Oaking Wine With Oak Chips

Man Oaking Wine With Oak ChipsHow do you go about oaking wine with oak chips? What type of oak chip would you recommend using on muscadine wine? I’d like to do a little experimenting. My wine is a combination of red and white muscadine grapes yielding a blush/rose type wine. What type of oak chip, quantity per 6 gallon carboy and length of time to soak would you recommend? Thanks much!

Name: Ed P.
State: Illinois
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Hello Ed,

Nothing wrong with a little experimenting. For me that’s part of what makes wine making so enormously fun.

One thing about oaking wine with oak chips, not all wines will benefit from it. Normally, the wines you would like to add oak chips to are wines with a lot of body. The tannins in the oak will help any excessive proteins in these full-bodied wines to clear out. This will give your wine a little more brilliant color.

The oak chips will also add their own smoothing affect to the wine’s character. A rounding-off of the rough corners, so to speak. Heavier wines tend to be harsher than lighter wine. Oak chips will also add some wood flavors to the wine. Some regard this as giving the wine more complexity. These heavy wines are the ones that you should be thinking about considering what wines to oak.

Looking at this from an experimental standpoint, your best option would be to take off a gallon of the wine and strongly oak it. This could be done by adding about 4 to 8 ounces of oak chips to the gallon for a two or three months. Once this is done you can blend a little/some/or all back into the other 5 gallons based on taste.Shop Toasted Oak Chips

Using this method for oaking your wine with oak chips would give you the most control over the final outcome. The downfall is that you would not want to store 5 gallons of wine in a 6 gallon carboy, so you would need to move the 5 gallons of wine to a 5 gallon carboy during this time. The same holds true for the one gallon sample you will be oaking. Also, you are risking loosing whatever portion of the gallon you do not wish to add back to the wine.

The other method for oaking a wine with oak chips would be add it to the entire 6 gallons of wine, and then taste it along the way to see how it’s doing. Usually, once every 3 or 4 weeks. While this is an easier method, you do run a better risk of ending up with a wine you might not care too much for.

How much of the oak chips you would want to add to the wine can vary. I personally like to use 2 ounces to 5 gallons and let it age out for many months. But others like adding 4 or 6 ounces and age the wine for a shorter period of time.

Without question, I would recommend using toasted oak ships. Plain oak chips are rarely used but still have their place. Whether you use Toasted French oak chips or Toasted American oak chips would not make an incredible difference. Either can produce great results. The main difference between the two is that American oak will add sort of a coconut smoothness to the wine, whereas French oak chips will add more of a vanilla richness. One is not better than the other, it’s more of a matter of which one will work best with the wine at hand. Without tasting your wine, I would suspect you would want to use the American oak chips–just a guess.

Ed, I hope this information about oaking wine with oak chips is what you were looking for. Just realize that oaking a homemade wine with oak chips is something that does not happen overnight, so you will have time to sample the wine and make careful judgments as to when enough is enough.

Happy Winemaking,
Ed Kraus
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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.

My Homemade Wine Has No Alcohol

My Homemade Wine Has No AlcoholWhen I check the alcohol level of my wine before bottling, it is less than 1%. What am I doing wrong? Is there a reason why my homemade wine has no alcohol?…

Name: Larry J.
State: Iowa
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Hello Larry,

I am assuming that you are coming up with this info by taking a reading with your wine hydrometer.

The 1% you are seeing on the wine hydrometer is not telling you how much alcohol is in the wine. It is telling you how much more alcohol can be made with the sugars that are still left in the wine. It is a potential alcohol scale, not an alcohol scale. In other words, there is still enough sugar left in your wine to ferment one more percent of alcohol.

So when you say my homemade wine has no alcohol, this is not so much an issue of no alcohol being in the wine as it is knowing how to use the wine hydrometer or following any wine hydrometer instructions that might have came with it.Shop Hydrometers

To tell how much alcohol is currently in the wine, you have to know what the potential alcohol reading was on the hydrometer at the beginning of fermentation – how much potential for alcohol was there at the beginning… 10%, 11%, 12%? By knowing how much potential alcohol could be made at the beginning of fermentation, and knowing how much alcohol can potentially be made now, currently, you can determine how much alcohol is in the wine.

Here’s an example. Let’s assume your wine started with a hydrometer reading of 13%, and you now have a reading of 1% on the potential alcohol scale. This would mean that your wine currently has an alcohol percentage of 12%. This is the 13% less the 1%.

There is no way that any wine hydrometer can tell you how much alcohol you have with a single reading. You have to know what the wine hydrometer reading was before the wine started fermenting and compare that to an ending reading. If you did not take a beginning reading with your wine hydrometer, there is no way for you to determine the alcohol level of that wine with any hydrometer.

I hope this information helps you out. You are not the first person to say, my homemade wine has no alcohol, because of misinterpretations with the hydrometer. For that reason I’m glad you brought it up so I can share some clarity with other home winemakers.

Happy Winemaking,
Ed Kraus
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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.

How to Make Homemade Pear Wine

Pears For Making WineI have tried several times making wine from pears and always end up with a wine that tastes like weak moonshine. It has a smooth taste but not much flavor. I had a friend make some homemade pear wine as well and his turned out the same way. We have come to the conclusion that there is probably sugar locked into the fruit that is being released during the fermentation. My question is do you think our conclusion is correct and if so how can I go about figuring how much sugar to add to the fermentation. I think these pears will make a very fine wine if I can just figure out the recipe.

Jeff L — PA
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Hello Jeff,

In general, pears do not have a lot of flavor relative to other fruits. Think of the raspberries used to make a raspberry wine. When you taste a raspberry you know it. They are bursting with flavor.

Pears on the other hand are not bursting with flavor. When you bite into a pear you can tell it’s a pear. You can taste its character, but it’s nothing explosive like a strawberry, blueberry or even peach. Put the pear flavor up against the tongue-numbing effects of alcohol – such as the situation of a homemade pear wine – and you have something that tastes just like you described, weak moonshine.

Here are some tips for making homemade pear wine at home. These are some ideas for getting more pear flavor into the wine when using fresh pears.

Tip #1 For Making Homemade Pear Wine
One trick I have found to work well when making pear wine is to let the pears get as ripe as possible. Let the pears get as soft as you can without letting them turn to rot. If some pears are turning quicker than others, you can put them in a bath of sulfite solution, whole, until the other pears are ready. This will stop the pears from rotting any further.

Allowing the pears to become as ripe as possible will go a long way towards getting you a homemade pear wine with more pear character. When pears are early they taste closer to an apple. As they develop, the flavor that makes a pear, a pear, starts to become more pronounced.

Shop Hydrometers

Tip #2 For Making Homemade Pear Wine
Don’t drive the alcohol level of your pear wine up too high. Try to keep it around 10% to 12%. This can be done with the aid of a hydrometer. Use the potential alcohol scale on the hydrometer. As you add more sugar, the wine must will rise on the potential alcohol scale. Having the alcohol too high will give the pear wine a watery impression. This is because the high alcohol level is numbing your tongue to the flavors that are actually there.

Tip #3 For Making Homemade Pear Wine
Going back directly to your question, if you are using chopped fresh pears for making wine, the sugars in the pears should be release during the fermentation. The enzymes produced by the wine yeast will break down the pear pulp, releasing the sugars and the flavors. If you are not using an actual wine yeast, the correct enzymes are not being produced to break the pear pulp down.

Use wine yeast only. For pear wine we recommend Lalvin EC-1118 wine yeast. In addition, also be sure to add pectic enzyme. This will help to break down the fruit fiber, as well. Pectic enzyme is important in helping to get more flavor from the fruit.

Try mashing up the pears a bit. Once they have been cubed, you can use something like a cleaned and sanitized 2 x 4 stud to crush them. You are not looking for apple sauce consistency. You just want the fiber structure of the pulp to be disrupted some. This will allow the enzymes to break down the fruit fiber more quickly. By getting to the fruit fiber more quickly, you are getting both more flavor and more sugar from the pears.

By employing these tips you will be able to make a better homemade pear wine, one that actually tastes like pear. If you are still not sure what to go from here, you may want to take a look our pear wine recipe. This recipe makes 5 gallons of pear wine. It’s an easy recipe, straight-forward recipe that should help you out.

Happy Winemaking,
Ed Kraus
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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.

What’s The Difference Between A Whiskey Barrel And A Wine Barrel?

Toasting Oak BarrelsI was shopping the other day and found some oak chips, made from Jack Daniels Whiskey Barrels. They were being sold as flavor enhancers for barbecues. Could I use these to age my wine? Would they have to be toasted first, or would the fact that they had been used for whiskey aging offset that requirement?

Don — PA
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Hello Don,

It is important to know that there are some differences between a whiskey barrel and a wine barrel. Whiskey barrels are process differently that wine barrels. The critical difference being that whiskey barrels are charred on the inside, whereas wine barrels are toasted. Doesn’t sound like much of a difference – I know – but the effects on the flavor are very different.

The reason a whiskey barrel is charred is so that the inside of the barrel staves turn into a charcoal. This charcoal’s purpose is to help take out the harshness of a raw whiskey. In a loose sense, the char acts in the same way a carbon filter works on water. It helps to remove the impurities. This char is also what adds the amber color to the whiskey.

Wine barrels are toasted. The reason they are toasted is so that when the wine is aged in the barrel, flavor is added, not taken out. Shop Wine BarrelsWhen the oak staves are toasted at the correct temperature for the right amount of time, various phenols, sugars and other compounds rise to the surface of the wood to interact with the wine while it ages. Flavors ranging from vanilla, to coconut, to caramel can be coaxed from the wood and into the wine by the degree of toasting the oak wood goes under.

Tannins from the wood also react with the tannins is the wine so as to precipitate them out of the wine as a sediment. This helps to mellow the wine, make it more stable and more clear.

There are some other differences between a whiskey barrel and a wine barrel that are not as critical, but we’ll save them for another time.

Don, going back to your question, you could use these whiskey barrel pieces in your wine, but the effects will be vary different from using actual toasted oak chips that are prepared specifically to be used in a wine.

One thing I would urge you to do is make a serious effort to sanitize these oak barrel pieces. There is no reason to assume they were stored in sanitary conditions if they are to be used for smoking.

shop_toasted_oak_chipsIf I where doing the sanitizing I would soak them in a very strong sulfite solution. I would find a container that could be sealed air-tight and kept full of the sulfite solution, so as to keep the floating pieces of wood submerged by the lid. I would use 2 teaspoons of sodium metabisulfite and 1/2 teaspoon of either citric acid or acid blend to every gallon of water. Let the wood soak for several days. The longer the better.

In short, I see not reason why you couldn’t play around with this wood. Just remember that there are differences between a whiskey barrel and a wine barrel that will result in a very different out come in your wine.

Happy Winemaking,
Customer Service at E. C. Kraus
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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.

How Do I Make More Alcohol In The Wine?

I make wine at home, I do want the wine with more alcohol. But I don’t know how to get this done.

Name: Ketherina D.
State: NY

When it comes to controlling the alcohol level of your wines — regardless of how high or how low — it’s all about the sugar.

Alcohol is made when wine yeast ferments the sugars that are in the wine must. The sugars are converted into both alcohol and carbon dioxide or CO2 gas. (That’s the stuff that makes your soda pop fizzy.) The more sugar the wine yeast has available, the more alcohol it can potentially make.

This concept is all pretty simple up to this point — more sugar, more alcohol — but there are some limits. Wine yeast can only ferment so much alcohol before is slows down and stops completely. Once the alcohol level gets so high, it starts to act as a preservative, inhibiting the fermentation.

Some wine yeast can generally ferment to higher levels of alcohol than others, and vice versa. They are more tolerant of the alcohol, but just as important is the environment that the yeast is thrown into. Things like: temperature, nutrients, oxygen availability, or lack of, all act as variables to the equation of how much alcohol you can end up with with that yeast. It would be safe to say that these variables tend to be more important than the strain of wine yeast you are using.

The reason I’m telling you this is that it is important to understand that when you are trying to drive your alcohol up with more sugar, you can never accurately predict how far the yeast will be able to go. This is a result of all these variables. Usually, you can safely obtain 12% or maybe 13%, but anything beyond this is always in question.

This leads us to your question: how do I make more alcohol? The short answer is, very carefully.

Buy HydrometersYou can start off your fermentation with enough sugars to ferment your customary 12%. The amount of sugar needed for this can be easily determined by a hydrometer. (see: Hydrometer Scales And What They Mean) But the sugars need to get the alcohol level beyond this need to be feed in a little at a time. This is done towards the end of fermentation.

As you see the original sugars begin to run out, you add a little more sugar. As you see that deplete you add more sugar, again. You keep doing it over and over until the fermentation can go no more. Knowing how much sugar is left in the wine must is something that can be done with a hydrometer, so you will need to make sure you have a handle on its use.

I would suggest taking a look at the article, Making High Alcohol Wines. It goes over this process in greater detail. Another article that may be helpful is How Much Alcohol Do You Really Want. I goes into how alcohol effects the character of a wine. So does the blog post, Keeping Fruit Wines In Fruity Balance.

Happy Winemaking,
Ed Kraus
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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.

Careful! Using Reverse Osmosis Water For Wine Making Can Be A Problem

Using Reverse Osmosis In Wine MakingYour newsletter states that using distilled water for making wine is not recommended but what about tap water filtered via reverse osmosis? Can I use reverse osmosis water for wine making?

Thank You
John
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Hello John,

You are correct. We do not recommend using distilled water. Not only does the distilling process remove valuable, free oxygen from the water, but it also removes all the minerals. Both are much-needed commodities for the yeast during a fermentation. If either are missing, it can lead to a sluggish or stuck fermentation.

Likewise, we do not recommend using reverse osmosis water for wine making, either. While the free oxygen does remain in the water through osmosis filtering process, critical minerals are still being removed. Magnesium sulfate can be added back to the water in an attempt to restore it for fermentation, but this is more or less putting a band-aid on the issue.Shop Magnesium Sulfate

Your better option would be to purchase bottled drinking water. These bottled drinking water typically will either have the original, natural minerals in them, or the water has been completely purified and then had an optimal blend of minerals added back. Either way, this would be a better option than using distilled or reverse osmosis water in wine making.

It is also important to note that while free oxygen in the water is good for the fermentation, it is bad for the wine once the fermentation has completed. Having free oxygen in the wine after the fermentation can lead to oxidation or browning of the wine.

Fortunately, most all of the oxygen that is in the must before fermentation is either consumed by the yeast or quickly driven out by the CO2 gas from the fermentation. So, while we do recommend using water that isShop Aeration System saturated in oxygen before the fermentation, after the fermentation, we recommend using distilled water for making any necessary adjustments or for topping-up after the fermentation.

To sum it up, using reverse osmosis water for wine making is really not ideal, essentially because of that lack of trace minerals that are removed in the process. You would be better served in most cases by using tap water over reverse osmosis or maybe even bottle drinking water, if you are so inclined.

Happy Wine Making,
Ed Kraus
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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.

How To Fix Homemade Wine That Is Too Sweet

Homemade Wine Is Too SweetI need some help. My homemade wine is too sweet. I made 2 batches of wine one of Blackberry/Raspberry and the other Blueberry/Raspberry/Cranberry. Although they have a great flavor they are way to sweet, can I add some more yeast to get them to ferment some more of the sugar out?

Karey C. – OR
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Hello Karey,

Both of your wines sound like great fruit combinations. So sorry to hear they are causing you a little problem. Keep reading to learn how to fix homemade wine that is too sweet.

There are 2 possible reasons why a homemade wine is too sweet:

  1. Too Much Sugar Was Added To The Wine Recipe
    There is a limit to how much alcohol a yeast can tolerate. Once a fermentation produces alcohol to this level, the yeast will simply slow to a stop. If you know that your fermentation has already produced 13-14% alcohol, but the wine is still too sweet, then you’ve added too much sugar to the wine must. You can determine the wine’s alcohol level by taking beginning and current alcohol readings with a wine hydrometer and comparing the two. If this is the reason your homemade wine is too sweet, there is not a whole lot you can do to reduce the sweetness, or make it more dry, other than blend it with a dry wine. Shop HydrometersFor example, you can make blackberry/raspberry wine next year that comes out dry, and then blend this years wine with that. This year’s wine will store just fine in bulk. Just remember to add sulfite to the wine and to eliminate any head-space that may be in with the wine. Hopefully, this will help make your sweet wine taste better.
  1. The Fermentation Did Not Complete
    It very well could be that you added an appropriate amount of sugar to produce a reasonable amount of alcohol. It’s just that the fermentation did not fully ferment the sugar into alcohol as it should have. This is known as a stuck fermentation. This could happen for a number of reason. The most common one is temperature. The fermentation got to cool. Yeast are very sensitive to temperature. There are many other reasons as to why your fermentation may have stopped short of its full potential – too many to go over here. I would suggest going through the Top 10 Reasons For Fermentation Failure. This will help you to ferret out the exact cause of such a predicament. Once you know the reason, you can take corrective action to get the fermentation active, again.

Again, the key to knowing why your homemade wine is too sweet is the wine hydrometer. If you did not take a beginning hydrometer reading, you will not be able to tell whether you have 7% alcohol and a fermentation that needs fixing, or if you have 15% alcohol and have simply added too much sugar to your wine.

As to your suggestion of adding more wine yeast, this is rarely a solution to a problem. This is because there is still yeast in the wine. It’s just that it has gone dormant. It is more likely to be an issue of getting the wine yeast in a situation to where it will start fermenting again.

Best Wishes,
Ed Kraus
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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.

A Wine Hydrometer Isn’t Going To Bite You!

Wine Hydrometer In HandThe one piece of winemaking equipment most often missing in the beginning winemaker’s arsenal is the wine hydrometer. Yet, it is probably the most valuable piece of equipment they could have. A wine hydrometer can tell you:

  • How much sugar you need to add to your wine, if any
  • How much alcohol your wine will have when it’s done
  • How far along your wine’s fermentation has gotten
  • If your wine’s fermentation is progressing, or if it’s stuck
  • If your fermentation has finished or only looks like it has
  • And above all, a wine hydrometer can give you piece of mind

If you’re not sure what your wine’s doing, take a reading with a wine hydrometer, and you’ll know. To sum it up, the hydrometer is just as important to the winemaker as the compass is to the sea captain. Without it you’re just guessing as to where your fermentation’s at, and more importantly, you’re guessing as to where it’s going.

After helping countless home winemakers, we’ve found that the #1 reason that a beginning winemaker does not use a wine hydrometer is because it either looks too complicated, or it’s too intimidating.

Just like when some people’s eye glaze-over at the mere mentioning
of math, some beginning winemakers shudder at the
thought of using a wine hydrometer.

This is really a shame, and I’ll tell you why. A wine hydrometer is no more complicated to use than an everyday thermometer, and it’s even quicker. Shop Wine HydrometersWith a wine hydrometer, you can take a reading instantly by seeing how high or low it floats in your wine. That’s it! No waiting around for it to react or to come up with a reading. Wherever the surface of the wine crosses the scale on the gravity hydrometer is how you determine your reading. Here more on taking wine hydrometer readings.

I think if more beginning winemakers understood that that’s all there is to using a wine hydrometer, more of them would use one. With so much information to gain about a wine by its use, it almost seems silly not to use it.

If you would like to read a little more about the wine hydrometer there’s a short, straight-forward article on our website titled, “Getting To Know Your Hydrometer.” It covers the use of the wine hydrometer in a little more detail.
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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.

How Do You Make Brandy?

Still For Making BrandyMy name is Charles, I live in NC, I have been making wine for about 7 years and have made all kinds, by the way you all got a great website, what I would like to know is how do you make brandy. I looked for a brandy recipe but can’t find one. Can you help me?

Thank you
Charles
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Hi Charles,

Making brandy is more of a process than following a recipe, and it is certainly more involved than wine making, but if you’d really like to know how to make brandy…

Brandy is essentially a wine that has gone through a distillation process. Distilling is when the alcohol and certain essences are steamed off the wine and collected into a separate container. Alcohol will steam off at a lower temperature than water so by controlling the temperature it is possible to leave water behind. What you end up with is a liquid that has a much higher alcohol concentration.

This is obviously an over-simplification, but essentially this is the answer to your question: how do you make brandy? It is an additional step beyond making the wine.

The term brandy is normally related to a distilled grape wine. Cognac, for example, is a distilled grape wine. But you can also distill other types of wines to make other types of brandies. Common examples of this would be apple wine being distilled into apple brandy or peach wine being distilled into peach brandy.

Answers, how do you make brandy.Most people are surprised to know that the brandy is a clear liquid at this point. It taste a little harsh and can give off somewhat of an oily impression in the mouth. To bring the brandy to a form that you and I would recognize as brandy, it needs to be aged to some degree.

Depending on the quality and style of the brandy being made, it will need to be aged anywhere from 1 to 50 years in barrels. The toasting of the inner wall of the barrel is where the brandy will get its familiar color.

So as you can see making brandy takes some serious dedication, maybe even more so than wine making. I personally leave it to the Hennessy’s and Martell’s to bring brandy to my world.

It is important to note here that – unlike making wine – distilling an alcohol is illegal in the United States unless you have registered with the ATF. This means bringing your operation up to their rigorous code. It also involves a tremendous cash bond that basically makes it impossible to impractical for any individual to set up a operation for personal use. If you choose not follow the laws of the land then you are considered to be a moonshiner making moonshine.

If you would like to read more about distilling, including distilling brandy, we do have a book on the subject. The “Lore Of Still Building” has a lot of information about distilling principals as well as how to build various styles of stills.

Charles, I hope this answers your questions. You’re not the only person to ask, “how do you make brandy?” So, I thought this would be a good time to post this to the blog, as well.

Best Wishes,
Ed Kraus
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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.

Why Using Pectic Enzyme Gets You A Clear Wine

What Using Pectic Enzyme Does To WineI have made delicious peach wine in the past, but last year, the peaches were ripe when I was out of town. My son cleaned, sliced and froze them in freezer bags til I could get home. It’s been 10 mos. and the wine refuses to clear – I’ve tried everything. Was pretty sure I had read you could freeze fruit til ready to use, but maybe not? That’s the only thing I remember doing differently…”Blue Moon” Peach Wine anyone?

Name: Carol
State: Maryland
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Hello Carol,

Freezing the peaches would not have anything to do with the wine being cloudy. I think this has more to do with using pectic enzyme. Freezing the fruit will only help to break down the fiber allowing you to get more flavor from the peaches. Freezing the fruit is something we recommend doing all the time. So even though this is the only apparent difference from other times you’ve made this wine, this is not the cause of your peach wine being cloudy.

Assuming that the fermentation went along just fine, the number one reason for a peach wine to be cloudy is because of something called a pectin haze. Peaches have a considerable amount of pectin in them when compared to other winemaking fruit. Pectin is the gel that holds the fruit’s fiber together. It has a milky appearance to it when removed from the fruit.

With most fruit the pectin is broken down and cleared during the fermentation. The wine yeast produce enzymes that help to do this. Most fruit wine recipes will also call for pectic enzymes as additional insurance to see to it that all the pectin cells are broken down. You can read more about this in a previous blog post, Why Do Some Wine Recipes Call For Pectic Enzyme? When using pectic enzyme the pectin cells are broken down into a substance that is clear and watery.Shop Pectic Enzyme

If all the pectin cells are not broken down then they add to the cloudy appearance of the wine. In the case of peaches, sometimes not all the pectin gets broken down. Sometimes this is caused by a stressed wine yeast, but it can also be caused by using pectic enzyme that is old or not using enough pectic enzyme. If any fruit is gong to expose this error it would be the peach wine due to its abundance of pectin cells. Other fruits high in pectin are plums, strawberries and persimmons.

It is important to understand that a pectin haze can not be cleared out with fining agents such a bentonite, isinglass or Sparkolloid. This is because these types of clarifiers are primarily used to clear out particles. Pectin is not a particle, but rather, something that is molecularity bound to the liquid. No fining agent can touch it. It needs to be broken down through enzymatic activity. That is why using pectic enzyme is so important in these situations.

You can try adding more pectic enzyme to the wine, but it may take a while for the full reaction to take place. The enzymes work much more slowly after the fermentation when the activity is not present. Patience may be required on your part. It could even take several months.

Shop Mini Jet Wine FilterIf you would like to verify that it is a pectin haze you are dealing with you can take a small sample of the wine and add extreme doses of the pectic enzyme to it to see if it will clear the wine: say, a teaspoon to 4 oz. to 8 oz. of wine. You should see a reaction with in days, if not hours, at this dosage.

Hope this information about using pectic enzyme helps you out.

Happy Winemaking!