Colomafrozen concentrates – experience

[Ericphotoart]

I’ve made 5 different batches of wine recently using Colomafrozen concentrates. Three of them were entirely from Coloma, one of them were made from Coloma concentrate and pressed juice and one from Coloma and Vintner’s Best. In all cases fermentation got stuck at some point or not fermented completely. I will not go through all the details of the recipes but they are pretty basic and include tannin, acid bland if necessary, pectic enzyme, nutrients and EC 1118 or K1-V1116 yeasts.

Red Currant 1.5 gallon concentrate – SG – 1.120, Yeast K1-V1116 stuck at 1.028
Chokeberry (Aronia) 1.75 gallon concentrate – SG 1.108, Yeast EC 1118, stuck at 1.044
Sour Cherry 2 gallon concentrate – SG 1.100, Yeast K1-V1116, stuck at 1.030
Passion Fruit – Vintner’s Best (1 gallon) plus 2 qts of Coloma concentrate, SG 1.109 Yeast K1-V116, Stuck at 1.005
Apple 1.5 gallon Coloma and close to 2,5 gallon pressed apple juice – SG 1.114, Yeast EC 1118, finished at 1.000
Colomafrozen concentrates are advertised as very high Brix concentrates, 50, 65, 68 or 70 and I treated them as such but do they really have high amount of sugar? Now I’m thinking that the high Brix is more the result of solids than sugar from the fruits. In one concentrate description (Mango) it says “clarified” but the concentrates I used were not “clarified”. Is this the problem with relatively high SG and stuck fermentation?
I would love to use other fruit concentrates from Colomafrozen in the future. It is a great product with lots of flavor and Coloma has a really good selection but I’m a little reluctant to have the same problem again. Any workaround ? Do you have similar experience with high Brix concentrates?

 

[BigDaveK]

Wow! Not a very good endorsement.
I've been dealing with this same issue lately. I measure the SG and Brix of my ingredients. Brix measures the refractive index of a liquid and SG the density so it could be sugar and who knows what else is dissolved. I've been doing deep dives on the fruit of my recent batches. I get the approximate sugar contained in the fruit, do the math, take that into consideration when adding my sugar. The sugar additions were more than indicated by SG and Brix in my last two.
Damn hobby - now I need to build a lab.

 

[Jim Welch]

Do you have similar experience with high Brix concentrates?

I've made several batches using their Zinfandel and Chardonnay concentrates, no problem getting below 0.996 FG in any of these batches.

 

[Jovimaple]

I have made several batches of Vintner's Best and all stopped at 1.000.

I know that doesn't help with your Coloma question but it may have affected your batch with Vintner's Best.

 

[Ericphotoart]

If their Brix is so high only because of solids or maybe something else than maybe starting the must from the insane high sg like 1.160 by adding sugar would solve the problem?

 

[Huba Huba]

Novice here so..... you probably have more experience than me and these questions my be inappropriate/elementary.
When I make meads they often stop at or slightly above 1.000. I think my honey has other dissolved solids
Did you check pH/TA. were temps cool or fluctuating? How did you hydrate the yeast, did you build a starter? Did you try to restart, maybe add some sugar to a portion to see if fermentation will continue. You said you used nutrients, what and when?

 

[Ericphotoart]

Novice here so..... you probably have more experience than me and these questions my be inappropriate/elementary.
When I make meads they often stop at or slightly above 1.000. I think my honey has other dissolved solids
Did you check pH/TA. were temps cool or fluctuating? How did you hydrate the yeast, did you build a starter? Did you try to restart, maybe add some sugar to a portion to see if fermentation will continue. You said you used nutrients, what and when?

No. Your questions are very appropriate and valid but I didn't want to go into details first. So Apple wine was pH 3.6, Passion Fruit - 2.9, Sour Cherry 3.4, Chokeberry 3.5, Red Currant - 3.0 so all of them were in good range. The temperature was steady - 70F. I increased it to 72F when I noticed low activity. Yeasts were hydrated for 25 minutes per instruction on the label. This is what I always do without issues. I used the same batch of yeasts in other wines without issues. As for nutrients I added 1/3 at the beginning, 1/3 after 1/3 of sugar depletion. I used a starter too which didn't help.
The last part of your question is most interesting and this is what I was thinking about too. Lack of sugar in the wine and this is why the fermentation stuck, but actually it finished because there is no more sugar in spite of the fact that Brix (SG) is still high. So yesterday afternoon I mixed in 3 cups of sugar to the Red Currant wine that bumped the SG to 1.040 (from 1.028). This morning, so after about 10 hours the fermentation restarted! There is a visible fermentation, bubbles and a thick foam created. So this proves, I am convinced, that Brix numbers in those concentrates although high, do not represent the sugar concentration.

 

[Rice_Guy]

You are working with several species of fruit.

Going species to species there are differences in the percentage of reducing sugar (mostly the fermentable sugars) and alkali salts/ fats/ soluble protein/ gums/ acids/ polyphenols/ etc/ etc. ,,, Therefore a reducing sugar calibration which was done for grapes using several years of lab testing may not be accurate on red currant or passion fruit or cherry, ,,, and it has been looked at enough that we specifically point out with honey, and pear juice
, and monk fruit, and birch tree sap, ,, the grape calibration number is too high.
Next, the calibration data set for percentage of reducing sugar has been generated over several years. The level of reducing sugar changes from dry year to wet year and it is different if the grape is on a north facing slope vs a south and east vs west. There are consistent differences from a vineyard on clay vs volcanic rock, how much the fruit is fertilized, etc.

Wow! . . . . - now I need to build a lab.

Sort of, ,,, there are enough contract labs that will run it for $100 a pop ,,, and higher depending on what you ask for.
The only way to accurately know what your reducing sugar is in writing a food product label is to have a sample sent to a lab. When one is selling into the non-nutritive grocery aisle the only way to know if the ingredient is correct is to send the extract to a lab with HPLC (combined with historical rat feeding studies)

 

[Ericphotoart]

I am not really sure what you were trying to say in this scientific kind of, post. English, English

 

[BigDaveK]

Lack of sugar in the wine and this is why the fermentation stuck, but actually it finished because there is no more sugar in spite of the fact that Brix (SG) is still high. So yesterday afternoon I mixed in 3 cups of sugar to the Red Currant wine that bumped the SG to 1.040 (from 1.028). This morning, so after about 10 hours the fermentation restarted! There is a visible fermentation, bubbles and a thick foam created. So this proves, I am convinced, that Brix numbers in those concentrates although high, do not represent the sugar concentration.

I learned a very important lesson this month!

First a quick reminder - SG and Brix measure density and refractive index not sugar content. It might be close with grapes but our country wines can be very different. My lesson? I currently have a 3-gallon batch of ground cherry, 1 gallon water and 2+ gallons of ground cherry. My first measurement of SG was 1.060 and Brix of 15. It didn't taste that sweet. The next morning after settling the SG went down to 1.030. BUT....before adding sugar I did a deep dive on ground cherries and they HAVE ZERO SUGAR. A shocker! It's ALL sugar alcohols! I confirmed from more reading that yeast do not ferment sorbitol and xylitol. I'm still working on the other sugar alcohols (polyols). All fruit have sugar alcohols - some have very little and some have a lot. I'll be doing more research before starting my fruit wines this year, that's for sure.

BTW, so far the ground cherry tastes fantastic and my plan for later this year is 100% fruit, no water if possible.

 

[Rice_Guy]

I am not really sure what you were trying to say in this scientific kind of, post. English, English

The 15 second sound bite. There are a lot of molecules yeast don’t use. Every crop/ crop year is different on the percentage of good stuff.

 

[Gene Kimmi]

Are you using the concentrates as they come or diluting with water?

I’ve used many of their concentrates and only one, sweet cherry, wouldn’t ferment fully. I reconstitute per their instructions with water, then add sugar to get the sg I want.

 

[Ericphotoart]

Diluted with water. They will not ferment as they come because of high sugar content. Sugar was added only to chokeberry, 3 cups, and a little to passion fruit as well. The rest was concentrate and water.

 

[Huba Huba]

Not sure I understand. Did you short the water? For example the red currant is 65 brix as sold, if diluted as directed, it should make a 10.5 brix juice or 1.042 SG, if you didn't add sugar how did the sg get to 1.120, (unless its soluable nonfermentables) .

 

[Ericphotoart]

Ok. So I believe I know where the problem is with the stuck fermentation. I used Fermcalc to determine how much concentrate I need to get the starting gravity without adding sugar. So for example Tart Cherry which is Brix 68, I used 2 gallons of concentrate and approximately 4.5 US gallons of water and no sugar. That gave me Brix 23.8 or SG 1.100. By following the dilution that you did and they recommend on the website, I would need smaller amount of concentrate but I would need to add sugar to get the proper SG. So it looks like the concentrates contain some non fermentable volume that I didn’t take under consideration. If I knew it earlier it would save me a lot of money and frustration.

 

[Michael Kusenko]

Interesting thread. I’ve got Coloma Mango and Muscat inbound this week.

 

[Michael Kusenko]

Update on my Coloma Mango and Muscat. Both worked impeccably and are now in the carboy for secondary fermentation. I did hit them with additional sugar, pectic enzymes and super ferment. Started ferm the day after I pitched the yeast. Color and smell is on point for both. Would use their products again.

 

[Ericphotoart]

How much mango concentrate did you use and what was your dilution rate. Could you provide more details on SG, volume etc

 

[TheSeed]

I've only ever had a fermentation get stuck due to lack of proper nutrition. What kind of nutrients did you use? Also you said you did 1/3rd at the beginning, and another 1/3rd after the sugar break. Seems you are missing another third in that explanation. Personally, I have had better experience simply doing my nutrient additions at 24, 48 and 72 hours rather than bothering with the sugar break. Some nutrients like pure DAP gives so much YAN so quickly it can actually make your yeast work a little too hard up front and then they crash the moment it's used up. Boiled bakers yeast on the other hand isn't super nutritious, so you need a good bit of it to get the job done. These are reasons why it's important to know exactly how you handled your nutrition.

 

[BarrelMonkey]

Thought I would chime in here since I just received my first order from Nature Blessed/Coloma frozen. I ordered a quart of Muscat grape juice for use in my elderflower wine. It arrived today with zero insulated packaging and at a product temperature of 75 F.

Curious to know if this mirrors the experience of others?