How can I avoid diluting country wines with water?

[LarryTheBarry]

Hi,

Over the past year, I have made about ten different fruit and berry wines. For most of them, I have followed Jack Keller's recipes, but WineMaker has also been an inspiration. I think most of the wines have turned out okay, and the sparkling strawberry wine in particular was good. However, a common theme with all these wines is that they are very light and sometimes a bit watery; to be kind, you could say they are nice summer wines.

Then I found this fantastic forum and several posts that mentioned using 100% fruit and berries, highlighting that no winemaker dilutes their grape must and no cider maker dilutes their apple must. Therefore, I have started to reconsider the recipes I have used. At the same time, if I understand things correctly, one reason fruit and berry wines are diluted with water is because of their high TA levels. But surely, there must be other ways to handle this? I have seen comments here recommending diluting with apples or pears. But what else could I use?

I think the idea of 100% fruit or berry wines is something I would happily experiment with, but before I start, I would love to hear your thoughts and experiences. If you have recommendations on or examples of how to make, for instance, strawberry or blueberry wines without diluting them with water, it would be very interesting to hear about it.

 

[FlamingoEmporium]

You can use fruit juice as a base. Many stores sell natural juices with limited preservatives, especially avoid any with sorbate. ALDIs has some great 100% juice choices. Even many of these have a water base but still better than diluting with just water.

 

[sour_grapes]

I'm not the best one to help you, but welcome to WMT nonetheless!

 

[Ohio Bob]

I make blackberry wine/port every year using wild foraged berries. They are very tart so I assume they are high in acid. Never measured the TA, only in the last few years have I measured pH, just to see how low it might be. I don’t really care what the TA is, I can adjust the flavor once the wine has fermented dry. My advice is don’t tweak your recipe to chase numbers.

My process is to freeze the berries immediately after picking. When the harvest is complete, thaw the berries, this releases a lot of juice. I boil a thick water/sugar solution and add appropriately to get the target Brix. I don’t measure SG here since the pulp makes that difficult. Note I have not used the words recipe, because I don’t use one.

Once the wine has finished and is completely dry, then adjust as needed to get the flavor you want. Options include back sweetening, also using a thick boiled water/sugar solution. You are strongly advised to add sorbate, which works better when potassium metabisulfite is added as well. These will prevent renewed fermentation from the sugar you’ve added. Other options include adding in grape wines, or maybe a store bought fruit wine. I do this a lot, mostly when racking a carboy, and needing something to top off the carboy. Headspace in a carboy is to be minimized as much as possible.

 

[winemaker81]

Welcome to WMT!

It's noted that most of Keller's recipes are low in fruit. Especially for light fruit such as strawberry, you really want at least 6 lbs (2.7kg) /gallon and some people do as much as 12 lbs (5.5 kg). When ramping up to start a batch, post your recipe for comment. You will get useful feedback.

 

[winechef]

As winemaker said. increase fruit but 100 percent fruit isn't necessary. basically if you think the must has a good strong fruit flavor the wine will. grapes need a lot more fruit per gallon. than other fruits 2 different things don't treat fruit wines the same. imagine using 40 pounds of cherries to make cherry wine would cost 10 dollars a bottle to make.

as mentioned instead of water natural apple juice juice would have more flavor but wouldn't compete.
blueberry, raspberry , or cranberry wine i use about 16 pounds for 5 gallons, unless they aren't flavorful.

 

[BPL]

I understand the water issue. I've struggled with increasing the taste (richness) of country wines. What I have learned is to pretty much leave the recipe books closed. None of the "recipes" I tried were delivering what I wanted, so I created my own. Most all wine have the same ingredients and methods up front. Through the years, I've learned to use as close to 100% juice as possible. Water is added judiciously-partly to dilute acid if necessary or add a sugar water syrup to fix gravity. What I realized (an epiphany), why add water to dilute acidity, then add acid later? While gravity is important, pH and TA are the prime importance for country wines, IMHO. I suggest forgetting about using acid blend (used in most recipes) and supplement with tartaric acid only. The biggest impact on "my" country wines was developing very accurate temperature control and fermenting the must no higher than ~68*F, typically keeping the must between 64*F and 66*F. Second to temperature control, was using the FermCalc app to supplement calculated nutrients based on yeast nutritional needs and an average YAN content. I've standardized nutrients on GoFerm for a yeast starter, and Fermaid K & O. I threw my supply of DAP in the garden for fertilizer. Sorry about the short sentences and ideas. Each one is worth an entire discussion in detail. All the best.

 

[Raptor99]

Each type of fruit is different. You can do a 100% fruit pear wine, but a 100% fruit cranberry wine would be extremely acidic and would not ferment at all. Some fruits have a fairly strong flavor and can be diluted water while others need to be mostly or all fruit. The amount of fruit will also depend on cost or what you have available.

Decide on the amount of fruit based on the flavor of the fruit that you are using. In my experience, a list of fruits from the weakest to strongest flavor are:
* pear (at least 8 lbs. of fruit for 1 gallon total volume of must)
* apple
* peach
* blueberry
* elderberry
* tart cherry
* cranberry (4 lbs. of fruit for 1 gallon of must)

Year by year I have been increasing the amount of fruit to obtain a stronger flavor.

Measure the pH to determine if you need to add any acid. Some fruits, such as pear, need to have a fair amount of acid added, while others such as cranberry are probably too acidic already.

For the best flavor, I add the type of acid predominate in the type of fruit. So citric acid for blueberries, malic acid for apple, tartaric acid for elderberries. For most of the rest, I use acid blend. The flavor imparted by each type of acid is different, so it is important to match that with the flavor of the fruit. Tartaric acid in blueberries would just taste weird. I want my blueberry wine to taste like blueberries, not fake grapes.

Here is a guide to the type of acid in common fruits: https://i0.wp.com/www.compoundchem.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Guide-to-Fruit-Acids.png

 

[mainshipfred]

I only occasionally make peach and blueberry wine. The peach is pretty much only peaches. I might add a little water to the blueberry. The thing to keep in mind is adding water reduces the TA while the pH doesn't change.

 

[BPL]

Each type of fruit is different. You can do a 100% fruit pear wine, but a 100% fruit cranberry wine would be extremely acidic and would not ferment at all. Some fruits have a fairly strong flavor and can be diluted water while others need to be mostly or all fruit. The amount of fruit will also depend on cost or what you have available.

Decide on the amount of fruit based on the flavor of the fruit that you are using. In my experience, a list of fruits from the weakest to strongest flavor are:
* pear (at least 8 lbs. of fruit for 1 gallon total volume of must)
* apple
* peach
* blueberry
* elderberry
* tart cherry
* cranberry (4 lbs. of fruit for 1 gallon of must)

Year by year I have been increasing the amount of fruit to obtain a stronger flavor.

Measure the pH to determine if you need to add any acid. Some fruits, such as pear, need to have a fair amount of acid added, while others such as cranberry are probably too acidic already.

For the best flavor, I add the type of acid predominate in the type of fruit. So citric acid for blueberries, malic acid for apple, tartaric acid for elderberries. For most of the rest, I use acid blend. The flavor imparted by each type of acid is different, so it is important to match that with the flavor of the fruit. Tartaric acid in blueberries would just taste weird. I want my blueberry wine to taste like blueberries, not fake grapes.

Here is a guide to the type of acid in common fruits: https://i0.wp.com/www.compoundchem.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Guide-to-Fruit-Acids.png

All good points. At the end of the day, managing acidity helps deal with adding or not adding water. Measuring and adjusting acidity is one tool to elevate the quality to the wine maker's tastes. Water dilution is another method in the tool box.

 

[Rice_Guy]

welcome to WMT

I am in the camp which tries to use 100% juice. Note this is juice not pulp. Like OhioBob I freeze everything before fermenting, on a lot of fruit the juice will weep out and with pressing I can get 83 or 85% yield.
I like to combine different fruits, I ask what is missing and will blend low pH with high pH (ex mulberry with lemon or peach with rhubarb). I also do blends for fruity aroma as gooseberry (high acid/ low aroma) with most anything fruity. I know apple trees that are pH 4.2 and trees that are pH 2.8.
How ripe is your crop? If I am anxious and pull the first red cherry or gooseberry off a tree it may have pH 2.7/ TA 1.3%. If I wait a week it can be pH 3.4/ TA 0.6%.
How old is the plant/ tree. My mom’s rhubarb will be pH 3.3. Mine from the same roots will be pH 2.7 or 2.8. Apples/ tree fruit/ grapes are other examples where the fruit is sweeter/ less acidic on older/ more healthy roots.
Is your fruit “climacteric “? ie will it continue to ripen after picking. I collect flat boxes at Aldies for peaches, they will come off the tree before birds and may sit/ get checked every day for a week. Apples are another good example. It is easy to see pH rise from 3.1 to 3.8.

Some crops I don’t have control over. Then you can ask what kind of acid. You can run MLF on rhubarb or pie cherry (but not Bing cherry) or apple. Note that the sharp notes are much of the flavor profile. A muted rhubarb loses impact.

How old is the wine? When planning a wine for age you should have high acid, the TA will decrease and pH rise over two years and also thirty. Another point to age is that tannin can magnify the effect of TA. Tannin forms large chains with age and then is flavorless. This is useful to remember with high polyphenol fruit like black raspberry, the sharp astringent notes go away with years of age.

As noted sugar and potassium sorbate fixes everything. Everything tastes better with a little sugar and you will find fruity aromatics increase with sugar.

 

[Raptor99]

The thing to keep in mind is adding water reduces the TA while the pH doesn't change.

Are you sure? According to the FermCalc calculator at https://fermcalc.com/FermCalcJS.html, adding 1 gal of water (ph 7) to 1 gal of must at pH 3.0 will result in pH 3.3.

It's a logarithmic scale, so it doesn't change by a lot. Adding water is not a useful way to raise the pH of acidic musts because you would need to add way too much water.

 

[mainshipfred]

Are you sure? According to the FermCalc calculator at https://fermcalc.com/FermCalcJS.html, adding 1 gal of water (ph 7) to 1 gal of must at pH 3.0 will result in pH 3.3.

It's a logarithmic scale, so it doesn't change by a lot. Adding water is not a useful way to raise the pH of acidic musts because you would need to add way too much water.

It's what I learner at a seminar at the Winemaker Magazine conference.

 

[mainshipfred]

You know, it could be the other way around. It changes the pH but not the TA. Hopefully someone chimes in.

 

[Rice_Guy]

Are you sure? (ref water changes pH)

Buffering; there is a property in salt solutions that certain concentrations want to hold stationary, the result is that phosphate buffers are sold to calibrate your pH meter, the solution will hold a pH even if diluted a lot. ,,, Such point is called a pKa.
Practically speaking water is transparent if the solution is close to a pKa. ,,, It will hold the pH. If our beverage is between pKa’s we can push it slightly. Wine is dirty, by which I mean there are competing salts that are working to hold it where it started, unless we use a tool like MLF or deionization or potassium bicarbonate, we aren’t really changing the salts which make up the solution. Theory with distilled water is nice. Wine is a dirty salt solution/ multiple variable pKa solution so Fermcalc sometimes may be correct and sometimes not. Practically speaking I don’t have tools better than pH +/- 0.01so I can’t measure it.

TA is grams of H+ expressed as a textbook acid. Tartaric for grape people, malic for apple people, sulfuric for French people. We know that a fruit juice is a dirty solution so we ignore accuracy in how much of what is in a fruit. Practically speaking the tongue has receptors that sense H+ and it really doesn’t matter to the tongue if the hydronium ion is associated with tartaric or malic or quinnic or phosphoric etc. So the convention is OK.

 

[Johnd]

Hi,

Over the past year, I have made about ten different fruit and berry wines. For most of them, I have followed Jack Keller's recipes, but WineMaker has also been an inspiration. I think most of the wines have turned out okay, and the sparkling strawberry wine in particular was good. However, a common theme with all these wines is that they are very light and sometimes a bit watery; to be kind, you could say they are nice summer wines.

Then I found this fantastic forum and several posts that mentioned using 100% fruit and berries, highlighting that no winemaker dilutes their grape must and no cider maker dilutes their apple must. Therefore, I have started to reconsider the recipes I have used. At the same time, if I understand things correctly, one reason fruit and berry wines are diluted with water is because of their high TA levels. But surely, there must be other ways to handle this? I have seen comments here recommending diluting with apples or pears. But what else could I use?

I think the idea of 100% fruit or berry wines is something I would happily experiment with, but before I start, I would love to hear your thoughts and experiences. If you have recommendations on or examples of how to make, for instance, strawberry or blueberry wines without diluting them with water, it would be very interesting to hear about it.

I also got away from making "fruit flavored wine" in favor of wine from pure fruit. Here are couple of my old threads that you may find some helpful tidbits of information in.
https://www.winemakingtalk.com/threads/the-strawberry.69341/
https://www.winemakingtalk.com/threads/the-blueberry.54269/

 

[LarryTheBarry]

Wow! What a forum! Thank you so much for all the responses! I've gained a lot of knowledge and have much to think about. I now better understand why some dilution might be necessary for certain wines.

And thank you all for a warm welcome! I'm from Sweden, so I hope any grammar mistakes won't hinder understanding. And as a technicality, I'll probably never make a blueberry wine, but rather a bilberry wine. In Swedish, bilberries are called blueberries, but they’re quite similar

As Winemaker81 suggested, I will definitely share my upcoming strawberry and blueberry wines.

I also like the idea of focusing more on the ingredients rather than strictly following a recipe.

I understand the water issue. I've struggled with increasing the taste (richness) of country wines. What I have learned is to pretty much leave the recipe books closed. None of the "recipes" I tried were delivering what I wanted, so I created my own. Most all wine have the same ingredients and methods up front. Through the years, I've learned to use as close to 100% juice as possible. Water is added judiciously-partly to dilute acid if necessary or add a sugar water syrup to fix gravity. What I realized (an epiphany), why add water to dilute acidity, then add acid later? While gravity is important, pH and TA are the prime importance for country wines, IMHO. I suggest forgetting about using acid blend (used in most recipes) and supplement with tartaric acid only. The biggest impact on "my" country wines was developing very accurate temperature control and fermenting the must no higher than ~68*F, typically keeping the must between 64*F and 66*F. Second to temperature control, was using the FermCalc app to supplement calculated nutrients based on yeast nutritional needs and an average YAN content. I've standardized nutrients on GoFerm for a yeast starter, and Fermaid K & O. I threw my supply of DAP in the garden for fertilizer. Sorry about the short sentences and ideas. Each one is worth an entire discussion in detail. All the best.

Interesting about temperature control. From what I could read myself to, red wines can ferment at quite warm temperatures, while white and rosé wines often ferment at cooler temperatures; the same seems to apply to country wines. Why isn't the recommendation similar if I want to make a big-red-blueberry wine?

Regarding nutrients, what do you use? I've read a bit about mead and TOSNA. Does anyone have any thoughts on that?

welcome to WMT

I am in the camp which tries to use 100% juice. Note this is juice not pulp. Like OhioBob I freeze everything before fermenting, on a lot of fruit the juice will weep out and with pressing I can get 83 or 85% yield.
I like to combine different fruits, I ask what is missing and will blend low pH with high pH (ex mulberry with lemon or peach with rhubarb). I also do blends for fruity aroma as gooseberry (high acid/ low aroma) with most anything fruity. I know apple trees that are pH 4.2 and trees that are pH 2.8.
How ripe is your crop? If I am anxious and pull the first red cherry or gooseberry off a tree it may have pH 2.7/ TA 1.3%. If I wait a week it can be pH 3.4/ TA 0.6%.
How old is the plant/ tree. My mom’s rhubarb will be pH 3.3. Mine from the same roots will be pH 2.7 or 2.8. Apples/ tree fruit/ grapes are other examples where the fruit is sweeter/ less acidic on older/ more healthy roots.
Is your fruit “climacteric “? ie will it continue to ripen after picking. I collect flat boxes at Aldies for peaches, they will come off the tree before birds and may sit/ get checked every day for a week. Apples are another good example. It is easy to see pH rise from 3.1 to 3.8.

Some crops I don’t have control over. Then you can ask what kind of acid. You can run MLF on rhubarb or pie cherry (but not Bing cherry) or apple. Note that the sharp notes are much of the flavor profile. A muted rhubarb loses impact.

How old is the wine? When planning a wine for age you should have high acid, the TA will decrease and pH rise over two years and also thirty. Another point to age is that tannin can magnify the effect of TA. Tannin forms large chains with age and then is flavorless. This is useful to remember with high polyphenol fruit like black raspberry, the sharp astringent notes go away with years of age.

As noted sugar and potassium sorbate fixes everything. Everything tastes better with a little sugar and you will find fruity aromatics increase with sugar.

Mixing high pH with low pH sounds very exciting. Now, I don't know if someone ever tried this, but beets have almost no acidity. Would it be possible to combine blueberries with beets to achieve good TA and pH levels? Could it make a nice wine? What other fruits or berries can be used to balance?

I also got away from making "fruit flavored wine" in favor of wine from pure fruit. Here are couple of my old threads that you may find some helpful tidbits of information in.
https://www.winemakingtalk.com/threads/the-strawberry.69341/
https://www.winemakingtalk.com/threads/the-blueberry.54269/

Thank you for these threads!

 

[Raptor99]

Now, I don't know if someone ever tried this, but beets have almost no acidity. Would it be possible to combine blueberries with beets to achieve good TA and pH levels? Could it make a nice wine?

Experimenting is a great part of this hobby. I always taste ingredient combinations first to see what tastes good together. You could mash up some fresh blueberries and cooked beets. How do you like the flavor combination? Think about flavor combinations that are good in food, and try them in wine, such as apples/pears + cinnamon, apricots +vanilla, cranberries + orange, or peppermint + chocolate.

When I use fresh, ripe, blueberries I have never had a problem with them being too acidic. If they are picked really green, that might be more of a problem. I'm not sure whether bilberries are more acidic.

I planted a few Lingonberries in my garden. I don't have enough to make wine, but the flavor is similar to cranberries. If you have access to some Lingonberries they would make a great wine.

Regarding temperature, I ferment all of my wines and meads at around 65 degrees F. A cooler, slower fermentation retains more of the fruit flavor.

 

[Fitz]

Each type of fruit is different. You can do a 100% fruit pear wine, but a 100% fruit cranberry wine would be extremely acidic and would not ferment at all. Some fruits have a fairly strong flavor and can be diluted water while others need to be mostly or all fruit. The amount of fruit will also depend on cost or what you have available.

Decide on the amount of fruit based on the flavor of the fruit that you are using. In my experience, a list of fruits from the weakest to strongest flavor are:
* pear (at least 8 lbs. of fruit for 1 gallon total volume of must)
* apple
* peach
* blueberry
* elderberry
* tart cherry
* cranberry (4 lbs. of fruit for 1 gallon of must)

Year by year I have been increasing the amount of fruit to obtain a stronger flavor.

Measure the pH to determine if you need to add any acid. Some fruits, such as pear, need to have a fair amount of acid added, while others such as cranberry are probably too acidic already.

For the best flavor, I add the type of acid predominate in the type of fruit. So citric acid for blueberries, malic acid for apple, tartaric acid for elderberries. For most of the rest, I use acid blend. The flavor imparted by each type of acid is different, so it is important to match that with the flavor of the fruit. Tartaric acid in blueberries would just taste weird. I want my blueberry wine to taste like blueberries, not fake grapes.

Here is a guide to the type of acid in common fruits: https://i0.wp.com/www.compoundchem.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Guide-to-Fruit-Acids.png

Thanks for the explanation. Now the use of acid is starting to make sense to me. Have a question about Citric acid. I read somewhere that you should only add it after the fermentation is finished. Do you do the same and why?

 

[Raptor99]

Have a question about Citric acid. I read somewhere that you should only add it after the fermentation is finished. Do you do the same and why?

I'm not sure why you do that. The acid blend sold for wine making usually includes tartaric, malic, and citric acids. Before bottling you should taste the wine, and make adjustments at that time. If it does not taste "sharp" enough you can add a bit of acid then. But normally I do not do that. I try to get the acid level right before pitching the yeast.