# Jaboticaba wine recipe



## jenjon (Jul 11, 2014)

Hello everyone 
This was my first attempt at making Jaboticaba wine and it tastes discussing. I think it's gone to vinegar. My liqueur turned out great (Nov 2013) but alas the wine (Jan 2014)....no! 
This is the process that I used if anyone out there can tell me where I went wrong I'd be grateful. Keep in mind that I'm a novice and have never made any alcoholic beverage before. We got 40 kilos off one tree in one fruiting last year. That's when I decided to try my hand at this. Now that I know that you can freeze them, I'll be doing exactly that next season as we have 20 trees and they can fruit up to four times in a good season. 
Here was my process: 


Bubbles through airlock were produced every 5-6 seconds 

Day 6 

Removed the skins and squeezed fruit bags 
Put 25 litres of must into 1 sanitized carboy 
Test PH level should be 3.3 
Adjust with acid blend if necessary 
Added 2 tsp of acid blend 
Check SG level 
Added 6 crushed and dissolved campden tablets 
In a short time must started boiling. Bubbles through airlock were produced every 2 seconds 

(Up to here everything was going swimmingly but I read that there were different approaches after the brew got to this stage. i didn't follow the next process. I chose different advice on this and just left it to mature in the container and have only just now decided to rack it for the first time. Is this where I went wrong? Do you have to rack it immediately after the bubbling stops?) 

This next part is what my original research directed me to do: 
Second fermentation 

Syphon off must into sanitized carboy leaving lee (sediment) behind 
Add Bentonite 
Leave for at least 12 mths 
Test wine at regular intervals


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## Bob1016 (Jul 11, 2014)

How lucky you are to have jaboticaba! Where are you? I'd imagine south america (Brazil?). We have about 40 trees here in south florida. I've only made the wine twice, with two very different methods. 
The first was a big bordeaux style with long maceration on very ripe fruit. It took a couple of years to get drinkable, but it was huge, tannic, smokey, and leathery. The other time I did semi-carbonic maceration (just put the whole fruit in with a little bit of sugar water (honey in this case) pitch yeast and nutrients and wait for it to all break down completely anaerobically). The second one was incredibly fruity and early drinking. 
I can't help much unless you exactly define the faults (too tannic, acidic, yeasty, alcoholic, plastic, etc.). 
Did you use black, red, green, bronze or yellow jaboticaba? Do you know the specific cultivar? When ours come in, they aren't very good until a day before the squirrels get to them, then the tannins ripen up and acids changes to near perfect.


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## Stressbaby (Jul 11, 2014)

Like Bob, I would give my left arm for 16kg of jaboticaba. I'm staring at my two trees and 2 measly fruit.

A couple of things strike me as odd with your recipe.
1. 6 weeks on skins seems like a long time to me.
2. For the wine to restart or continue fermentation at a rate of 1 bubble every 2 seconds 6 weeks after pitching the yeast seems unusual. I would have expected fermentation to have slowed much more by then. 
3. You dosed with Campden twice about 5 weeks apart. Normally it shouldn't be necessary to dose with kmeta that often.

As far as racking goes, you don't HAVE to do anything, but generally I would rack it more often.


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## jenjon (Jul 12, 2014)

Thank you Bob & Stressbaby, 
Maybe that's it, I just need to wait longer. 
Bob as far as describing the taste and smell of it. I't smells fruity, alcoholic. It looks very red, cloudy. It tastes slightly sour, bitter but not vinegary, high in tannin and very dry. It has a SG reading of 940 and a PH of 1.6 at the moment.The berries are black in colour I'm sorry I don't know the exact cultivar, but I'll try and find out for you. 
Stressbaby I wasn't very clear in the method part; day 6 1st paragraph these were the recipe instructions; 2nd paragraph is what I actually did and the levels at that time.
I just went to the back of the block and took a photo of the orchard for you and a close-up of one of the trees. We actually have 37 trees at varying stages of development. Last year was the first year that nearly all of them fruited. We had good rain. We live on a 2.5 Ha property on the Mid-north coast of N.S.W. Australia. We are on town water but don't irrigate, so the trees must be very hardy and like our climate.
Once again thank you very much.


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## jenjon (Jul 12, 2014)

Oh Stressbaby the skins were removed after 6 days. Have you had a chance to read my response? You are saying that it is ok to not rack? Thank you in advance


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## jenjon (Jul 12, 2014)

Hi Bob have you had a chance to see my response? I described it as best as I could. Do you think it is going ok? That there still is hope? That it just needs time? Thank you in advance


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## Bob1016 (Jul 13, 2014)

Re check your SG and pH. Honestly, that's fairly low for SG, and vinegar levels for the pH. What are you using to measure the pH?


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## jenjon (Jul 15, 2014)

Hi Bob 
I use A hydrometer to read the SG and it was .94 which is ideal according to the hydrometer. Saying that wine is finished.
I rechecked the pH after recalibrating the pH meter with a neutral buffer and the meter is now reading 3.2
Thank you in advance


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## Bob1016 (Jul 15, 2014)

That pH seems better, but still pretty low for a red wine. You might want to take a sample and add some potassium bicarbonate/carbonate to see if it helps just in case the acid is too high (or the pH too low) for the balance. 
Are you sure about that SG? Do you mean 0.994? That's more reasonable. 0.940 is very low, almost unattainable.


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## jenjon (Jul 15, 2014)

Hi Bob
According to the hydrometer a reading between 90.0 and 100.0 means the wine is finished and mine is at 94.0 almost in the middle of that reading. The hydrometer only goes up in increments of 2 . The readings are from the top of the hydrometer 80 IIII 90 IIII 1000. I'm not sure what's going on. In regard to the acid/pH levels what ratio should use? Thank you so much for trying to help me. I really do appreciate it.


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## Stressbaby (Jul 23, 2016)

Just a couple more pics of jaboticaba. I have two little trees but this is my best year so far.

The tree is somewhat unique in that it fruits directly on the trunk. Hpping for enough for wine maybe next year. #patience


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