# My welchs wine is quite bitter



## edenri (Jan 9, 2008)

I chose a welch's recipe to start with, and today I racked it into a secondary. It fermented in a primary, only covered with a cloth, for 7 days, I tasted it and it was really bitter, will this get better?

The SG was about 1.100 and now reads 1.000. I think that sounds about right?

Should I have added a campden tablet during primary? Did something go sour on me?

Sorry more questions, should I be concerned with degassing right now? Can I just shake it up a bit? Finally I planed on racking again in about 2 wks, is that about right?

Btw-I used white grape juice.


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## grapeman (Jan 9, 2008)

You are probably just tasting the effect of C02 in it, being fairly dry already and being so young. In the future rack a bit sooner so it will make a good C02 cap for protection in the secondary. You can rack it again in 2-4 weeks and try to degas some at that time. Make sure it is close to 70 when degassing. At that point it will be dry so add 1 campden tablet-crushed to it(gallon)If you made a 5 or 6 gallon batch use 1 campden / gallon or 1/4 tsp of k-meta per 5-6 gallon batch. Let it age another month or so rack again to clean vessel and then bottle(unless you want to bul age) if clear. If it hasn't finished clearing just keep racking each month until clear.


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## JWMINNESOTA (Jan 9, 2008)

Its been awhile since I made one, but they do indeed get better after a few months, actually can be real tasty. May want to check sg afew days in a row, if it doesn't come any lower your ready to degas and stabilize.


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## edenri (Jan 9, 2008)

Thanks guys for your replies, it's definatly not vinegar so thats good. I'll see how it tastes at each stage. In the meantime I can read up on sweetening to taste.


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## smurfe (Jan 9, 2008)

You will probably notice a complete different taste after you sweeten a bit. I did one batch of this and it was quite "puckery" until I sweetened it a bit. I like a very dry wine but I didn't like this one dry. It was quite tasty after it had some sweetness to it. It will be much better with a little age to it as well.


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