First Skeeter - Couple newb Q's

Spikedlemon · Mar 28, 2016

I started my 3gal recipe about a week ago. Rather than ask questions, at the time, I just went ahead with my interpretation of the rules.

I cut the ingredients down as needed and set it aside for a couple days as I waited for my wine to be ready. I timed it such that had a Blush Chardonnay moving from primary.

Now, the instructions called for pouring the slurry over the SP, I poured the SP right over the Lees of the Chard. It stirred up wonderfully and was firing at full-pop in the airlock by the end of the day. I went back 3 days later (I was travelling), it was almost at 1.000 and it was still foaming happily, so I added the extra lemon and energizer/nutrient and gave a good stir.

It smells very... Lemon-y-Chard. My wife thinks it's a little too close to lemon cleaning products. And it's picked up the color of the blush.

My local HBS didn't have tannins, so I didn't add any, and they hadn't any K-sorbate, so I may skip that as well (though they're supposed to get stock later).

My quick questions:
> What's the effect to skip the tannins & K-sorbate?
> Can I back-lemon it to good effect later or does the lemon start to pull forward upon 'aging'?
> Any concern by pouring over the full lees from the Chard rather than the other way around?

Julie · Mar 28, 2016

You cannot back sweeten without adding sorbate. You will end up with bottle bombs because fermentation has re-started. The tannins would you a better mouth.

wineforfun · Mar 28, 2016

Tannins are a personal preference, especially with something like SP. Julie is right on the money, you are asking for problems if you backsweeten without sorbate.
I doubt you are going to need more lemon. You are going to need to backsweeten some to cut down on the acidity of the lemon and bring some flavor out.
Also, before you worry about backsweetening, sorbate, etc., you are going to need to clear it, assuming you don't want it cloudy.