PAC762

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I'm getting ready to start a pineapple wine. I want this to come out fairly dry and plan to bottle half sparkliing and half still. I was intending to follow Terry Garey's recipe, which is very similar to Jack Keller's:


I searched this site for any tips I could pick up and I found several posts from Freezeblade that mentioned problems with pineapple wine due to high acid levels. Freezeblades recipe is


Now I'm really confused about the acid issue. Garey's recipe does not call for an acid-metabolizing yeast. Garey's recipe actually calls for adding extra acid to the wine. I'm not sure which direction to go here. Could it be that there is substantially more acid is pineapple juice than there is in crushed/canned fruit?

Any insite on this would be appreciated. My initial intent was to follow Garey's/Keller's recipe and use Cote de Blanc yeast, but now I don't know if I should use 71B and hold the acid blend.

PAC762

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I think I may have answered my own question....

I did some google searching and it looks like the Chinese recommend Champagne yeast, too. Studies on pineapple wine making. | Hsu HuiLing, Wang TzuChing, Wu MingChang, Yang Shui | Journal of the Chinese Society for Horticultural Science | Chinese Society for Horticultural Science

USC found that 71B did not reduce the acid level for pineapple wine: http://www.usc.edu/CSSF/History/2007/Projects/J0420.pdf

I think I'll just stick with the Garey/Keller recipe.

shivo832

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I just made a batch of pineapple wine using fresh pineapples and used champagne yeast and it worked out great!!

Pogo

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Thanks for the link.

I finally found some ph test strips. But, I can't find any data on the original and final ph of grape wines.

Without some sort of reference point as to the proper acid levels of decent wines, I'm hesitant to plunge into a batch (even a small batch) of Pineapple Wine.

I think I'll try a gallon batch of Yooper's Welch's Concord Grape wine from concentrate first, noting the O-ph and the F-ph. I may change the yeast though, I not sure which way to go on this yet.

Then I'll try another gallon batch, substituting Dole's Pineapple Juice from concentrate, with the same recipe.

At this point, I'm thinking about adjusting the O-ph of the Pineapple to match the O-ph of the Welch's with Calcium Carbonate, and then comparing the F-ph's.

Or, I may also add a second, untampered with batch of Pineapple Wine to the test, let it finish, then correct the F-ph to match the grape F-ph with the Calcium Carbonate.

Has anyone been tracking grape wine ph's and/or have any ideas worth sharing on Pineapple Wine?

Also, does anyone know if large amounts of Calcium Carbonate can impact the taste of wine?

Pogo

gratus fermentatio

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0.6-1.2 % of pineapple is acid of which 87 % is citric acid and 13 % is malic acid. The pH of pineapple is acidic, which is 3.71 and the acidity percentage is 53.5 %. So you see while the 71-B (narbonne) yeast will metabolize at least some (if not all) the malic, it will do nothing with the citric acid; which will still be a bit tart. I think the use of 71-B is the best bet to reduce acid in this case, though a bit of backsweetening could serve to balance out that tartness. You could use calcium carbonate to reduce citric acid, but it's easy to use too much & end up with a wine that has a chalky taste. Then again, you could use it perfectly & have it turn out to be very tasty. Regards, GF.

Freezeblade

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My ears are burning...oh hey, my pineapple recipe got mentioned.

I had seen Jack's recipe, and I chose not to do it because it seemed to be more of a grape/pineapple wine, which I suspect was in order to cut down on the acid compared to just fermenting pineapple juice, either recipe would turn out well, but I was going for more of a straight pineapple wine. It depends as well from what source you get the pineapple from, as some varieties of pineapple have different acid contents, but just be prepared that your batch of just juice will turn out quite acidic, almost unbearably so (like my first batch with just juice and cote de blancs was). I think that the usage of the 71-B-1122 in purely pineapple wines is very important unless you are doing other things later to decrease the acid content (calcium carbonate or backsweetning). YMMV.

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PAC762

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Freezeblade,

I was hoping you'd see this post. Do you think there would be a difference in acid levels with the use of canned fruit versus straight juice?

jordnthoms

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Pineapples are naturally quite acidic, true.
While Keller is calling for use of acid blend, he also calls for white grape juice.

Frozen Concentrated Pineapple Juice (FCPJ) is highly acidic. Not to mention there is added acid (can't remember which one). I tried to make a 5 gallon batch of FCPJ and a little strawberry juice. Using 10 cans was a bad idea. I had just had The Crazy! by New Belgium and loved it because of its tart flavor. My wine was far too acidic. It was about 14% alcohol. I stabilized 2/4 of it and sweetened 2/4 of it. Thus I got 1/4: sweet&sparkling, dry&sparkling, sweet&flat, and dry&flat. The dry&sparkling was by far the most bearable. Something happened though to the sweetened portion --- even though I racked TWICE, the sweet wine separated about a third of the way up. Weird, but not problematic. Finally, I went back and added CaCO3 to reduce the acidity. It helped, but the wine was only drank by my more... "alcoholic" friends.

Anyway, overall message, don't use FCPJ. It sucks and its tough. The acidity is a serious problem and I will probably never make PineWine again.

summersolstice

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I've made several batches of pineapple mead using canned pineapple chunks w/o acid blend and it came out perfect for my taste.