- Creating
Wine From Wild Plants - pg2
BY JACK
B. KELLER JR
- © Copyright
2001
-
- Sugar Content and Supplementation
More than anything else, it is the conversion of sugar into carbon
dioxide and alcohol by the action of yeast that makes wine. A
critical amount of sugar simply must be present or you are wasting
your time and ingredients. When this amount is absent, you must
add sugar.
The amount
you must add, of course, depends on how much is there to begin
with. You determine this by using a hydrometer to measure the
specific gravity (S.G.) of the diluted liquor. What I mean by
prepared liquor is the combined ingredients in the recipes less
the sugar and yeast. If you measured the S.G. of the fruit juice
alone and added sugar to attain a starting S.G. of, say, 1.095,
that reading would be meaningless the moment you added water
and other ingredients. So, combine the ingredients less the sugar
and yeast, measure the S.G., and then add sugar to raise the
S.G. accordingly.
This is especially
important when adapting a recipe to a substitute ingredient.
The substitute ingredient almost certainly will not contain exactly
the same natural sugar as the ingredient specified in the recipe.
You then adjust the sugar content accordingly. This will probably
mean an amount close to that called for in the recipe, but not
exactly the same amount.
Sugar can be
added in several forms and several ways, but usually this boils
down to adding refined sugar or adding honey. Unless a recipe
specifically calls for honey, I always use sugar, and unless
it specifically calls for light or dark brown sugar, I use finely
granulated white cane sugar. Cane and beet sugar are both sucrose
and are chemically the same. Unrefined brown sugar can still
be found, but it is imported these days and usually costs more
than domestic brown sugar. Domestic brown sugar is really refined
sugar with molasses added. It will affect both taste and color
of the wine, but for some wines it is required. Corn sugar is
dextrose, preferred for beermaking but tradionally avoided by
winemakers. Terry Garey and a few others say you can use it if
you want to, but long ago I was taught "vinters scorn what
comes from corn;" this ditty may be unfounded, but I've
never wanted to risk a batch of wine testing its veracity.
Honey is another
subject altogether. It comes in many, many flavors, depending
upon the flowers the bees predominately visited while collecting
pollens and nectares used to make it. These flavors do affect
the wine, but so does the honey itself. Honey tends to mellow
out a wine and contributes ever so slightly to body. Some people
prefer it for that reason alone, while others prefer it for ecological
reasons.
- I use it only
when the recipe calls for it, when I know the wine will otherwise
be thin, or when I want to impart a specific flavor to the wine--such
as heather, clover, orange, or mesquite.
-
- My problem
with honey is that it slows down the clarification process considerably.
Honey contains pollen, and pollen takes a long time to settle
out. Even when settled, it can easily be lifted from the lees
by the siphoning action of racking, and then it must again settle
out. If you filter your wine, this is much less a problem than
if you don't.
-
- Acidity
Salmonberries are just a little bit more tart than red raspberries.
This means it contains something red raspberries don't contain,
or lacks something red raspberries don't. Tartness is usually
caused by acid, but it could be caused by tannin, pectin, or
simply a natural flavor. In the case of salmonberries, it's acid.
If the difference were great, you'd want to adjust the amount
of added acid in the recipe to be adapted downward, but in this
case the difference is so slight as to be negligible. Indeed,
the amount of acid blend you might remove from the red raspberry
wine recipe is so small that it might easily be absent depending
upon how you measure 1/2 tsp. A pinch less might be justified,
but that is only about 20-30 grains of the crystalline blend,
and that is not worth fretting about.
On the other
hand, if the berries were unusually tart, you might cut the amount
of acid blend used by 1/8 to 1/5. You wouldn't want to reduce
it by more, as acid is essential to the health and reproduction
of yeast.
Acidity should
not generally be a worry if you have compared your fruit wisely
and correctly. If in doubt, however, use an acid testing kit
and adjust acidity to no more than 0.60% tartaric.
Wine Recipes
For these or
many other great recipes visit the Winemaking home page
_______________________________________
Author:
Jack Keller is president of the San Antonio Regional
Wine Guild. He is a schooled historian, dry-fly fisherman, collector
of stamps, Hummel figurines and Christine Rosamond lithographs,
and lives with his wife Donna and English Springer Spaniel Colita
in Pleasanton, Texas. He works for the United States Army Medical
Research Detachment (San Antonio) of the Walter Reed Army Institute
of Research. He is a prolific award-winning winemaker and has
authored many articles on home winemaking and other subjects.
He has four websites. http://winemaking.jackkeller.net
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