Using granulated sugar in traditional natural herb wine recipes

[Fitz]

I was reading a book by Ian Ball (Wine Making With Herbs). In his book he wrote, “Refined sugar cane and sugar beet, familiar to us as processed household granulated sugar is not desirable in traditional natural herb wine.” He went on suggesting using blends of pure juices, honey, fresh or dried fruits as replacements as they would complement the principal herb ingredient. Does anyone has any thoughts on this?

 

[Rice_Guy]

* the food industry likes sugar at $0.28 per pound in truckloads, ,,, Sugar has sweet flavor so we add in other ingredients to make up missing flavors.
* as a home winemaker, I don’t worry about cost of goods so I use apple or white grape instead of water, ,, this makes more complex balanced flavors / aroma
* using a juice reduces the nutrient requirement, sugar has no nitrogen and trace elements. Water has no nitrogen and vitamins
* making wine is cooking, , , , a good cook always blends ingredients to create complexity and balance. , , , I blend fruits to achieve pH and TA, concepts are tried in pie, lab bench has a test system. , , , Wine is a year long process whereas I do a pie a week. How can you lab bench your ideas?
* lemon contributes flavor and acid, hides in the background and compliments a lot of flavors. Apple and white grape contribute fruity aromatics nitrogen and minerals

Have fun with this wine. Vidalia onion or pepper wine are interesting (but not what I drink watching TV).

 

[winemaker81]

Does anyone has any thoughts on this?

Ask a question of 10 winemakers ... you'll get at least 11 opinions.

It depends on your situation. Cost is an important factor for some folks, and other than foraged/free fruit, sugar is probably the cheapest.

It also depends on what's being made. A juice, honey, or fruit may or may not produce the desired flavor, whereas table sugar will introduce little or no additional flavor. It's also easier to measure sugar to achieve the target SG, e.g., there's less guesswork and estimating.

Consider what you want to make, and determine the recipe from that. Note that regardless of what you do, it will probably turn out fine. One person's opinion of "best" may not agree with yours, and yours in the important opinion.

 

[Fitz]

Thanks to both of you for your responses. Especially since they covered different view points. I do have a question to each of you about your answers.

@Rice_Guy are you referring to frozen concentrate for your juices?

@winemaker81 would unrefined sugar be better than refined sugar? Or is that too a matter of opinion?

 

[winemaker81]

@winemaker81 would unrefined sugar be better than refined sugar? Or is that too a matter of opinion?

IMO ... opinion.

Refined sugar is just sugar. Unrefined sugar has impurities in it that may affect flavor. I use plain 'ole table sugar as I know exactly what it will do.


EDIT: Ask a question of 10 winemakers, you'll get at least 11 opinions. As I noted in another thread recently, contrasting and/or conflicting ideas can all be correct. This makes it difficult for new winemakers to figure things out. It's also why I explain "why?", so you can make your own decisions.

EDIT 2: I just repeated myself from 2 posts back.

 

[cmason1957]

What is the difference between refined and unrefined sugars is a question I asked myself, in hopes that the answer might lead to which is better for winemaking. I found the answer I cared about here. https://nutritiondaily.com/what-are-unrefined-sugars

Bottom line from what I could gather not enough difference in the amount of sucrose / fructose to make much of a fuss about. So I go with the less expensive one, good old table sugar.

 

[Rice_Guy]

I can grow so most of the juice I have is fresh pressed. Briana grape, Itasca grape, apples as red delicious and Kingston black. In part I am using up garden abundance.
Back sweetening, I want something which has already been cleaned / filtered so I use frozen concentrate combined with sorbate.

Factory juice is concentrated. It comes in 1000 pound skids with metalized liners similar to bag in box wine. It is easy to store and ship and relatively cheap so it winds up as a filler any time the label says 100% juice. The vacuum concentrators remove fruity aromatics so there are grades of Niagara that can be put into anything but not be detected. A retail grade should have grape aromatics added back. Commercial brown sugar is white sugar with molasses added back. I would be hard pressed to find commercial quantities of unrefined sugar. It comes to the US by shipload with who knows what in it.

 

[BPL]

In addition to previous (and excellent) replies, language can be taken in different contexts. For example, the portion of the statement, "traditional natural herb wine", what does the author mean using the word TRADITIONAL, and is that the same meaning as yours? I made a traditional mead a while back. I hated the stuff and dumped it. I then made a honey wine with the latest technology (GoFerm, Fermaid, wine yeast, etc.). I loved the batch.

I suggest using caution on meanings of authors of books. They did their job...put something in print, and sold the book to you . I screwed up more batches than I care to admit following recipes of various authors. I've said this often on different forums, >>recipes don't tell you everything<<.

The second part, "using blends of pure juices, honey, fresh or dried fruits as replacements as they would complement the principal herb ingredient", will depend on how you want the finished product to taste. For example, wine made from pears has an extremely delicate flavor. Adding anything to a pure pear wine will deviate from that flavor, in this case loosely referring to the term "principle herb". Simply changing methods of fermenting and slight changes of yeasts can make a totally different PEAR wine. Using white sugar (cane or beet), raw sugar, or even corn sugar (dextrose) will change the final flavor of a pear wine.

In my opinion, the ultimate challenge of a home wine maker is to have a final product/taste in mind and use the raw ingredients and methods to hit that target.

Kudos for asking advice and best of luck!

Barry

 

[winemanden]

Table sugar is fine for making wine. Table sugar is no good at all for making tables

 

[Rice_Guy]

Some traditional wines added meat and bugs and sheep fertilizer.

Running YAN I see that modern fertilizer increases the YAN.

 

[Fitz]

Some traditional wines added meat and bugs and sheep fertilizer.

Running YAN I see that modern fertilizer increases the YAN.

Damn! I knew that I was forgetting something!

 

[winemanden]

Some traditional wines added meat and bugs and sheep fertilizer.

Running YAN I see that modern fertilizer increases the YAN.

Down in Cider country, old timers used to say they threw a dead rat into the vat to give the brew a bit of body!

 

[Rice_Guy]

Tell me more.

Down in Cider country, old timers used to say they threw a dead rat into the vat to give the brew a bit of body!

I feel I am on the learning curve. I have pushed cider ABV down to 6% and may have suffered wild lactic fermentation. Tell me what old timers used for control rules.

 

[Unconventional Grower]

I was reading a book by Ian Ball (Wine Making With Herbs). In his book he wrote, “Refined sugar cane and sugar beet, familiar to us as processed household granulated sugar is not desirable in traditional natural herb wine.” He went on suggesting using blends of pure juices, honey, fresh or dried fruits as replacements as they would complement the principal herb ingredient. Does anyone has any thoughts on this?

All replies are valid and excellent. What you need to do (corney as it sounds) is look within and follow your heart. If your style of wine making leans a certain way then play and follow your thoughts. I make wine out of my own grapes. I press them for the juice to make my wines and use to throw the skins away. Then I came across Faux-vin and I have experimented for the last five years and have developed recipes that use the grape skins and create complexity by adding other fruits for depth and character. Most importantly I generally use table sugar as it is neutral in flavor and add my character by adding other fruits, herbs and spices. I utilize things like honey when I make my Pear Sherry for the character it adds to the mix. So follow your heart........ Okay and enjoy! An experiment is always a way to learn what you want.