Making Wine like a winery....

[MalvinaScordaad]

If stored using a vacuum food saver and kept cool not frozen there is no problem using the yeast the following year with a 10 to 15 % increase in volume of yeast the second year even a third year is possible.
Malvina

 

[Rock]

It's still 30-ish of my 15-16gal batches

Does it freeze well or... Whats the best way to keep a package that large, for that long? Is it possible or would you just end up throwing the 2nd half out?... Maybe find someone local to split a yeast with? What are we lookin at here, to play with all the yeasties...

Vacuum pack it is what we do.

 

[altavino]

Encapsulated yeast can be used . Pro dessert is designed for this purpose

All you do is chill and pull the bag of yeast out when you hit the desired residual sugar, add your sorbate and sulfite as insurance .

Easy !

http://morewinepro.com/view_product/6185//Encapsulated_Wine_Yeast_-_ProDessert_BA-11_83_g_1_mesh_bag

 

[MalvinaScordaad]

Right you are! That is a great solution to stopping the ferment. Remove and Chill. On second look Scott Labs has a few other varieties that have some very specific uses.

 

[Rock]

Encapsulated yeast can be used . Pro dessert is designed for this purpose

All you do is chill and pull the bag of yeast out when you hit the desired residual sugar, add your sorbate and sulfite as insurance .

Easy !

http://morewinepro.com/view_product/6185//Encapsulated_Wine_Yeast_-_ProDessert_BA-11_83_g_1_mesh_bag

Why would you sorbate and sulfite?How would Mlf work with this?

 

[ibglowin]

Not very well if you sorbate thats for sure!

 

[MalvinaScordaad]

Well Rock since you ask. Who says you need to MLF? There are wines ,usually whites, or blush ( products of saingnee) that you fore go MLf to retain maximum fruit forward qualities. Recently I did this with a GSM Saingee and produced a very fruity Rose. But I did back sweeten with sugar.

 

[altavino]

the sulfite is as a preservative and the sorbate is extra insurance , with an encapsulated yeast ferment , there is the possibility of some yeast excapeing , and there is alos the issue of wild yeast . unless you are a commercial winemaker with crossflow or some other form of absolute filter technology you should always add sorbate to residule sugar wines. unless you want to risk handgrades in your cellar.

what you do with encapsulate yeast is remove the bulk of the yeast in the encapsulated bag making it much easier to stop the ferment .

as for the mlf question , you NEVER do mlf on residule sugar wines , unless you like VA that is.

you also want the higher acid to balance the sugar .

 

[MalvinaScordaad]

t
as for the mlf question , you NEVER do mlf on residule sugar wines , unless you like VA that is.

.

That is a good point. But I it is possible to back sweeten one that has undergone MLf and all the above steps mentioned are performed before adding the sugar.

 

[altavino]

it is possible but why would you do it?
unless you were working with some hybrid cold climate grapes with acid levels above 12g/l .

even then you'd want to make sure your so2 levels are high and lysosyme are added.

but again I have to ask , why would you sweeten an mlf wine? the two are at cross purposes and add risk when done together.

 

[Midwest Vintner]

My main thought here is this, does residual sugar taste different than backsweeteing? I think that real sugar, such as cane or beet, tastes very similar. Would that mean that residual sugar is the same? Or is there another process that makes the difference by going dry? The only thing I can think of, is when yeasts die slowly, off flavors can arise. Furthermore, is it possible to get 13-14% abv and be semisweet (1.010+) without adding sugar? I think wine that stays under 12% will typically be better than a wine that is 13-14%, so if we are comparing these two, they need to be nearly the exact same sweetness AND ABV. Otherwise, it's apples and oranges. Speaking of, fruit wines would be different, because you have to add sugar up front to get enough abv. So for this comparison, lets just say only grape wines. Does anyone know of a grape wine that can be found as non-backsweetened and backsweetened with the same or very close in both abv and sugar?

As far as filtering, plate filters are nice, but I'm not sure how many wineries use them. They are not cheap, nor work well with smaller batches.

 

[Minnesotamaker]

Is it possible that we just have a question about the definition of "sweetening"? If they think you're talking about adding sugar, it could be that they are not doing that. But isn't it possible that they could split their volume of juice into two parts and ferment the bulk of the juice until it is dry and then stabilize it with sulfite/sorbate and then add a reserve of the original juice which would contain the native unfermented sugars into the finished product. This would give them alcohol and some sweetness without "back sweetening" per se.

 

[winemaker_3352]

Is it possible that we just have a question about the definition of "sweetening"? If they think you're talking about adding sugar, it could be that they are not doing that. But isn't it possible that they could split their volume of juice into two parts and ferment the bulk of the juice until it is dry and then stabilize it with sulfite/sorbate and then add a reserve of the original juice which would contain the native unfermented sugars into the finished product. This would give them alcohol and some sweetness without "back sweetening" per se.

I am not sure if they do that - but that is a great idea...

I might have to try that on a bench trial and see how it turns out.

 

[MalvinaScordaad]

it is possible but why would you do it?
unless you were working with some hybrid cold climate grapes with acid levels above 12g/l .

even then you'd want to make sure your so2 levels are high and lysosyme are added.

but again I have to ask , why would you sweeten an mlf wine? the two are at cross purposes and add risk when done together.



Well it is possible to have a Saingee Rose with levels of Malic that affect the taste. So what is the harm in getting rid of it before you back sweeten whether you use sugar or a reserved juice and then add Sorbate. I think you are focused on stopping the ferment and leaving residual sugar. Which is fine but then in this example you have high malic levels. What is the sense to do it that way if it gets in the way of a MLF and you are left with a sweet yet harsh wine. I guess you have to make that decision early in the game. Personally I think the stopping the ferment is more romantic. But backsweeting to me is much more pragmatic.

I am not sure if they do that - but that is a great idea...

I might have to try that on a bench trial and see how it turns out.
__________________

Using a "Sweet Reserve" juice is done all the time especially in finer whites. An amount is frozen at the pressing and kept to be added. It is thought that using a reserve will add not only the sugar but unfermented flavors that cane sugar alone does not have. Adding Sugar or Reserve Juice is still considered backsweetening.
Malvina

 

[MalvinaScordaad]

My main thought here is this, does residual sugar taste different than backsweeteing? I think that real sugar, such as cane or beet, tastes very similar. Would that mean that residual sugar is the same? Or is there another process that makes the difference by going dry? The only thing I can think of, is when yeasts die slowly, off flavors can arise. Furthermore, is it possible to get 13-14% abv and be semisweet (1.010+) without adding sugar? I think wine that stays under 12% will typically be better than a wine that is 13-14%, so if we are comparing these two, they need to be nearly the exact same sweetness AND ABV. Otherwise, it's apples and oranges. Speaking of, fruit wines would be different, because you have to add sugar up front to get enough abv. So for this comparison, lets just say only grape wines. Does anyone know of a grape wine that can be found as non-backsweetened and backsweetened with the same or very close in both abv and sugar?

As far as filtering, plate filters are nice, but I'm not sure how many wineries use them. They are not cheap, nor work well with smaller batches.

Leaving residual sugar and backsweetening can result in different taste results. But you can as you say, add sugar at the beginning of the ferment like you do with fruit wines and then stop the ferment when you have both 13-14 percent ABV and residual sugar. So it is not hard to get a 14 % wine with residual sugar. Now you can water down the Must and create a 12% wine with residual sugar at 12 % I don't see a problem making 2 wines using the same grapes using 2 methods and getting the same ABV. Some experience would help however.

Plate filters are used extensively by Wineries. But the question is what is a small batch. If you mean they don't work for small batches because of the loss and the cost of the filter media, you can adjust the number of plates to use based on the volume that needs to be filtered.

 

[altavino]

if you were making a rose' and you were using a hybrid or northern grape with really , really high malic levels you might want to drop the malic a bit . I can't see you needing to do that with most vinifera but in a marginal climate you might want to.

if this was the case , I still wouldn't use mlf for a sweet wine.

nope , I'd use a yeast that would metabolise some of the malic. Maurvin B would be my first choice as it can metabolise up to 55% malic durring primary with no dactyl production. if you wanted 100% malic reduction , and you could get some the GM yeast ML01 would technically be a better option than mlf, if you are ok with GM yeasts. Maurvin is my go to yeast for this and can do a very good ml reduction, while leaving enough bite to balance the high sugar levels.

With late harvest and icewines , there usually isn't much malic left with grapes that old so you end up adjusting to 8-10 g/l with tartaric to balance the acid/ residule sugar levels. this acid sugar balance is what sweet wine making is all about. no acid and you have sweet flat swill.

back sweetening with sugar is rarely done with vinifera grapes , this is more a hybrid technique to mask what can be sharp acid levels , or used in fruit winemaking.
The exception being german suss reserve wines where as mentioned above some juice is added back post ferment to backsweeten . otherwise crash chilling , filtering or sorbate are used to arrest sweet wines such as sauternernes or icewine, you want to stop the ferment at 9- 10% alcohol or its too hot for the stlye , remember your starting brix is above 30 for these styles of wines. port uses high alcohol additions to arrest the ferment

When I make an off dry reisling , gewurtztraminer or ortega I use this suss reserve technique . I add it to dry clear and stabilsed wine , and I have added sorbate and sulfite to the reserve before adding to the main wine.
clarify and filter , let age for a few more weeks to insure a ferment hasn't restarted and bottle.

JE

 

[MalvinaScordaad]

Well I look at it this way. You say you would only do it with high malic hybrid or northern grapes. But if you think about it we not only do MLF for stability in dry wines we also do it to reduce harshness. AND we do it to Central Valley Low Acid Grapes all the time when malic levels don't even reach 250 ppm. So if MLF reduces harshness in a low acid Central Valley Grape by ridding the wine of Malic why the objection to removing it from a Rose made from those grapes. Your logic escapes me. As far as using ML01 good luck getting that. Nice on paper can you show me a source. If we had one many of us would have stopped buying ML Bacteria years ago. As far as Maurvin B it can reduce some Malic but not really eliminate it.
Malvina

 

[altavino]

Doing mlf on a rose would be outside normal commercial practice (unless dealing with monster acid levels like with upstate NY hybrids, in which case you might also cold stabilise down to -7'C) , as would doing mlf on a sweet wine or any aromatic white (mlf on whites is mostly limited to chardonnay , occassionaly viognier and SB) . lots of sources on this, Pambianachi being one most of us are familiar with.

but doing mlf on a dry red wine , even with low malic cv grapes absolutely would be standard practice in the cv 250ppm case mostly for stability reasons not harshness , but this is about sweet wines , usually white or rose. you never mlf a port either. don't confuse sweetwine making with dry red wine making.

with low acid cv grapes , how harsh is the wine going to be with less than 4g/l TA and very low levels of malic?? unless you are drinking your white or rose within weeks of primary.

at those levels you're going to have to add acid (tartaric) anyway

using a yeast like maurvin b would convert about 40% of the malic and still leave some for crisp freshness , surlie aging or adding biolees would further smooth out the wine and be compatable with sweetening.

with sweet wines , an acid backbone is as important as sweetness , they need to be in balance.

with sweet wines made from vinifera grown in a normal climate (and total acid levels in the 5-7 g/l range) , you don't do anything to reduce malic acid, mlf would only be for extream high acid cases (12 or more g/l) in a sweet wine. even then I'd try the combo of maurvin B and cold stabilisation first.

 

[MalvinaScordaad]

I understand your reasoning but I disagree that low levels of malic are not affecting taste or harshness. Also I have no problem adding tartaric to restore the backbone. I also think that there is a big difference between sweet wines and slightly sweet Rose. In the case of slightly sweet Saingee's the Malic is probably more apparent. I can also see that you see no need to reduce Malic in Sweet wines but what I do not understand is the problem you have with doing a mlf and restoring acid levels with more friendly tartaric. I just don't see the harm in that.

 

[altavino]

No worries , the thread was about making wine like the pros do.

Mlf is almost never done commercially on rose or any sweet or off dry vinifera wines , period.
Buttery flavors , potential VA and the general desire to keep a wine crisp and clean without manipulation are the main drivers.

For that matter mlf is not usually done on white wines either , it would be the exception not the rule (ie Chardonnay)
And a rose is generally handled like a white wine .

This is general practice , in making white , rose or sweet wines.
Where as full mlf is standard practice with dry red vinifera wines

Your unusual choice to do mlf on a rose', is, like most things in winemaking, a choice , but it is not common or even reccomended practice in rose' winemaking .

Chacun a son gout , to each their own .