Apples for Wine

[hector]

Hi there !

Are Granny Smith , Red Delicious and Golden Delicious suitable for Wine making ?

Hector

 

[Midwest Vintner]

IIRC, the granny smith and red delicious should make a descent combo. not sure about the golden delicious

 

[mmadmikes1]

they are all good. Goldens will be soft soon so they will juice easy. Remember the pectic enzyms because apples have alot of pectin

 

[Mud]

You might consider some crab apples, too, for the tannin.

 

[St Allie]

if you mellow the apples first.. you'll get a better end result flavourwise.

Allie

 

[hector]

Thanks for your replies

But an experienced Winemaker has written in his Homepage that the Delicious ones should be avoided in Wine making .

Do you agree with him ?

Is there any reason for that ?

Hector

 

[St Allie]

eating apples can be quite 'floury' in taste, they are also watery.. .. not crisp and tart like a cooking apple..

Apple wine and cider benefit from combining various apples.

You can add eating apples ( red delicious etc) just make sure that the sharper apples dominate the blend, I make a nice cider from a blend of granny/bramley/pink lady/red delicious and gala and a couple of unknown varieties.... basically because it is what is growing in my orchard.. I try and keep the blend even with varieties.. however that's to my taste and I don't backsweeten.

try the combination of apples that you have.. get the granny smith to be 50 % at least and add the others at 25% perhaps.. and see how that works out for you.. Keep notes.. and alter the combinations each time.. til you find one that appeals most.

mellow the apples in baskets.. (in your garage perhaps, I leave mine on the front porch) for a couple of weeks before freezing them.. this ripens them up and increases the flavours.. they will shrink a little as they lose some of the water.

this will make a big difference to the wine.

Allie

( loving the new emotes!)

 

[hector]

Making an Apple blend this way sounds very interesting !

Do you adjust the Acid content in the Must , after making such a blend , Allie ?

Hector

 

[St Allie]

No,

I'm terrible!

I go by taste. I like a hard, still, cider.. no sugar added so it's fermented on the natural sugars .. the last lot I made was SG 1.052 from memory. Enough to knock you on your backside if you're not careful ! ( my teens are fond of it, but have discovered that cider packs more of a kick than beer does)

I intend to get an acid kit and a refractometer soon-ish, because I have planted some grapevines this year.. It's a learning curve really.

Start slow, work your way up to being a super-chemist is my attitude .. There's plenty of time..

hehehhe

Allie

 

[mmadmikes1]

Do you know how much I have to pay for NZ Pink Ladies and your making wine out of them. I consider them eating apples.

 

[Mud]

I like cider hard and still, too, Allie. And the only way to make sure you like something is to work by taste. Otherwise you might make something you should like, but don't.

Malic acid is what's primarily present in apples. Cider book says to add more of the same if you need it, but others say try citric for a more balanced taste.

-Mud
"should like" is not a logical phrase.

 

[St Allie]

Do you know how much I have to pay for NZ Pink Ladies and your making wine out of them. I consider them eating apples.

I bought a pile of unlabelled fruit trees from a nursery that was moving premises. The pink lady tree should never have been sold to me.. and it won't be available to home growers for another five years. It's a commercial tree only at this point. It's a huge cropper.. we eat as many as we can.. there's just no way we can get through them all.. We're a family of 6, with 7 different apple trees..I have to do something with it all..cider/wine/chutney and applesauce..

7 trees keeps me in everything for a year.

Allie

 

[St Allie]

I like cider hard and still, too, Allie. And the only way to make sure you like something is to work by taste. Otherwise you might make something you should like, but don't.

Malic acid is what's primarily present in apples. Cider book says to add more of the same if you need it, but others say try citric for a more balanced taste.

-Mud
"should like" is not a logical phrase.

When I'm juicing the apples Mud.. I put one heaped teaspoon of citric acid in each gallon jug with a teaspoon of pectic enzyme.. then start adding the juice.. give it a swirl and just cover with a teatowel in between fill ups. My juicer makes a litre of juice at a time.. and there is a lot of scummy foam on top. I leave it 12 hours for the pectic enzyme to work and the citric acid just prevents the juice browning.( I should have mentioned that)

It's easier to work in 1 gallon jugs when using a juicer.

Then I tranfer the clear juice from under the scummy stuff to a new clean 6 gallon jug before pitching the yeast. This reduces the chance of foam over, if you take the clear juice and leave the sediment and scum. I've never had foam over done this way..

( using cloudy juice from the supermarket will guarantee foam over and airlock mess)..

I also use a specific cider yeast.. rather than a wine yeast.

.. for apple wine.. I use the above technique .. but add sugar to an SG of 1.080 and use the lalvin champagne yeast (1118)

I used to make apple wine and add water to it.. then backsweeten.. I find this not to my taste anymore as I am predominantly a red wine/dry wine drinker.

With Apple wine I suggest you use all juice and no water.. for best results.

Allie

 

[Madriver Wines]

Thanks for your replies

But an experienced Winemaker has written in his Homepage that the Delicious ones should be avoided in Wine making .

Do you agree with him ?

Is there any reason for that ?

Hector

The "problem" with eating apples is the lack of taste or tartness. You want alot of flavor for wine making and a red delish doesnt have a whole lot of it. Allie will steer you in the right direction. She make alot of apple everything ha haWow you guys really went all out on the smiles
Hey Allie guess what I am smoking lol.