Crab Apple Wine ABV Q's

[JawZziff]

Hey,

Been awhile since I've posted on here. Finally coming out of brew break of at least 3 years. Mostly do all-grain but I like to experiment with all sorts. I'm renting a place with a crab apple tree (and a raspberry bush!!) in the back yard. Last fall I picked it clean and threw the apples in the freezer. I had intentions of turning them into some sort of wine or cider so when all this social distancing stuff came about it was the perfect time to do something about it.

I found this recipe and decided to give it a shot. But rather than using halved apples I threw mine in whole. I let everything sit for at least a day or two before adding the yeast, I was hoping the juices from the apple would leach out into the rest of the must before taking a gravity reading. SG was 1.060. I let it bubble away for about 2 weeks before getting impatient and racking it off the apples and into a carboy where I got a gravity around 1.030. It's now around 1.010 and still slowly bubbling away. So far it seems to be tasting ok with that classic crab apple tartness. My plan is to ferment it dry and back sweeten to taste.

My question is about the whole apples and the effect on the gravity. When I took that initial reading I'm pretty confident that a lot of the apple juice was still in the apples and not in the sample I took for a reading. But my suspicion is that over those first 2 weeks of fermentation that a lot of the apple juice started to seep out of the apples. Am I right in that suspicion? Should I expect a higher ABV than my initial reading suggests? And how can I account for this in future batches so I can be as accurate as possible?

Thanks for the tips.

 

[Seamonkey84]

The yeast will work on the fruit, but if you didn’t break them open it’ll be a very slow process, and your not going to extract as much flavor.

 

[JawZziff]

Great thanks. I've since racked the wine off the fruit so now the yeast only has the added sugar and whatever fruit juice that actually made it out of the apples. I guess I'm what I'm asking is how accurate is my initial reading of 1.060? Is that an accurate measure of all the sugars available for my yeast when I took the reading, considering a lot of those sugars were actually in the apples and not in my plastic test cylinder when I took the reading?

 

[Seamonkey84]

Honestly, if there’s 12lbs sugar plus grape juice concentrate in 5gal, I’d expect a higher gravity since the juice in the apples wasn’t added to the dilution.

 

[JawZziff]

I know it seems on the low side doesn't it?

 

[lukebuz]

Honestly, the sugar content of the crabapples is so low, that any juice that leaked out will LOWER your ABV. If your wine is around 1.090 for the water and sugar add, then added juice from the crabbies @ 1.030 will lower you to (for example) 1.085. Depends on how much sugar in fruit, how much fruit and how much water in fruit.

Seems simple at first, but there really is some math behind it. I do whole fruit wines - so I need to know the sugar per pound, the water per pound, and the refuse per pound. All required to get an accurate ABV - and a balanced wine.

 

[lukebuz]

Hint for next run of crabapples - wash and toss in food processesor or blender. Just tap on to very roughly chop the apples, then dump into strainer bag. Done! Much more juice and flavor, and it's easy.

 

[JawZziff]

Great, thanks @lukebuz. I didn't realize it could lower the abv but that does make sense. Would you care to elaborate on your abv calculations? I foresee more fruit wines in my future and I'd love to nail down the math.

Thanks for the tips. I froze these ones whole and so I decided it would be easier to add them frozen to the must and let them thaw that way. I plan to chop up this years harvest before freezing.

 

[lukebuz]

Not really any other math than just knowing the exact quantities of water and sugar you are putting into your mixture. Here is how it breaks down...

Know how much water you add...add to that the amount of water your fruit will yield. You can find a "water content" list for fruits on the internet. Berries are usually 90% (for example).

Know how much sugar you added...add to that the amount of sugar in your fruit. Same as above, you can find sugar content on the internet. Again, berries may be 4 - 8%. So, 90% water, plus 6% sugar, plus 4% seeds and skins = 100% of your addition.

Now, you know how much water you'll have, plus how much sugar. You can get your SG and volume of liquid, and make adjustments from there!

 

[JawZziff]

Ok, that makes sense. Thanks for the tips!