wine making process help

[Orangecrusher]

Hello,
I've brewed beer for about twenty years as a hobby and some of that time I spent making wines from kits bought from the store. Just now I'm starting to find out how I don't need to buy kits and can be creative making wines as well. The only thing slowing me down is the understanding of how to use all the different additives added during the process. I have my first blueberry wine in a fermenter and so far I've just been winging it but I'd like to do better.
So can anyone guide me to some good reads on using things like campdon tablets, yeast energizers, and all those things that help the must along?

 

[Orangecrusher]

I'm finding some good threads finally and wishing I hadn't asked . Sorry. Mod can delete this thread if they so choose. Thank you

 

[bernardsmith]

Hi Orangecrusher and welcome. Energizers have never made a great deal of sense to me. Better by far are yeast nutrients and you can buy these at your local home brew store. Most fruit and certainly honey are nutritional deserts for yeast. Grapes might be an exception, and beer is certainly an exception. Yeast need the minerals and the vitamins and nitrogen that the nutrients provide, and they need this during the earlier part of active fermentation. Note, however, that you should never add regular nutrients to the yeast if and when you are rehydrating. at that time the compounds in the nutrients can kill the cells.
Most fruits are tannin -poor but tannins provide structure to a wine.
Acidity is another factor of importance. Too little and the wine can taste bland. Too much and it can taste bitter. There are two aspects to acidity in a wine. The first is pH and that is a measure of the strength of the acids in a wine. Malic , for example, is a stronger acid than lactic. The lower the pH (the more "acidic" the wine), the less free sulfites you need to help preserve the wine and inhibit oxidation. You want a pH of around 3.2- 3.5. The second aspect of acidity is a measure of the TA (titratable acidity) and TA refers to the amount of acid in solution - the amount and not the strength. Wines generally taste bright when the TA is about 6g/L (about .6%)... but your tongue is a good tool for measuring TA.

Many recipes call for adding acids and /or tannins much like some folk add salt when they are served a dish of food - why? because every plate needs to be salted no matter how good the cook, right? Yeah... right. So I would ignore any recipe that tells you how much acid or tannin to add. Bench test.
A brew day, as you know, can take half a day but it can take 5 minutes from start to pitching yeast to make a simple wine or cider. Of course, it can take months of nurturing and aging before that wine is ready for bottling and another period of time before you want to crack open a bottle, but country wines can be incredible. Good luck.

 

[Orangecrusher]

That's very helpful thank you