you makin' hooch.
did you add nutrient.
aroma accounts for a majority of what the brain percceives as taste.
if it dont smell good its unlikey to taste good.
to make really good quafable beverages, use this very simple template:
For 1 gallon of fruit juice wine:
1 liter of white grape or red grape juice ( depending on whether the next fruit is light or dark)
2 liters of light or dark colored fruit juice ( some great light fruit choices are mango peach pineapple orange white cherry white cranberry lychee etc. dark fruit are obvious, blueberry cherry mulberry blackberry etc)
500 to 1000 grams of sugar depending on the strength of the wine you want in the end.
1 cup of strong black tea made with 3 tea bags (for tannins that are lacking)
the juice of a lemon (for acid thats lacking)
pectinase
nutrient
any wine yeast
water up to 1 gallon.
dont let it get above 70 degrees if you can help it this will cut down on the off flavors tremendously.
this always comes out rediculously good. its surefire enough that you can make 5 gallons if you want.
the lower abv ones are good carbed the higher ones better when still.
they age VERY well. the longer ytou wait the better.
if you backsweeten them to taste they can be made to anyone's liking.
Thanks. Yes I added nutrient, but nowhere near the levels in the successful batches using sugar, water and lemon juice, there are no instructions on the packets so I just winged it. I backsweetened using 29 grams of white sugar per litre (as I was drinking it immediately) which in theory raised it from 1.000 to 1.010, and added 40ml/L lemon juice, which made it taste like the successful batches, but of course the smell was still off-putting. It may be that the bottle of iced tea I split between the two 10L buckets smelled and tasted like what I'm smelling in the 'brew', I didn't try it, I just had it on hand and thought it would be an easy way to add a little tea and citrus juice to what I was hoping to be a fairly neutral brew I could flavour later. I should point out that today it's just two weeks since pitching, degassing and aging may help. I was just wanting something like I drank last weekend, which was also barely two weeks old.
Temperature shouldn't have been a factor, it would have been around 22c, just over 70f most of the time, and the brews are all in the same room. This batch used Philly Sour, as did the successful batches I drank last weekend, which were absolutely delicious, the perfect alcoholic Pub Squash, I want to change nothing in that recipe, it's perfect as is. I hadn't tasted it yet when I put this batch together though. The other bucket had identical ingredients except that I used Nottingham for that one, I'll be interested to see if that's the same. I initially bought Philly Sour because it was in the higher temperature tolerance yeast section, but I've liked the acid it adds. We're only just into spring and it's already over 30c/86f outside, and I'm sweating sitting here in the room I'm fermenting in. The temp strips on the fermenters are still on 22, but the thermometer on the wall says 26c/78.8f. Last summer I had trouble getting this room below 35c/95f so I'm desperately trying to get as many brews completed as I can right now.
Thanks for your reply, it's much appreciated as I only started 'brewing' a couple of months ago so I'll take all the input I can get!
Cheers!
