are indicating that the wine is having problems clearing, I would start by treating the wine with bentonite. If the wine does not clear, then I would try Sparkolloid. At minimum, one of these two wine clearing agents should show improvement. After that you will need to decide if you want to stop there, or possibly treat the wine with gelatin before bottling or maybe even filter the wine. The choice is yours.

Happy Winemaking!

The general rule-of-thumb is for every pound of sugar you add to a 5 gallon batch of wine, you increase the potential alcohol by 1%.

For every teaspoon of Acid Blend you add to a gallon of liquid, you will raise the total acidity by .15%.