Lemon Wine off taste

[Rojoguio]

Tried my Lemon wine yesterday and I'm not impressed. I made it with EC1118 yeast. Has anyone made Lemon with another yeast that they liked the results. It's Meyer Lemons, my tree is full again this year, would like to try again. The wine made with 71B tastes like a Professional made it.

 

[Rojoguio]

I added a fair amount of back sweetening and it is better but still has a bit of a taste almost like the pith of the rind. The recipe called for seeded, slices, not just zest. Any of you use the whole lemon with good results? Thanks for the help.

 

[FlamingoEmporium]

The white part of the lemon peel is bitter.
but don’t give up on it wait 2 weeks and try it again. I’m thinking the strong flavor will abate.

i would probably be Tempted to just Use a juicer, since you get a lot of the pulp for fermenting, but not bitter rind

 

[Rojoguio]

I've been reading and it seems you are correct. I should peel the fruit with a potato peeler reserving the zest that way. Squeeze what is left. On site here I have numerous citrus trees to make wine from so I would like to work this out. I'm wondering if 71B yeast would product a smoother, more palatable flavor to the wine.

 

[Jusatele]

there is a kitchen tool called a zester that is made that takes the zest off and not much more. the zest has a lot of lemon taste, the rind is nasty.
as far as yeast 1118 is a champagne type yeast. it has a very high alcohol tolerance so it does not die off as quick as other yeast and can stay in solution after fermentation ends leaving a yeasty taste. Also it ferments so well it creates a very dry wine and some taste normally hidden by sugars are prevalent. 2 weeks is not a long time to age a wine, many can take up to a year to mellow on down.
making wine is a learning experience with ever batch, keep notes

 

[Rojoguio]

Thanks for the advice. This batch has been bulk aging under a airlock for 4.5 months. I TIG weld so numerous Argon bottles around at all times so all vessels are filled with Argon before any wine is transferred.

So I back sweetened the .994SG wine with a 2:1 Simple syrup, let is sit in the chiller overnight and what a difference. I will take another SG reading because now it tastes like Hard Lemonade. More specificly "Popeye's Lemonade". I guess as written above wine making "Is" a learning experience because this drink is totally transformed. Got to write this experience down in the notes.

 

[David Violante]

I use 71B with high acid fruits because it tends to bring the acidity down a little as well. Perhaps that’s a factor for your ferments with EC1118. Could there be other factors?

 

[BarrelMonkey]

So I back sweetened the .994SG wine with a 2:1 Simple syrup, let is sit in the chiller overnight and what a difference. I will take another SG reading because now it tastes like Hard Lemonade. More specificly "Popeye's Lemonade". I guess as written above wine making "Is" a learning experience because this drink is totally transformed. Got to write this experience down in the notes.

How much syrup per gallon/liter did you use, was it an estimate or did you do a taste test? I'm about to rack my first batch of (Meyer) lemon wine, and I expect I'll backsweeten before bottling, but not sure how much, having never done it before. I'm leaning towards ~10g/L sugar (high end of brut champagne dosage, though this will hopefully be still wine!)

 

[Rojoguio]

BarrelMonkey, I put about 1-1/2 cups of the 2:1 sugar to water syrup to almost a gallon glass jug. I poured about a cup out in tasting. So It's almost too sweet, I don't regret adding the syrup but as posted above I have a lot of Argon on site. I also made a 3#'s sugar to the gallon batch of the same wine. My thoughts are to fill a 3 gallon glass carboy with Argon, rack both batches of wine into that, add 1/2 cup additional 2:1 syrup, mix and place in the blast chiller for a day then taste where I'm at. I'm thinking taking a SG reading of the back sweetened batch and recording that before I start so I have a point of reference for almost too sweet. If there is a Popeye's Fried Chicken in your area order their lemonade, this is almost exactly what my wine tastes like now. Southern Lemonade is Sweet to the taste.

To answer your question the cup of wine used was taste testing, I was adding 1/4 teaspoon at a time till 1-1/4 teaspoon it tasted just drinkable. I returned it to the chiller and it changed in 24 hours to a wonderful Hard Lemonade. But at first it wasn't very tasty.

 

[BarrelMonkey]

Super helpful, thanks. If my math is correct, your addition works out to ~17-26g/L, or about twice what I was planning to do. I don't like things too sweet, so I think I'll taste test a 10g/L addition as a starting point.

 

[Rojoguio]

I really think it just took that much sweetening to over come the taste of the pith. This winter I will use a potato peeler to peel the lemons first. Since my kitchen looks like a General Mills Test Kitchen I have numerous zesting tools but all just remove the surface. I have a really cool peeler than will do a great job removing what I want to harvest for the must. The recipe used 3#'s of sugar per gallon. Being a engineer I over thought it as the must had a very high starting SG. I cut the next batch 1/2# sugar, the starting SG came down but so did the ABV. 1/2# sugar dropped the simple calculation final ABV from 17.91 to 13.36%.

 

[Raptor99]

I have numerous zesting tools but all just remove the surface

IMHO that is exactly what you want to do. You want the yellow part only on lemons, with none of the white peel.