Newbie to the forum, looking for some insight

[brewcrew302]

I just started making wine (have a strawberry in primary right now) but have done a ton of reading over the past couple weeks or month or so. I have noticed there is no end to the different ingredients used in wine. There are still some apples for the picking near me and I posed the question of apple wine to my roomate. He said that would be great but then asked if there is a way to include some caramel in the recipe. I don't want to get too complicated right away but I loved the combination. Any thoughts?? Did a quick search and could not find any recipes. Thanks and you all have been very helpful in making my first batch to this point!!

 

[surlees]

I don't believe you'll find a caramel recipe, but go to the site below for several apple wine recipes that all sound good:

http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/recipes.asp

Fred

 

[Sacalait]

Maybe you should pick a different ingredient to add. Caramel is cooked sugar with cream added at the proper time.

 

[Wade E]

I dont see a recipe either but I dont see any reason not to. I would just use a mixture of sugar and caramel substituting some of the caramel for sugar. I would also probably do the caramelizing myself just to make sure there isnt anything in the caramel to make it not ferment like benzoate or sorbate as it is liquid sugar. I made a spiced apple wine using brown sugar and mulling spices that came out very nice.

 

[St Allie]

Caramel is just cooked sugar.. (think caramel popcorn)..

Try making the apple wine and then backsweetening a portion of it with caramelised sugar.

Experiment til you get it to your taste.

I think that would work really well.

Allie

 

[Wade E]

Ive carmelized some sugar to add to, well thats another forum and not leagal in the US!

 

[arcticsid]

Never have understood why caremalized sugar on your pancakes was illegal here in the US.

T

 

[Luc]

I am with Allie.

Caramel is heated sugar. By heating the structure alters (it also
becomes brown) and therefore it is no longer just plain sugar.

I have read in books that it will not ferment out totally, although
I have no experience in that myself.
There is an experiment in this.....

So I would use it to sweeten when the wine is done, clear and stabilised.

Luc

 

[Sacalait]

Ive carmelized some sugar to add to, well thats another forum and not leagal in the US!

Not legal?????

 

[brewcrew302]

My name is Travis and new to the forum and very greatly appreciate the replies and great info. We will be trying it and will let you all know how it turns out.

Regarding the strawberry wine, it had a specific gravity of 1.084 to start (sg a little low, about 3.5 of the total 5 gallons.) But with the fruit in the bucket there was not enough room to add the complete 5 gallons. When I remove the fruit and add water the total specific gravity will be too low. Is it ok to add sweetened water (sg higher than 1.084 to help raise the total sg) 5-6 days into fermentation when I remove the fruit? I imagine it would be but am not sure. If not other options please.

Thanks again.

 

[Sacalait]

Travis, what size primary bucket are you using? If I understand you correctly your bucket is topped off at 5gals. when the strawberries are in but only 3.5gals. with out the fruit. Strawberries will disintegrate to almost nothing during fermentation so once they're removed which will leave you with 4.5-4.75gals. After removal, check the S.G. and THEN add the additional sugar to get it where you want it. Strawberries are mostly water with very little residual sugar so the addition of sugar is recommended.

 

[brewcrew302]

Sacalait you are correct. I believe it is a 5.5 gallon bucket. My secondary is 6 gallons. After some fermentation the sg should go down, how do you know how much sugar to add so you don't get a very high alcohol content and any water added does not signifcantly lower the sg. The temp in the room it is fermenting is about 68 degrees, sg after 24 hours of fermenting is 1.074.

 

[Sacalait]

A good question, one I can't answer. If it were mine it would be a guess but to give you some idea of where to start, 1.4oz of sugar per gallon will raise the potential alcohol content by 0.60%. When the S.G. gets down to 1.010 rack off the pulp, add the additional sugar you want and move to the secondary.