Not sure what to do with my apple wine

[RotGut76]

Last September I came across a substantial amount of apples from a local farm. SO what better to do with them than make wine. I found a recipe that seemed easy for a beginner(first time using real fruit, not a kit). I've had the batch bulk aging for almost a year. Every few months I'd do a taste test and add some K-meta.

The problem is it just doesn't taste good and it doesn't seem to be improving much at all with age. I even tried adding some frozen apple juice concentrate to it.

Here is the question:

Should I dump the whole batch? I feel like its a waste to dump it. Or should I just keep waiting to see if it eventually improves? When is it time to make the decision to abort?

Perhaps I can make it into apple vinegar.

 

[vacuumpumpman]

I just last weekend had to adjust my apple wine -
Take a small sample and add some sugar to it and see if it does not improve the overall flavor and taste

 

[dralarms]

IMHO apple is something that should never be dry, always needs to have some sugar. You don't have to make a desert wine out of it but semi sweet is better for me.

 

[djrockinsteve]

Apple flavor can be made better by simmering some water out to boost the flavor prior to fermenting.

In your case see what it tastes like around 1.000-1.010.

In future blend it with some pears for added flavor. Make sure apples are well ripe but not rotting.

 

[the_rayway]

Consider adding a bit of vanilla or oak.

 

[GreginND]

IMHO apple is something that should never be dry, always needs to have some sugar. You don't have to make a desert wine out of it but semi sweet is better for me.

I like it just slightly off dry myself. That being said I have a problem. This year my apple wine underwent spontaneous MLF. I tried to stop it part way through but I couldn't so I let it finish. At this point I can't add sorbate so I guess I'll try it as a dry wine. Perhaps it can be sweetened when serving.

 

[dralarms]

If it's clear, id add kmeta and sweeten it, then I'd measure the sg, wait 2 weeks and measure again. If no change it should be ok to bottle.

 

[GreginND]

Um, no. I won't risk that. It would not be stable. I have 12 gallons and I'm sure some will be in the bottle for a few years.

 

[cimbaliw]

Hey RotGut don't despair. Decide where you want to go with the wine and make it happen. For me, I find that the addition of ginger or vanilla forgives a lot of sins. Sweetening, as stated earlier can help. I prefer an SG around 1.000-1.005. My advice... go out and try a couple of ciders. I think you will find that you are closer than you think.

BC

 

[WVMountaineerJack]

What do you mean it just doesnt taste good? Does it taste flat? A little acid blend can help that. Is it watery? Does it taste icky? Does it taste like a match. a mouse, a green pepper? Does it not taste enough like an apple? Do you have any idea what kind of apples they were? Like if you used just red delicious I doubt anyone can help you but if you got some good apples in there they may still be hope. Dont give up so easy, you got us. WVMJ

Last September I came across a substantial amount of apples from a local farm. SO what better to do with them than make wine. I found a recipe that seemed easy for a beginner(first time using real fruit, not a kit). I've had the batch bulk aging for almost a year. Every few months I'd do a taste test and add some K-meta.

The problem is it just doesn't taste good and it doesn't seem to be improving much at all with age. I even tried adding some frozen apple juice concentrate to it.

Here is the question:

Should I dump the whole batch? I feel like its a waste to dump it. Or should I just keep waiting to see if it eventually improves? When is it time to make the decision to abort?

Perhaps I can make it into apple vinegar.

 

[RotGut76]

What do you mean it just doesnt taste good? Does it taste flat? A little acid blend can help that. Is it watery? Does it taste icky? Does it taste like a match. a mouse, a green pepper? Does it not taste enough like an apple? Do you have any idea what kind of apples they were? Like if you used just red delicious I doubt anyone can help you but if you got some good apples in there they may still be hope. Dont give up so easy, you got us. WVMJ

Good question. The flavor is a bit light but I think I can fix that. Based on some suggestions from here. More importantly, to me, is this off putting smell. It kind of smells like rubber. Somewhat like a brand new rubber stopper. I've tried degassing again. I racked again as well.

 

[derunner]

The way I back sweetened mine was to use frozen apple juice concentrate. It was 4 large cans. I then simmered about 90 mins and reduced that volume by half so I would not reduce the ABV as much. That created a very sweet and strong apple flavor to add to the wine. Be careful not to cook it too much. I stopped when it seem to start carmalizing the apple concentrate.

 

[seth8530]

I have had quite a few commercial ciders before and when on the dry side they can have a bit of a funky taste. However, you also might want to do some bench trials to confirm it is not an hs2 issue. If so, give this thread a look, I had similar issues with one of my strawberry wines actually.


http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/f6/rubbery-bandaid-smell-taste-strawberry-wine-40148/

 

[ColemanM]

Do you have any "wine conditioner"? This will add a little sweetness and some body. It also does not need sorbate to prevent it from fermenting. Which is good because geraniums AND rubber would really be icky.


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[GreginND]

Wine conditioner contains sorbate. Caution.


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[ColemanM]

Uh oh, guess I didn't read that. Haven't used it in over a year. Sorry.


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[dralarms]

That wine conditioner also affects the flavor.

 

[cintipam]

Hi rotgut 76

Wanted to share this with you, making sure you understand some folks will be up in arms about it being dangerous. So before I share the method I want to say up front that while this worked very very well to destink my apple wine, I do understand that I don't know the copper levels in my apple wine at the finish. I am just using it to top off other appropriate white and fruit wines in order to really cut down the copper levels it may have caused. I know Seth gave you very good advice, but I don't do well messing with those solutions, titrations etc at all.

Based on John T's advice on another thread I did the following to destink my long term (about 9 months) stinky apple wine. I did not id the smell as sulfur, but got a burned rubber smell. I had previously splash racked the dickens out of this wine as my first step. Not much help, so I took a sample in to my local very experienced wine making shop where the sample was both smelled and tasted by owner and a local award winning wine maker. They said it tasted fine, but was indeed sulfur and racking thru copper would help. So I bought a 2 ft length of new copper water pipe and racked 1 gallon thru. Smell decreased but was still present. Being both stubborn and cheap I let it sit while I thought and waited for different advice. John T explained that if one doesn't fix sulfur smell quickly it binds into mercaptans that a copper treatment just can't fix. Said a good dose of ascorbic acid wait a day or two to unbind them then treat with copper. Since I have lots of food grade powdered vit c around I decided to try it. In a 5 gallon carboy I added approx 1 1/2 tsp of vitc powder and mixed it very very well. Waited 36 hrs then racked thru the well cleaned copper pipe. This time the results were astounding. Not perfect at first, but an additional day took away ALL the stinky smell. Now i do understand that the vit c lowered my PH (luckily this wine needed a touch more acid anyway) plus racking thru copper gave me an uncontrolled amount of copper in my wine, but the results were astounding.

At least it is something to try. Thanks again to John T for this golden nugget of info.

Pam in cinti

 

[RotGut76]

Hi rotgut 76

Wanted to share this with you, making sure you understand some folks will be up in arms about it being dangerous. So before I share the method I want to say up front that while this worked very very well to destink my apple wine, I do understand that I don't know the copper levels in my apple wine at the finish. I am just using it to top off other appropriate white and fruit wines in order to really cut down the copper levels it may have caused. I know Seth gave you very good advice, but I don't do well messing with those solutions, titrations etc at all.

Based on John T's advice on another thread I did the following to destink my long term (about 9 months) stinky apple wine. I did not id the smell as sulfur, but got a burned rubber smell. I had previously splash racked the dickens out of this wine as my first step. Not much help, so I took a sample in to my local very experienced wine making shop where the sample was both smelled and tasted by owner and a local award winning wine maker. They said it tasted fine, but was indeed sulfur and racking thru copper would help. So I bought a 2 ft length of new copper water pipe and racked 1 gallon thru. Smell decreased but was still present. Being both stubborn and cheap I let it sit while I thought and waited for different advice. John T explained that if one doesn't fix sulfur smell quickly it binds into mercaptans that a copper treatment just can't fix. Said a good dose of ascorbic acid wait a day or two to unbind them then treat with copper. Since I have lots of food grade powdered vit c around I decided to try it. In a 5 gallon carboy I added approx 1 1/2 tsp of vitc powder and mixed it very very well. Waited 36 hrs then racked thru the well cleaned copper pipe. This time the results were astounding. Not perfect at first, but an additional day took away ALL the stinky smell. Now i do understand that the vit c lowered my PH (luckily this wine needed a touch more acid anyway) plus racking thru copper gave me an uncontrolled amount of copper in my wine, but the results were astounding.

At least it is something to try. Thanks again to John T for this golden nugget of info.

Pam in cinti

Interesting. Definitely worth a try. I'm no expert either but I don't think 1 or 2 rackings through copper would increase copper levels to any unsafe degree. We drink water that comes through copper pipes every day.

Also, how can SO2 levels be tested?

 

[seth8530]

The issue is that wine is acidic and can thus extract copper pretty well.