Cacao wine

[Gen-italian]

Hello again y'all.

I recently ordered 5 pounds of black cacao and ten pounds of lactose/ milk sugar in an effort to produce a "milk chocolate" wine. I watched a couple of YouTube videos on this topic. I'll be adding 16 tablespoons( one half pound) of cacao for each gallon of water. The lactose is non-fermentable so I will be adding it at the end of the fermentation process. 400 grams of lactose for each gallon of wine. The lactose is also a sweetener.... 1/5th the strength of sugar. Some of the lactose will settle out of the solution. I won't be using any fining agents. I'm willing to accept a cloudy appearance. If anyone can give me some insights into what I've decided upon doing or can offer up any Information I'd greatly appreciate it.

 

[Rice_Guy]

* Cacao foams a lot, plan on a primary bucket twice your volume.
* Lactose can be used by several families of lactobacillis, you may not get alcohol but you risk an infection. Lysosome and low pH (3.2) can minimize the risk of off flavors / infection
* The US market considers chocolate as milk chocolate. Part of the aromatics is vanilla. Consider calling it dark chocolate or else add one ml per gallon of an organic vanilla (no chemical ingredients).
* Dark cacao may have been treaded with alkali (Dutch process). What is your pH? ,,, a stable country wine is under 3.5 and may be 3.2.
* Why lactose? For thick mouthfeel? To give some folks the runs? ,, Basically any added sugar increases the risk of infection. Most of us use table sugar and potassium sorbate after the wine is clarified / at bottling.
* Balance, the standard process is to sweeten to balance acid notes. This is done as a bench trial (by tasting various levels) on the finished wine. Do you have a flavor target? or are you hoping YouTube was correct.
* Tannin is an antioxidant. I like astringent flavor tannin as my crab apple (natural) or chestnut chemical. Tannin magnifies acid flavor.

 

[Gen-italian]

* Cacao foams a lot, plan on a primary bucket twice your volume.

I've got the space issue covered.

* Lactose can be used by several families of lactobacillis, you may not get alcohol but you risk an infection. Lysosome and low pH (3.2) can minimize the risk of off flavors / icoveted.

I'll be adding the lactose at the end of the run. I will be looking to pasturize it after it is complete. I don'tyet know how I'llpasturize ten gallons of wine....

* The US market considers chocolate as milk chocolate. Part of the aromatics is vanilla. Consider calling it dark chocolate or else add one ml per gallon of an organic vanilla (no chemical ingredients).

* Dark cacao may have been treaded with alkali (Dutch process). What is your pH? ,,, a stable country wine is under 3.5 and may be 3.2.

The cacao is "Dutch" meaning it was processed with alkaline chemicals. I'll also be adding some vanilla extract to the wine when it's complete.

* Why lactose? For thick mouthfeel? To give some folks the runs? ,, Basically any added sugar increases the risk of infection. Most of us use table sugar and potassium sorbate after the wine is clarified / at bottling.

Lactose is made from milk and it has some properties of dairy products. The mouthfeel is one aspect of what it does. The lactose will be noticeable....maybe as a stool softener also. Lolz

* Balance, the standard process is to sweeten to balance acid notes. This is done as a bench trial (by tasting various levels) on the finished wine. Do you have a flavor target? or are you hoping YouTube was correct.
* Tannin is an antioxidant. I like astringent flavor tannin as my crab apple (natural) or chestnut chemical. Tannin magnifies acid flavor.

Thanks for the advice. I guess what I'm trying for here is something a little different than the norm. It's definitely an experiment. It has been done before. I'm just repeating and improvising the original recipe. Hopefully it will turn out better than I expect.

 

[Rice_Guy]

I will be looking to pasturize it after it is complete. I don'tyet know how I'llpasturize ten gallons of wine

no1) find a Corny keg, heat 5gal at a time in a water bath. A cider standard is 140F for 40 minutes. Pasteurization is calculated as time at or above target temp. In your case kill should be greater than a 5% cider.
no 2). I have bottled and then held bottles in a water bath canner with aluminum foil over bottle, removed at 40 minutes then corked while still hot with synthetic corks.
no3) remove about a quart of liquid from the carboy for expansion, heat the carboy with a heating pad / brew belt as high as you can get, hopefully 120F / where yeast are rated for death. For ? minutes, ,,, vanilla is volatile so when I have used it it is at the end close to bottling time.
no4) add acid after primary / at racking to drop the pH below 3.0, sulphite and clarify as normal. Don’t bother with a heat treatment, ,,, I have done this too.

pasteurization is done by trial and then lab test with a test organism, in your case spore formers shouldn’t exist since pH should be under 3.5, alcohol is also a kill agent, you might be able to accomplish a total kill at 110F but there aren’t any standards except ciders which are 5% ABV. Your risk will be generally from lactic acid bacteria which are not food poisoning, but an off flavor issue.

 

[Gen-italian]

no1) find a Corny keg, heat 5gal at a time in a water bath. A cider standard is 140F for 40 minutes. Pasteurization is calculated as time at or above target temp. In your case kill should be greater than a 5% cider.
no 2). I have bottled and then held bottles in a water bath canner with aluminum foil over bottle, removed at 40 minutes then corked while still hot with synthetic corks.
no3) remove about a quart of liquid from the carboy for expansion, heat the carboy with a heating pad / brew belt as high as you can get, hopefully 120F / where yeast are rated for death. For ? minutes, ,,, vanilla is volatile so when I have used it it is at the end close to bottling time.
no4) add acid after primary / at racking to drop the pH below 3.0, sulphite and clarify as normal. Don’t bother with a heat treatment, ,,, I have done this too.

pasteurization is done by trial and then lab test with a test organism, in your case spore formers shouldn’t exist since pH should be under 3.5, alcohol is also a kill agent, you might be able to accomplish a total kill at 110F but there aren’t any standards except ciders which are 5% ABV. Your risk will be generally from lactic acid bacteria which are not food poisoning, but an off flavor issue.

Thanks again for yourn input. I really appreciate it.

 

[Raptor99]

Lactose is made from milk and it has some properties of dairy products. The mouthfeel is one aspect of what it does. The lactose will be noticeable....maybe as a stool softener also. Lolz

I suggest that you do bench testing with lactose and other sweeteners. I have tested various sweeteners in my chocolate peppermint wine. Lactose adds some sweetness and body, but it didn't make it taste like milk. I didn't really like the lactose version. When I bottle that batch I will probably stabilize and use sucrose to sweeten it. Another way to add body is to use glycerin.

Another experiment that I did was bench test plain water with various sweeteners. I added enough sweetener to make it taste as sweet as the control with sucrose, then had my family do a blind taste test. I didn't particularly like the flavor of the lactose. Sucrose was the best, and Erythritol had a flavor almost identical with sugar. I forget what I used for the 4th sweetener.

 

[Gen-italian]

I suggest that you do bench testing with lactose and other sweeteners. I have tested various sweeteners in my chocolate peppermint wine. Lactose adds some sweetness and body, but it didn't make it taste like milk. I didn't really like the lactose version. When I bottle that batch I will probably stabilize and use sucrose to sweeten it. Another way to add body is to use glycerin.

Another experiment that I did was bench test plain water with various sweeteners. I added enough sweetener to make it taste as sweet as the control with sucrose, then had my family do a blind taste test. I didn't particularly like the flavor of the lactose. Sucrose was the best, and Erythritol had a flavor almost identical with sugar. I forget what I used for the 4th sweetener.

Thank you for your input.