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Nwa-brewing

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I have been making my own wine for roughly a year now. Have entered a couple local competitions and even earned a couple rewards. But with anything the more I learn the more questions are raised!

In general my wine making has been super basic, fruit, sugar, water and yeast. 1 week in the primary fermentation bucket, then wrack it over to the carboy, for about a week then rack again and add cambden tablets and potassium metabasulfate. Then rack / sweeten as needed.

I am sure there are better ways etc that is why I am here to learn.

Going to be harvesting crabapples this week and trying a wine with them! But after reading some recipes... A lot of them say wait for 12-24 hours before adding yeast etc, pectic enzyme etc. Never even used pectic enyme before, also have seen that most people add cambden tablets at the start? What does that do for everything, eekhelp lol
 
I also read a lot of people say to add Campden in the beginning during primary or secondary. But then the guy at my local brew shop said not to because it will stop or stunt the fermentation. But to use it later on before bottling So I'd like to know about that also.
 
Hi guys, guess yooper isn't on line, they were very helpful see thread 'question about making the must' a week or so ago.
Basically the campden tablets kill off the natural unwanted yeasts so add about 24hrs before adding your chosen yeast so it has time to do its stuff. However I added my yeast early and it still survived - apparently wine yeasts are pretty sturdy!

Pectin enzyme needs to be added before the yeast too, this is to break down the natural pectin in the fruit to create better juice, then prevent pectin haze forming so wine clears.

That's about sum total if my knowledge all thanks to the experts here. And it works - put in practice for my second attempt started this week!

I agree it would be good to have some stickies on the basics here, my next set of questions are about so2 and ph....
 
Nwa-brewing said:
I have been making my own wine for roughly a year now. Have entered a couple local competitions and even earned a couple rewards. But with anything the more I learn the more questions are raised!

In general my wine making has been super basic, fruit, sugar, water and yeast. 1 week in the primary fermentation bucket, then wrack it over to the carboy, for about a week then rack again and add cambden tablets and potassium metabasulfate. Then rack / sweeten as needed.

I am sure there are better ways etc that is why I am here to learn.

Going to be harvesting crabapples this week and trying a wine with them! But after reading some recipes... A lot of them say wait for 12-24 hours before adding yeast etc, pectic enzyme etc. Never even used pectic enyme before, also have seen that most people add cambden tablets at the start? What does that do for everything, eekhelp lol
Click to expand...

Here is what I've done that has helped my wine turn out: testing.

I test sugar using my hydrometer (most of us already do this). The other is acid titration test. This tells you the amount of acid in your juice. You can adjust by adding tartaric acid, reducing using a base, or adding water.

There are also many different wine yeasts that bring out different characteristics. So experiment!

Since you're already an award winner, apparently you are doing something right.
 
Campden tablets, as explained to me, kill off the wild yeast that naturally occurs in the growing environment of the plant and in the air. They told me to put them in 24 hours before pitching the yeast, because they can slow down the yeast activity. I still haven't tried using them, because my wine gets consumed as soon as it is bottled. Usually, I am bottling a five gallon bucket every other Tuesday, right as we are about to run out of the previous batch. I have never used pectic enzyme either, but I have used pieces of papaya, recently for the express purpose of having a clear wine. I have a bad habit of trying to get the most out of my fruit, and that unfortunatley, includes pectin. Time will tell if it actually helps clear my wine.
 
Thank you all for the information.

So basically the only point of adding the Camden tablets prior is to create a better starting ground for the wine yeast that makes sense.

I will probably try some pectic enzyme, most likely explains why my raspberry peach came out a little cloudy though nothing was settling.

Winning an award was gratifying but almost seams like dumb luck lol.

A sticky of all the basics like terms, components and why etc would be amazingly helpful.

Like the adding of raisins, totally new on me!
 

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