So I made a mango wine and when I racked it it quit fermenting. But my sg was .994 or something like that. Also it just tastes like alcohol not much mango flavor could it be from not soaking the mango long enough in beginning? Is it a bad idea to buy mango juice to top off the batch? Just looking for some insight or tips as to where I may have gone wrong or what I can do to improve it. My procedure was mango blended up with sugar and then added yeast and topped up to a gallon with water. It only worked for about 7 day and I racked all the sediment off and then that's when it quit working.
Mango wine
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What was your starting SG? You may needed more sugars from the get go. The yeast probably turned all the mango and sugar into alcohol (I did this with my first batch of wine). As for the mango juice, it's your blend but I would to add some sweetness to it. Will drive the alc % down but probably worth it.
bernardsmith
Well-Known Member
Hi slice. One of the secrets of country wines (AKA wines made from fruits, vegetables and flowers and not from grapes) is that such wines invariably need some back sweetening to bring out the fruit flavors. A brut dry country wine tends to taste of ethanol with the fruit flavors way, way in the background. Bench test to see if added sugar will bring the fruit flavors forward and if so how much sugar will you need to add to hit the spot that really makes the fruit shine.
To bench test you need to draw off identical sized samples and add different amounts of sugar in each sample and you may need to repeat this a few times until you locate that "sweet spot".
To backsweeten the entire batch you need to add BOTH K-meta and K-sorbate. The sorbate prevents the existing yeast from reproducing and the meta inhibits any viable yeast from fermenting added sugars.
All that said, You say you used 3 lbs of mangoes for what volume of wine? Three pounds might be a little on the thin side (I like to taste the fruit and not just an impression of it) but if you used fresh mangoes a great deal of the fruit is pit. I use frozen mangoes when I make mango wine.
To bench test you need to draw off identical sized samples and add different amounts of sugar in each sample and you may need to repeat this a few times until you locate that "sweet spot".
To backsweeten the entire batch you need to add BOTH K-meta and K-sorbate. The sorbate prevents the existing yeast from reproducing and the meta inhibits any viable yeast from fermenting added sugars.
All that said, You say you used 3 lbs of mangoes for what volume of wine? Three pounds might be a little on the thin side (I like to taste the fruit and not just an impression of it) but if you used fresh mangoes a great deal of the fruit is pit. I use frozen mangoes when I make mango wine.
bernardsmith
Well-Known Member
I guess I don't really use recipes. What is a recipe but a report of what someone did once and they recorded what they did with the specific ingredients and tools they had to hand. My mangoes, my water, the sugar I use, the scales I have and the pH meter I have are not the same as the ones you have or the ones that the recorder of the recipe says they used (did they?). My basement temperature is likely to be very different from the author of the recipe too. Recipes are (in my opinion) little more than nonsense. Do you use a recipe when you cook or when you bake bread? I don't. It's technique that is everything.
But that said, I would use about 5 lbs of the frozen fruit per gallon and add enough sugar to create a must at 1.090. But my gallon would be large and made in a bucket so that when I racked into a carboy I would be able to fill the carboy without any topping up with water or some other liquid.
I would add perhaps 1/4 t of nutrients; about 1/3 t of tannin and aim for a TA of about 6.5g/L. For mangoes I might add lemon juice or malic. For yeast I would probably use 71B but I might use US 05.
But that said, I would use about 5 lbs of the frozen fruit per gallon and add enough sugar to create a must at 1.090. But my gallon would be large and made in a bucket so that when I racked into a carboy I would be able to fill the carboy without any topping up with water or some other liquid.
I would add perhaps 1/4 t of nutrients; about 1/3 t of tannin and aim for a TA of about 6.5g/L. For mangoes I might add lemon juice or malic. For yeast I would probably use 71B but I might use US 05.
