Returning newbie

[ianH]

Hello All. Not made any wine for 25 years and forgot a load. Ive just started making a gooseberry wine with 6.5kg of mixed green and red berries. 6 ltr bottled water, 2 Campden tablets in must with 10g of Pectolase. Left 24 hours. Strained pulp and put juice into fermetation tank. Added 4kg of sugar and 4ltr bottled water. Added yeast, 2 tsp tannin, 4 tsp citric acid and 4 tsp nutriant. Got 4.5 gallon total at o.g 1.105. Does my recipe sound about right? Is there anything else i should have done. Its a nice pale pink colour. I would have liked a deeper colour but half the berries were green. Thanks.

 

[Ohio Bob]

It’s probably more typical to leave the pulp in with the juice at least until the SG gets to a much lower number, not a hard and fast rule though. Might be losing some flavors/sugars in the pulp that should be in your wine.

Secondly, if you have a lot of unripened fruit, your pH might be low. Do you have a way to check it, like pH strips? If you don’t, not a problem yet, but perhaps later. Highly acidic juice might stunt the yeast prematurely. Additionally, you may have to back sweeten to make the wine palatable.

 

[sour_grapes]

I am not commenting on your process, but just wanted to welcome you to WMT!

 

[Rice_Guy]

* my gooseberry is less than pH 3 and TA above 1%, the goal white grape folks use is to have a pH between 3.2 and 3.5 with a TA 0.5 to 0.7%. I would not have added any acid.
* I let my berries in for about five days/ 1.020 gravity like Bob mentioned
* tannin is good, pectase is good
* sugar is high which means a high strength yeast like 1118

Welcome to Wine Making Talk

 

[hounddawg]

agreed with those above,
Welcome to WMT,,,
Dawg

 

[mikewatkins727]

Welcome aboard @ianH