Boiling wine

[wineforsteve]

Im a beginner and would like to get something clarified. I have a red that started at 15% potential and plan to fermentate for a week. After that period Ill siphon it. My question is that at this point I want to boil the wine at 150-160 degrees in order to kill the yeast and bottle. Im not too concerned with flavor but am wondering the best way to do this? Ive heard 140 kills yeast and that the boiling point of alcohol is 173. I want to know what to measure tempreture with, what pot to use, how long etc.

My only expectations are a wine with a similar alcoholic content, the yeast killed

 

[Descender]

Why do you want to heat treat? Better to siphon and stabilize chemically.

 

[Cheesy_Goodness]

You probably don't want to do anything to inhibit yeast after one week. If it's anything like beer, the yeast still have some clean up work to do, even after primary fermentation is complete.
The (very difficult) trick to wine is to make it and forget about it for a few months before you worry about killing/inhibiting yeast. At that point, most people use k meta and potassium sorbate to keep the yeast at bay.
Hope that helps

 

[wineforsteve]

Well with my past wines they get around 2-3% potential within a week and im happy with the taste and would like to bottle it at that point without worrying about explosions. I was thinking about boiling it in a crockpot since the temp is easily set on mine. Should i leave it between 150-160 for just a few minutes or do the yeast die quickly at this point?

 

[HBngNOK]

It's a personal choice, and if you're happy with the taste at a week, go for it. I think the yeast will be killed by the time your crock pot reaches 160 (I've read that yeast dies at 140), but leaving at that temp for a few minutes will insure the yeast are dead.

Now for the but, and you knew there had to be one . If you think it's good at a week, you may think it's excellent at a year, and nectar of the gods after 2 or 3.

Another "but", but if you like it at a week, then that's what YOU should do.

 

[Cheesy_Goodness]

It's a personal choice, and if you're happy with the taste at a week, go for it. I think the yeast will be killed by the time your crock pot reaches 160 (I've read that yeast dies at 140), but leaving at that temp for a few minutes will insure the yeast are dead.

Now for the but, and you knew there had to be one . If you think it's good at a week, you may think it's excellent at a year, and nectar of the gods after 2 or 3.

Another "but", but if you like it at a week, then that's what YOU should do.

+1
It's certainly your choice, but my guess is you'd be better served by letting it run its course.
If you're set on doing it that way, there's a thread in the Cider section dealing with pasteurization that has worked well for me in the past. I'd be hesitant to recommend that method for wine bottles and corks (might be there's not anything to worry about), but either way that thread has some good info on killing yeast.

 

[bernardsmith]

Two points. If your wine has enough sugar to result in a potential ABV of 15 percent then my guess is after a week that wine will be more like a desert wine in terms of its sweetness. I cannot see wine yeasts converting so much sugar in a 7 days if you are fermenting at normal temperatures. If your temperature is high you are liable to produce off flavors and fusel oils.

While I would never suggest that you heat your wine if you do choose to go that route you may want to add pectic enzyme. Heating fruit allows the pectins to form long chains and the result is jelly. If you add enzymes to break down those pectins then your wine will be less like jam.

 

[fuelish]

Why do you want to heat treat? Better to siphon and stabilize chemically.

Some folks prefer to minimize chemical additives???

 

[wineforsteve]

http://m.wikihow.com/Pasteurize-Your-Homemade-Wine

This is the method I plan to take ^

 

[TexasWine]

I'm with the rest of the group here. Why, oh why, would you want to heat your wine? Totally a personal choice, but I would venture that you're gonna end up with some cloudy, nasty tasting stuff. Might be good for getting tipsy, but that's it.

You could try k-meta and potassium sorbate as someone else suggested. You might try cold crashing before doing this.

If you're bent on heating it up, I have an idea. I'm not sure if this method if safe, so try it at your own risk. Bottle your wine and immediately submerge the bottles in a pot of water that has been preheated on the stove top to about 190-200F. Let them sit there for 15-20 minutes. Remove and place at room temperature to cool off. Re-heat the water to 190-200F and repeat the process until all your wine is done.

This is essentially the pasteurization process outlined in the cider forum, except you're not letting your wine carb up before pasteurizing it.

 

[wineforsteve]

After I heat the wine and seal it off, can I age for a bit? Or will it not age since I heated it. At 150-160 I dont think it will boil very much.

 

[Descender]

Are you planning on bottling this?

 

[wineforsteve]

I'm with the rest of the group here. Why, oh why, would you want to heat your wine? Totally a personal choice, but I would venture that you're gonna end up with some cloudy, nasty tasting stuff. Might be good for getting tipsy, but that's it.

You could try k-meta and potassium sorbate as someone else suggested. You might try cold crashing before doing this.

If you're bent on heating it up, I have an idea. I'm not sure if this method if safe, so try it at your own risk. Bottle your wine and immediately submerge the bottles in a pot of water that has been preheated on the stove top to about 190-200F. Let them sit there for 15-20 minutes. Remove and place at room temperature to cool off. Re-heat the water to 190-200F and repeat the process until all your wine is done.

This is essentially the pasteurization process outlined in the cider forum, except you're not letting your wine carb up before pasteurizing it.

^wouldn't the alcohol boil away doing this?

 

[Yooper]

^wouldn't the alcohol boil away doing this?

Not if the wine is capped. If it's open, then yes of course. Ethanol would be boil off long before the wine reached its boiling temperature. That's why the stovetop pasteurizing has you pasteurizing closed (capped) bottles.

Edit- that wiki how link is full of fail. First, you would NEVER use a funnel for wine- it will oxidize it and ruin it. Salmonella and things can't exist in wine to begin with so there is no benefit to pasteurizing the wine to kill it. The errors go on and on. If you feel that you really want to do something like this, then try the "stovetop pasteurizing" sticky thread in the cider forum where you will be doing it properly.

 

[Yooper]

I just realized that my last reply looked like I was condoning heating to pasteurize. I am not. I just stated that if the wine is capped, things can't boil off.

I would never do this. I would wait for the wine to finish, and either stabilize it with sorbate and campden; or if avoiding all chemicals I'd let it finish and keep incrementally feeding it more sugar until the yeast was overwhelmed and the wine ended up sweet. That can make a "hot" sweet wine that takes a while to age out, though.

I rarely make sweet wines (hate that stuff) but when I do, as for gifts, I allow the wine to ferment out and clear. Then rack onto sorbate and campden, and sweeten to taste, and then bottle.

First, a clear finished wine means no crap in the bottle.

If a one week old wine is bottled, it will have a boatload of sediment and pectin in the bottle and that grosses me out so I would never do that.

 

[wineforsteve]

Do I have to worry about pressure building becuase of heat? On the wikihow I read it said to cover the top with tinfoil while doing it and to have a max temp of 165.

 

[Yooper]

Do I have to worry about pressure building becuase of heat? On the wikihow I read it said to cover the top with tinfoil while doing it and to have a max temp of 165.

The wiki how is not a good practice, or a good idea. You'll ruin the wine by pouring through a funnel into the bottle plus a whole lot more is wrong with those instructions.

And yes, you should be concerned about pressure so you want to be extra careful. Bottle bombs can maim and blind you.

 

[BGBC]

If you bottle after a week, then pasteurize, it's still going to be extremely cloudy. It will probably still drop out with some aging, but it still won't be pretty.

And if you try to heat it openly, you'll boil off the ethanol, as other have mentioned.

You could make a dry wine (let it ferment fully, age, then bottle) and backsweeten in the glass. Or stabilize (chemically) after fully fermenting and backsweeten prior to bottling.

EDIT: And Yooper beat me to it.

 

[wineforsteve]

Also what would be a recommended aging time after this?

 

[Yooper]

Also what would be a recommended aging time after this?

The reason to age a wine is to allow the flavors to mellow and fully develop. Once you heat it, you've stopped that process. If you've done something like pour the wine into the bottles via a funnel, it would oxidize the wine. A wine that has been heated will not taste very good at all.

In other words, this won't be a tasty wine anyway so aging it won't help. It will have a ton of sediment in it, and probably some pectins also, so aging won't improve it a bit.

 

[wineforsteve]

The wiki ho w is not a good practice, or a good idea. You'll ruin the wine by pouring through a funnel into the bottle plus a whole lot more is wrong with those instructions.

And yes, you should be concerned about pressure so you want to be extra careful. Bottle bombs can maim and blind you.

You seem pretty educated on brewing, ill be honest i do not have high expectations for wine, as long as the alcohol content is reasonable, and taste alright im ok with it. How would you go upon pasteurizing wine? Also not saying youre wrong but whats wrong with the wikihow?


http://m.wikihow.com/Pasteurize-Your-Homemade-Wine

 

[Yooper]

You seem pretty educated on brewing, ill be honest i do not have high expectations for wine, as long as the alcohol content is reasonable, and taste alright im ok with it. How would you go upon pasteurizing wine? Also not saying youre wrong but whats wrong with the wikihow?


http://m.wikihow.com/Pasteurize-Your-Homemade-Wine

I wouldn't pasteurize wine, that's the thing. Heating it destroys much of the flavor and aroma (bouquet) and changes it.

Think of a simple example of heating/cooking something. Say, an apple. A raw apple is crisp and tart with fresh flavor. Put the apple in the microwave for a few minutes, and you have a "cooked apple" flavor. The texture is changed, the aroma is changed, and the flavor is changed. That is similar to what would happen to wine that is heated.

Or, a piece of bread. Think of a fresh slice of bread vs a toasted bread slice.

Most folks who love wine even keep it in wine cellars to protect it from heat and light- due to what heat can do to the wine. Even temperatures over 80 degrees would probably be detrimental in the short run- pasteurizing temperatures would ruin the flavor for me.

Why not let the wine finish up? It will finish dry, and can be sweetened later on if need be (and yes, perhaps some sorbate would be indicated). That would make a quality wine, without tons of debris in the bottle of the bottle.

 

[wineforsteve]

I want to try something different and im pretty set on try it atleast. Its a very small amount of wine that im trying it on.

If I do it I think ill rack it once, the second time siphon it straight into the bottles and then submerge the bottles into a pot of water and keep the temp below 165 with the bottles covered by tinfoil (so I dont have to stress about explosions). After cork it

 

[wineforsteve]

Taste aside, will this go smoothly?

 

[sportpak]

Taste aside, will this go smoothly?

Stop asking questions and go do it. Tell us how it turns out. Obviously no one has an answer your looking for.:rockin:

 

[wineforsteve]

Stop asking questions and go do it. Tell us how it turns out. Obviously no one has an answer your looking for.:rockin:

Youre right. Well in about a week ill give you guys an update

 

[Descender]

Care to share your recipe?

 

[jensmith]

If you like it at one week then drink it then! Make small batches and just drink them as you go. No need to bottle or pasterize. Besides. once the yeast is dead or out of the wine it will taste different. Its that active yeasty wine flavore that is so good at one week. No way to presurve that flavor. Its best fresh


Sent from my iPod touch using Home Brew

 

[wineforsteve]

Care to share your recipe?

I started on sunday, 3 quart bottle of welches red grape. I got the potential up to 15% and then added 1 gram of yeast. I believe ill rack in a week or so and then a week after that rack into the bottles and pasteurize and seal after.