skyfire322
Junior Member
I've made two red kits, both from RJS. One was the Sangiovese Merlot blend, and the other was the Chilean Trio (Malbec, Cab, Carmenere.) I popped a bottle from my first batch I made (2018) last night. It tasted great but there was a weird faint aftertaste. If I could compare it to something, I'd describe it as boiled hot dogs (yummy!!!!). Just out of curiosity, I tried my latest one that was bottled back in June and it had the same exact (to the tee) faint hot dog water aftertaste. The thing is, the white RJS kits I've made haven't had that flavor.
Here are some variables from my notes I took into consideration:
Yeast:
D254 for the Sangiovese Merlot and RC212 on the Chilean Trio.
Age:
Sangiovese was 3 years old, Chilean was 2.
Oak:
Sangio Merlot had a Medium French Oak spiral in for a month. Chilean had 2.5 oz of bourbon soaked heavy Hungarian cubes in for two months.
SG
Sangio Merlot 1.090 Chilean 1.100
Environment (I know this'll be controversial. While temps did fluctuate by at most ~5 degrees, both were pretty consistent during the entire process.)
Sangio Merlot was approx. 67 degrees post fermentation. Chilean was 62 post fermentation.
Here are some variables from my notes I took into consideration:
Yeast:
D254 for the Sangiovese Merlot and RC212 on the Chilean Trio.
Age:
Sangiovese was 3 years old, Chilean was 2.
Oak:
Sangio Merlot had a Medium French Oak spiral in for a month. Chilean had 2.5 oz of bourbon soaked heavy Hungarian cubes in for two months.
SG
Sangio Merlot 1.090 Chilean 1.100
Environment (I know this'll be controversial. While temps did fluctuate by at most ~5 degrees, both were pretty consistent during the entire process.)
Sangio Merlot was approx. 67 degrees post fermentation. Chilean was 62 post fermentation.