I've been making some Black Currant wine using Vintner's Harvest "Fruit Base" and its been quite excellent. So, I decided to step it up and acquire 5 gallons of Black Currant concentrate and make an approx 35 gallon batch of black currant wine. My question, and it's rather urgent, has to do with the dilution level and Total Acidity of this new monster batch.
As background, I measured the BRIX and acid levels on Vintner's Harvest and it appears to be a diluted form of black current ... not at all a concentrate. The standard BRIX for black currant juice is 11, but the BRIX from the VH fruit base out of the can (before dilution) is only 6. Using two 96oz cans (1.5 Gal) in a 6 gallons with 10 lb of sugar typically gets me to about a BRIX of 22 or SG of 1.09. But at that dilution level it would seem that the black currant is actually quite diluted. I'm assuming that I am missing something here because the resulting wine is not thin at all.
Fast forward to the concentrate I have, and it is delivered as a true concentrate with a BRIX of 65 (I have no way to measure than on my refractometer) . My calculations showed that I would dilute it at a factor of 5 (1 gal of conctrate and 5 gal of water) to get to a normal brix of 11. My plan was then to Chaptalize the resulting must back to something around an SG of 1.090.
Because the juice is so concentrated, the acid level is way high. I took 4 gallons of the concentrate into a 44 gallon primary, diluted with about 32-33 gallons of water to get the juice itself close to 7 Brix. I then used 40 pounds of sugar and got my must to an SG of 1.090, which was my goal. However, the total acid was still way to high (25 g/L or 2.5%).
I was hoping some of the acid would ferment out, but on day 3 the SG is now 1.065 and the acid level has not changed. I need to do something quickly to adjust, and my thought is that my original juice was way too concentrated ... even though it was diluted below where a standard black currant juice would be by just looking at the Brix level.
My thought is as follow:
Prepare a spring water, sugar, and yeast nutrient mix with a matching SG of 1.090.
Rack from the primary into my 32 Gal secondary fermenter with a blend of this water and let it continue to ferment. I'm thinking that if the yeast can keep going the resulting wine will still be in the 12% range. But to get my acid from 2.5% down to 0.7- 0.8% I will need to dilute by more than half.
It seems drastic, but if the Vintner's Harvest black currant startes at a brix of 6 and is diluted 3 to 1, maybe I should have diluted this batch significantly more to begin with?
Help me obi won kenobi ... you are my only hope
As background, I measured the BRIX and acid levels on Vintner's Harvest and it appears to be a diluted form of black current ... not at all a concentrate. The standard BRIX for black currant juice is 11, but the BRIX from the VH fruit base out of the can (before dilution) is only 6. Using two 96oz cans (1.5 Gal) in a 6 gallons with 10 lb of sugar typically gets me to about a BRIX of 22 or SG of 1.09. But at that dilution level it would seem that the black currant is actually quite diluted. I'm assuming that I am missing something here because the resulting wine is not thin at all.
Fast forward to the concentrate I have, and it is delivered as a true concentrate with a BRIX of 65 (I have no way to measure than on my refractometer) . My calculations showed that I would dilute it at a factor of 5 (1 gal of conctrate and 5 gal of water) to get to a normal brix of 11. My plan was then to Chaptalize the resulting must back to something around an SG of 1.090.
Because the juice is so concentrated, the acid level is way high. I took 4 gallons of the concentrate into a 44 gallon primary, diluted with about 32-33 gallons of water to get the juice itself close to 7 Brix. I then used 40 pounds of sugar and got my must to an SG of 1.090, which was my goal. However, the total acid was still way to high (25 g/L or 2.5%).
I was hoping some of the acid would ferment out, but on day 3 the SG is now 1.065 and the acid level has not changed. I need to do something quickly to adjust, and my thought is that my original juice was way too concentrated ... even though it was diluted below where a standard black currant juice would be by just looking at the Brix level.
My thought is as follow:
Prepare a spring water, sugar, and yeast nutrient mix with a matching SG of 1.090.
Rack from the primary into my 32 Gal secondary fermenter with a blend of this water and let it continue to ferment. I'm thinking that if the yeast can keep going the resulting wine will still be in the 12% range. But to get my acid from 2.5% down to 0.7- 0.8% I will need to dilute by more than half.
It seems drastic, but if the Vintner's Harvest black currant startes at a brix of 6 and is diluted 3 to 1, maybe I should have diluted this batch significantly more to begin with?
Help me obi won kenobi ... you are my only hope