Blackberry wine needs deacidification

[ExperiMental]

Hi there Guys,

So happy to have found this forum!

I come with my hat in my hand looking for advice on removing some of the acid in my almost finished blackberry wine.

First the facts, then the story.

I have 25L of blackcurrant wine started Sept 14th. It tastes amazing but is incredibly acid.

PH is 3.08

My friend did a titration and deduced there is 23g/l malic acid equivalent.

I also have a 4.5l of blackcurrant that was made with less sugar to give a drier wine in case I needed some to blend.

This wine had finished fermenting however I did add a few spoonfuls of sugar to attempt to sweeten it. (yes this is my first attempt at winemaking, but I'm hooked now). The wine had a low SG but it started to ferment slowly again, and has continued. I feel sure that there was not enough sugar to ferment for an extra couple of weeks and the alcohol content would be around 9% I think. I wonder if this wine is having a malo-lactic fermentation?


I was initially given a 23 litre bladder of blackcurrant juice that was made by squeezing the berries, so this is going to be much stronger than fruit steeped in water for must. Also, this bladder had begun to ferment (the reason I was given it) the cost of producing this juice is apparently quite high. So I added 1 campden tablet for each 5 litres of liquid and allowed to stand for a while to kill the wild yeasts. I then added sugar, water and country fruit yeast MA33 by vintners harvest claiming to metabolize 30-35% of the acid.

It does have amazing flavour but too much acid. I sent my partnet to the shops today and she will bring home calcium carbonate to attempt to de acidify.

Does anyone have experience of this?

Do you know if I have the information needed to conduct this deacification?

I do not know what my target acidity should be.......


This was my first attempt.

Since then I have a boysenberry wine on the go (this has a little too much acid)

I also tried an apple and boysenberry wine. This is amazing, it blows me away that I made it. I have a great contact who gives me things from time to time (he is a cider maker), I got a bladder of squeezed boysenberry juice
used 1/3 boysenberry to apple juice from a friends orchard. It was granny smith. I took the SG to 1.090 and used the same country fuit MA33 yeast.

It has only just finished but tastes great on its own or with a mix of soda water and a little sugar and makes a great 6% berry cider!

I live in a fantastic area most fruits grow well. I live a stones throw from some world class vineyards too. So grape wine will be the go in a few months.

Id appreciate any tips or advice and look forward to striking up a conversation or two with you.

Many thanks

R

 

[WVMountaineerJack]

I too have a black currant that is very high in acid, that wont age out, Cacarb sitting in the wings, but I know as soon as that touches this CO2 loaded wine its going to do a valcano. You might want to rack into a bucket before you add the deacidifier, if you dont use a bucket film it spouting out your carboy for Youtube CC

 

[Turock]

Your best bet is to hit it with potassium carbonate because you're post-ferment. Calcium carbonate is best used for pre-ferment.

Blackberry is always highly acidic for us too. Our beginning PH is always around 2.9 and if you don't get this adjusted, it's pretty harsh drinking. We set the PH to about 3.4 and we started using 71-B for the culture because it metabolizes a portion of the malic acid, making a much smoother wine because it reduces that malic harshness.

We let it age about 1 year in the carboy before sweetening and bottling.

Once you use the potssium carbonate, you must let it sit for about 3 months in order to clarify out. But this should be no problem since you'll want to age it for a year, anyway. Don't be in a hurry to bottle this up--carboy aging really helps this one.

You will make better fruit wines if you get in the habit of PH testing before pitching your culture. This was one thing that dramatically improved our wines many years ago when we were learning. Pre-ferment adjustments always make better wines than trying to do adjustments after the ferment, and they're easier to do before rather than later. Good luck.

 

[ExperiMental]

We let it age about 1 year in the carboy before sweetening and bottling.

Do you have an airlock on this for 1 year?

Once you use the potssium carbonate, you must let it sit for about 3 months in order to clarify out. But this should be no problem since you'll want to age it for a year, anyway. Don't be in a hurry to bottle this up--carboy aging really helps this one.

The wine is in a 30L bucket and has only 25L of wine is this a problem?

You will make better fruit wines if you get in the habit of PH testing before pitching your culture.

What gear should I get hold of to test PH / acid levels etc?

THanks for your help Im sure I'll have some more questions..... in the meantime I will search for Potassium carbonate.

Many many thanks

R

 

[Turock]

Yes, we let it age in the carboy for a year with an airlock. But you can also use a solid bung if you like after all the CO2 is driven off of it which takes about 6 months. Some people feel their wine is more secure from oxidation with a solid bung.

I wouldn't let it sit in a bucket--I'd get it into a carboy where it's more safe. I presume,however, you're talking about headspace---yes, this is a problem. You'll need to fill up the headspace with marbles or glass spheres which you can find in the Dollar Stores.

It's wise to purchase a PH meter. This will make a big difference in your fruit wines. They are much cheaper than they were years ago. Many people on this forum can guide you to the best one to buy. We have a commercial PH meter---so I'm unsure of which meter made for home winemakers is the best.

Any wine supply shop should have potassium carbonate. I actually hate this stuff because it can ruin the flavor in a delicate wine. But you should be fine with it in a blackberry. This is why you want to make this adjustment at the primary where you are using CALCIUM carbonate. All the winemaking should happen at the primary so that everything is married together far better than doing it post-ferment.

 

[Turock]

Yes, we let it age in the carboy for a year with an airlock. But you can also use a solid bung if you like after all the CO2 is driven off of it which takes about 6 months. Some people feel their wine is more secure from oxidation with a solid bung.

I wouldn't let it sit in a bucket--I'd get it into a carboy where it's more safe. I presume,however, you're talking about headspace---yes, this is a problem. You'll need to fill up the headspace with marbles or glass spheres which you can find in the Dollar Stores.

It's wise to purchase a PH meter. This will make a big difference in your fruit wines. They are much cheaper than they were years ago. Many people on this forum can guide you to the best one to buy. We have a commercial PH meter---so I'm unsure of which meter made for home winemakers is the best.

Any wine supply shop should have potassium carbonate. I actually hate this stuff because it can ruin the flavor in a delicate wine. But you should be fine with it in a blackberry. This is why you want to make this adjustment at the primary where you are using CALCIUM carbonate. All the winemaking should happen at the primary so that everything is married together far better than doing it post-ferment.

 

[ExperiMental]

Hi Turrock,

Do you know the reason that calcium carbonate would not be suitable to use now and why it is better used at the start?

Also what PH should I be looking to achieve with my finished product? Do you know the target grams/liter of acid I should be looking to achieve?

 

[Turock]

OK--let's start over. I reread this whole thing, and the advice I gave you is not going to work in your situation. I guess I missed the fact that the the PH of this wine is 3.08!!!! You're never going to be able to bring the PH up to around 3.4,where is SHOULD be with potassium carbonate because it's should only be used for tweaking-------not for moving the PH that far.

You're really in a dilemma here. The way to handle blackberry is that you MUST get the PH adjustment done in the primary with calcium carbonate. If you read white papers on calcium carbonate, they say you have limits on how much of it you should use otherwise you can get off flavors. But I can tell you with confidence that you can take a beginning PH of 2.8 or 2.9 and bring it all the way up to 3.4 with calcium carbonate without problems because we do this every year on our blackberry.

Potassium carbonate demands that you cold stabilize it--and CS has limits depending on PH. AND we have a malic fruit here----not the greatest acid for CS dropout. There is a product called Acidex but I've never used it and am sure it has some limitations. You could search it and do some reading to see if it could work.

Now you are in a corundum. There is not much you can do with high acid wine except to blend it. I think blending is your best bet. I would set this aside---let it age in the carboy and think about making another wine next year or getting some Alexander's concentrate and make a wine from that. When aged, start blending. Blackberry is great in many wines. Merlot, concord, elderberry,are great with blackberry.

 

[ExperiMental]

Ok nice one turrock. Hopefully Its the same for blackcurrant and blackberry as it is blackcurrant wine I have, I mistyped it in the title oh dear.

I think I will bottle it up and wait, one day I will find a use for it!

Elderflowers are in full bloom here right now and I hope to get some elderberries for winemaking from them. Rhubarb is doing well and the gooseberries are starting to ripen. Ther'll be strawberries, raspberries and peas to come so lots of wine ideas there too.

I will get some more blackcurrant juice in a few months, make a couple of blends of low acid wine.... wait..... wait some more, mix and drink!

I just drank the apple and boysenberry wine/cider, it was pretty amazing stuff. Especially as it was only about 5 weeks old. Had a good couple of nights on that and saved a couple of bottles to age lol.

 

[Turock]

You seem to make a lot of fruit wines,as we do. You'll do yourself a big favor by getting a PH meter, some calcium carbonate, and PH testing EVERYTHING and adjusting as needed BEFORE you start your ferments. PH control makes a big difference in fruit wines. And PH adjustments should always be done in the primary---because, as you see, you can get yourself in a dilema if you have a high acid wine post ferment.

We make boysonberry wine also. Surprised you're drinking it so early--we let almost all our fruit wines age one year before bottling. The flavors firm up to their max in that year.

Elderberry and blackberry are really great together. Hold on the the acidic wine and blend with it--it will turn out great. I think rhubarb would be good with it too. Good luck--------BUY A PH METER!!!!

 

[ExperiMental]

Nice one, Ok Im in the market for a ph meter! looks like there are some for $20 on tradme, our ebay equivalent. Super idea about saving it for blending, I guess I need a low acid wine to add it to, or it has a strong enough flavour I might only add 25% not affecting the acid too much?

Anyway I want to clear some carboy space I only have 5. I want the blackcurrant out of the bucket as Ive been given enough bags of cider apple juice blend to make 32litres of cider! Yee haa.

It was the first wine that Id made and when testing with friends we decided it was good. Unusally good for its age they said. Well that was fine by me so I drank almost the lot of it.

I do have another question for you, one of the carboys I have with blackcurrant wine was made less sweet than the bucket. It had finished fermenting and was barely bubbling. I added about two tablespoons of sugar and it began foaming so I didnt add any more. It started to ferment again and bubble after a while, but it is still bubbling! Theres no way that the sugar could last this long. So have I got a malolactic ferementation going on? Should I bottle it in champagne bottles to make it sparkling?

 

[Turock]

How old was the wine--did you just make it this year or is it last years?

If it was just made this year, you should not have added more sugar--there are plenty of yeast cells present, and when you give them food (sugar) they will begin to multiply again, continuing fermentation. This is a bad thing to do because you can cause alcohol death of the yeast.

When you go to sweeten a wine, you must use sorbate in order to keep the yeast from reproducing so they can't continue fermenting. However, you can't use sorbate in an uncleared and unstabile wine. It needs to be aged so that all the rackings have been done, and all the CO2 has come off of it. Sorbate will not work when overwhelmed by so many remaining yeast cells. I recommend aging for one year--most wines develop up their flavors very well in that time frame. The wine needs to remain on the light lees in order for this aging of flavor to take place. This is one reason why you don't want to bottle too early--you take the wine off the lees and the flavors age up much slower---that and the CO2 problem as I said earlier. Then, when you sweeten and add sorbate, the sorbate will work. If you are making dry wines with no sugar to sweeten, you don't need sorbate.

It SOUNDS like you restarted the ferment with the sugar. Why do you think you have a spontainious MLF? Any more info you can supply would be good because it's hard sometimes to figure out the problem when using this medium and not being able to talk to you and ask more questions. If it IS an MLF, those kinds of wines can taste pretty nasty. We had it happen to us in a blackberry many years ago. Our problem was not enough sulfite. This can be another reason why you want to meta all musts and juices, unless you intend to do an MLF. Then you CAN use sulfite but only lightly--like no more than 30-40 PPM.

 

[Turock]

When you go to blend the acidic blackberry, you'll have to do some bench tests with small amounts in order to get the proportions right. 25% may be enough--depends on the PH of the wines you're going to blend with it. You might even want to try blending it with 2 other wines--a mix of 3 wines can be quite complex in flavor.

 

[RegionRat]

Target PH

Hi Turrock,

Do you know the reason that calcium carbonate would not be suitable to use now and why it is better used at the start?

Also what PH should I be looking to achieve with my finished product? Do you know the target grams/liter of acid I should be looking to achieve?

http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/acid.asp

 

[RegionRat]

Pat on the back!

OK--let's start over. I reread this whole thing, and the advice I gave you is not going to work in your situation. I guess I missed the fact that the the PH of this wine is 3.08!!!! You're never going to be able to bring the PH up to around 3.4,where is SHOULD be with potassium carbonate because it's should only be used for tweaking-------not for moving the PH that far.

You're really in a dilemma here. The way to handle blackberry is that you MUST get the PH adjustment done in the primary with calcium carbonate. If you read white papers on calcium carbonate, they say you have limits on how much of it you should use otherwise you can get off flavors. But I can tell you with confidence that you can take a beginning PH of 2.8 or 2.9 and bring it all the way up to 3.4 with calcium carbonate without problems because we do this every year on our blackberry.

Potassium carbonate demands that you cold stabilize it--and CS has limits depending on PH. AND we have a malic fruit here----not the greatest acid for CS dropout. There is a product called Acidex but I've never used it and am sure it has some limitations. You could search it and do some reading to see if it could work.

Now you are in a corundum. There is not much you can do with high acid wine except to blend it. I think blending is your best bet. I would set this aside---let it age in the carboy and think about making another wine next year or getting some Alexander's concentrate and make a wine from that. When aged, start blending. Blackberry is great in many wines. Merlot, concord, elderberry,are great with blackberry.

What a great response. Thank you for taking the time to share your knowledge. I am so glad I found this forum.

RR

 

[Turock]

Thank you, RR---sometimes all this wine science can make your head hurt. I always TRY to give educated answers because I'm constantly studying this stuff, and try to share what I've learned.

 

[ExperiMental]

Thank you so much for your time and advice. THe wine was started this year in August by the way.

 

[Turock]

Yes--that's what I thought. I hope the further ferment will not kill the yeast or make it too alcoholic. Let it sit in the carboy with an airlock for aging. Rack off gross lees when you have a good amount, and after that let it age on the fine lees, and degass by itself. You should age it in there from 9 months to a year before bottling.