When making wine at home, the usual expression that is used to describe this is “home winemaking.” When making beer, folks will often refer to “home brewing.” In actual fact, “brewing” technically speaking refers to steeping something with heat. Think of “brewing a cup of tea.” Recently, I’ve seen some websites refer to making wine as “wine brewing.”

When folks make beer at home using a simple beer kit containing malt extract and yeast, and no heating is required, it’s not really a “home brew.” The brewing has already been done and all the home beer maker needs to do is add water to the malt extract. When a home beer maker purchases all the necessary ingredients, whether it is a kit form or not, and is required to heat any of the ingredients like the hops and barley, then technically that person is “brewing” beer.

Winemaking is often referred to as “vinting.” Therefore, a home winemaker is a home vintner.

Not that I’m fussy about technical labels, but it does seem weird to me to see making wine referred to as “wine brewing.”

From looking at my referrer logs and some of the questions on other website forums and blogs, there seems to be a good deal of interest in the use of potassium sorbate in home winemaking. Some of the answers I’ve seen to the questions show that there is a lack of understanding about what exactly potassium sorbate does, and when it is required.

For example, one “expert” recently responded to a question about potassium sorbate, suggesting it was necessary to add it to all wine to prevent a malolactic fermentation in the future. At a reasonable rate of addition to keep yeast from reproducing and starting a new yeast fermentation, it is still possible for lactic acid to reproduce and renew a malocatic fermentation. Indeed, winemakers are warned to not add potassium sorbate to wines that have had a malolactic fermentation in case the lactic acid bacteria become active again. Wines that have been sorbated and then undergo malolactic fermentation will end up with a very unpleasant geranium smell.

When I first began learning about how to make wine at home, I had the mistaken impression that potassium sorbate killed yeast. This is what some of the literature says or implies. However, this is simply not true. What it does do is inhibit yeast reproduction.

With this in mind, we can better understand when potassium sorbate is required and when it is not.

However, if you are new to winemaking and are following instructions of a recipe or a wine kit, and it says to add potassium sorbate to your wine, I would recommend that you do so until you have more experience and know for sure that your wine has fully fermented to dryness. Ignore for now the rest of what I’m going to write, and follow the instructions to the letter. I do not want you to have corks exploding out of the bottles due to a renewed fermentation going on after you’ve bottled your wine! Neither do the makers of the wine kits, and they don’t know for sure that you’re going to ensure your wine ferments fully, or that you know how to read a hydrometer, or that other issues might arise during the fermentation process causing the wine to not ferment fully and have just about all of the sugar consumed. That is why they instruct you to add potassium sorbate.

Having said that, what is the argument against using potassium sorbate when it is not needed? Some people claim that it can leave a “bubblegum” taste – sometimes referred to as a “wine kit” taste. I personally have never detected this, and scientific literature suggests that potassium sorbate is taste neutral. Even if it is taste neutral, I’d prefer to add as few additives as possible, so if it’s not necessary or the risk is very low, I don’t add them.

So now that we know what potassium sorbate does, when is it required and when may it be omitted?

First, it is not required when fermentation has been complete, ie. it has fermented fully dry with only a trace or zero amount of residual sugar. As long as there will be no back sweetening, there is nothing in the wine for the yeast to begin consuming to turn into alcohol and carbon dioxide. So even if there are still some viable yeast cells, they can’t do anything as far as starting up a renewed fermentation goes.

You SHOULD add potassium sorbate when:

1. You’re new to home winemaking, and you’re following instructions.
2. You’re wine is off-dry to sweet which means there is more than a trace amount of residual sugar.
3. You’ve fermented your wine dry, but you are going to sweeten it with a sugar based sweetener before bottling. This includes honey as a sweetener as well.
4. If you’re unsure.

You should also consider that potassium sorbate works better with the addition of sulfite.

For advanced winemaking, the higher the alcohol content, the lower the amount of potassium sorbate that is needed to inhibit yeast activity. In other words, if you add the amount of sorbate that comes with your wine kit accidentally before you add the yeast and ferment it, there is still a very good chance the yeast will not be affected much by that amount of sorbate and will probably reproduce and ferment your juice into wine. Of course, it’s best to try not to have accidents in the first place. But I did read recently the account of a winemaker who thought he had ruined his wine kit by accidentally putting sorbate into the juice instead of yeast. The faulty advice given to him was that his kit was ruined – however, it was not ruined and when he added yeast, they did their job fine.

The British Columbia Amateur Winemakers Association has published an article by Bill Collings which states:

“Assuming that proper levels of free SO2 are maintained and the pH’s are within the desired ranges, sorbate additions can be determined by the estimated alcohol of the wine. The following table is based upon the percentage of alcohol in the wine:”

% alcohol sorbate addition
10 0.20 g/l
11 0.17 g/l
12 0.135 g/l
13 0.10 g/l
14 0.07 g/l

Source: Potassium Sorbate

For those making non-kit wines, this is a handy guideline to have when the addition of potassium sorbate is required.

There are a few things about making my own wine I don’t like: Cleaning and sanitizing bottles, trying to figure out where I’m going to store carboys not in use along with wines I’ve just bottled, and being disappointed about something.

Today, I’m disappointed. Very very disappointed. Hey, when you’re a home winemaker, it can happen. You put a lot of time and effort into trying something – wait two or three years, and with much anticipation – you sniff the aromas and put the liquid to your mouth. Will it be as good as you hoped? Was the patience of waiting worth it?

How about this one? “I didn’t make enough!”

Back in 2006, I went to the grocery store and bought a bunch of Kiwi fruit. About nine pounds. Then I followed this recipe. Except, I stopped racking after a year and just let it age in the carboy for another 2 years and 4 months. I bottled it the other day into 375 ml bottles. Last evening, I put a few of those bottles into the fridge to chill. Then I opened one. I smelled. I tasted. I drank. Then another bottle was opened. I tasted. I drank. Then another…

You get the picture.

Heck, even the hangover tastes good. Now, where’s my Milk Thistle?

Oh, I am so disappointed that I only made three gallons. And a few of these bottles are marked already as gifts which leaves me with even less to enjoy over the summer. Kiwi Melomel is something you can enjoy with anything you’d eat that would call for a white wine – but I can also see myself sipping this on a hot day while sitting out in the sun.

I’m off to buy about 40 pounds of kiwi fruit (thankfully, there are three grocery stores in my town. Not sure what they would think of me at Zehr’s buying up ever last Kiwi they have in stock). I’ve got enough honey to do make two five gallon batches. If you enjoy home winemaking, and are thinking about trying some meads – seriously give Kiwi melomel lots of consideration. Tell your friends when you offer it to them that I told you to try it. Your friends will thank me.

We didn’t see fireworks, but we got a lot of “home winemaking” accomplished, the “wee man” and I. Here in Canada, it is the “May 2-4″ long weekend where the Monday before or on the 24th of May is a holiday to celebrate the Queen’s birthday. It’s not really Queen Elizabeth II’s birthday, but rather Queen Victoria’s day of birth. Traditionally, the holiday is celebrated with fireworks in the evening, and in the past, the Town has had a fireworks display about ten minute drive. Tonight, we drove up there but there was nothing. Many were confused about this year’s May 2-4 long weekend because it came so early. Some were thinking that it was next week that the holiday weekend landed on.

Perhaps the Town was confused too. Or maybe the recession cut into celebrating Her Majesty’s birthday this year. Regardless, the “wee man” David and I did not see fireworks this evening.

When I first learned how to make wine, the wee man wasn’t around. But ever since he could walk, he’s been trying to help me. If you check out this post over here, you’ll see photos of him, taken almost 4 years ago. He and I had a little “adventure” together, driving down from Orangeville to Beamsville, Ontario, when I picked up some Baco Noir must from a vineyard. Back then, he called grapes, “wine juice berries.” He was cute and a great little fellow back then. Today, he’s still cute and a great little fellow.

I decided to get the Dry Mead I had started in 2006 bottled today. That meant cleaning and sanitizing bottles, of course. I think David might grow up to be a home winemaking expert – he sure seems to enjoy sharing in all the tasks that need to be done. “Can I help make wine, Dad?” He doesn’t call me “Daddy” anymore. It’s “Dad.” He’s grown up, don’t you know!

I had about 30 bottles soaking to get old labels off, and then I sanitize and clean them using the water pressure thingamajigger that screws onto a faucet. And I have my sulphatizer beside it on the counter. The bottle tree is a few steps away, so David and I have a little routine. I clean and sanitize the bottles, hand two to David, and he puts them on the tree so they will drain and dry.

When the bottles are (mostly) dry, he helps bring them out to the kitchen where we line them up on the floor. While this, and the bottle sanitizing is going on, David is singing about “teamwork.”

It’s his job to count the bottles to make sure we have enough. As I fill the bottles, he colours the labels that get printed off. When the bottles are filled, he washes his hands and inserts the cork into the floor corker – always a step ahead of me – and I cork the bottles. We get things done in no time! Then it’s time to glue on the labels, and we’ve got a “teamwork” routine for that too.

Personally, I find the home winemaking task of cleaning bottles to be the least enjoyable part – but when I’ve got a helpful wee man helping me out, it does become a lot of fun!

Naturally, at 6 1/2 years old, there are other things he’d like to do including kicking soccer balls and learning how to dribble basketballs. So, we did take a little break and spent some time in the sunshine doing that together. And then he left me to my own devices to bottle the Kiwi Melomel that I started January 2, 2006. I had made three gallons and decided to bottle them into 375 ml bottles. It’s delightful! Although I think next time, I might add a bit more acid blend to it.

The only short size corks I had on hand were some synthetic corks distributed by Vineco. I don’t like them. I had three of them bend on me when trying to cork bottles, a few went far to deep into the bottle just because they slide that way, and well.. I don’t like them. But it’s what I had this evening. Ah well!

I have some work to do tomorrow, carrying cartons of mead to the basement. I know David will want to help with that too! I bet in about 20 years, I’ll be getting a phone call, “Dad! Come try this Kiwi Melomel I’ve been aging for three years!”

Yeast selection – some say it makes a difference in the final taste, while others who have years experience of home winemaking claim it does not – at least not noticeable after a few years, to the average home winemaker. John Iverson once wrote:

“Much has been written about the different flavor characteristics that various strains of yeasts impart. Differences undoubtedly exist immediately after fermentation, and they matter greatly to a commercial winery not wanting to tie up its fermentation capacity too long and wanting its wines to be marketable as soon as possible. But the differences are minor from the home winemaker’s viewpoint.”

Well, I have an interesting observation about mead and yeast selection that goes beyond taste. In January of 2007, I started two different batches of mead, using the same recipe. Same amount of honey (the honey came from the same pail too) and same water. The only difference was that in one, I used Lalvin EC-1118 yeast while in the other, I used a vial of “Sweet Mead Yeast” (#WLP720), the liquid yeast from White Labs.

After racking them both several times, they have been bulk aging in the carboy. I was thinking of bottling them today. I haven’t really paid much attention to either one in about 18 months other than ensuring the airlocks are correctly filled with water.

Today, here are the differences:

Color:
The mead fermented with the Lalvin EC-1118 is several shades darker than the one fermented with the liquid sweet mead yeast. I have no idea what would have caused this darker shade. It’s not as noticeable in the glass, but is very noticeable in the carboy. There was some sediment on the bottom of both carboys, and the color of the sediment was considerably different, with the liquid yeast mead a light beige colour. The sediment in the other carboy was a dark brown colour.

Specific Gravity:
As I expected, the sweet mead yeast finished off higher at 1.001 while the mead fermented with Lalvin EC-1118 finished at 0.998. I thought it might even go a bit lower than that.

Flavor:
It’s hard to describe the flavor of either of them at this point – I’ll have to think more about it and see what I think I’m tasting. But, the flavor of the drier mead is definitely more complex with more mouth feel too. The sweeter mead is pleasant – but not as intriguing, if you know what I mean.

Alcohol:
Using my “vinometer,” which is not the most accurate way of determining ABV (how I’d love to own an Ebulliometer!), the dry mead is 14% while the other is 11%. That may be pretty close – the starting SG of both was about 1.110.

Thoughts:

I expected there would be some differences in the taste and aromas, but was not expecting the very noticeable difference in colour. I’m not certain it’s due to the yeast – perhaps someone else might postulate some theory or explanation?

A couple of years ago, I checked out “Twitter” but didn’t see much use for it. I couldn’t figure it out either. So almost as fast as I registered my account, I removed it. But I see that Jack Keller is now twittering and maybe he’ll twitter about his home winemaking activities so I thought I’d try the tweet and twit thing again.

So far, I’m following about 6 other winemakers. If you’re on Twitter and would like to follow along yourself, my username there is ‘ianhughscott’. I’ll probably reciprocate if you decide to follow. At the same time, I’m not sure how much time I’ll spend “twittering” about whatever I’m doing at any given time.

If I do spend some time, I’ll probably tweet or twit or twattle (whatever the lingo is) about other activities including fly fishing, camping, outings with my awesome 6 1/2 year old son who recently lost both of his baby front teeth and trips to Alberta. Hopefully you won’t find it boring if you decide to follow along.

As soon as I’ve posted this, perhaps I’ll tweetle about cleaning bottles – I’m thinking today will be a good day to bottle up some mead. And happy tweeting, twittering, and tattling to you too!

I’ve mused and written about trying to make Maple Wine at home. About a week ago, I mentioned that I had managed to get 1 Imperial gallon of dark maple syrup – the cost was $45.00 Canadian, and made locally here in South Western Ontario. It was fresh! Made just this past spring. But I was wondering what I would do with it to turn it into wine.

I basically followed John Gorman’s recipe – just added water to the gallon of syrup. But I made a mathematical error and added a touch too much water for the beginning specific gravity target that Gorman suggested: 1.120 to 1.130. My beginning specific gravity was lower – and I can’t believe I forgot to record it in my log book. But I did forget. But it was around 1.080, I do believe.

Basically, I poured the maple syrup into a primary fermenter, then added water to bring the level up to the 13 litre mark. I should have stopped at 12 litres. I then pitched EC-1118 yeast after I had rehydrated it along with 2 1/2 teaspoons of yeast nutrient. It’s been fermenting in the primary for the past week.

Today, the SG was at 1.016, and I racked it into a 3 gallon carboy. It’s a golden brown colour, and has strong aroma of maple syrup. Of course. I’m looking forward to seeing how this turns out. I’ll be sure to let you know!

Not only those who enjoy home winemaking, but even commercial wineries often debate the pros and cons of a variety of closures for wine bottles. Of course, cork has been traditionally used but today, there are a wide variety of closures available including synthetic, screw cap and now even ones made from glass by Vino-Lok. What’s the argument against cork? Mostly it’s been because of wines ruined by something called “cork taint,” usually referred to as the presence of TCA. Many believe that cork closures and how they are made and processed are a major contributor to TCA in wine.

But of course, there is even debate on this.

One of the arguments against non-cork closures is the belief that cork breathes while screw caps, synthetics, and of course glass, do not. The very slow transfer of small amounts of air through the cork closure is often cited as one of the ways wine ages – and why over time, SO2 levels decrease in bottled wine.

But does cork actually breathe? Dr. Richard Grant Petersen, Ph.D has written a two part article which appeared in Appellation America. Dr. Petersen postulates that it is virtually impossible for cork closures to breathe due to the fact that cork cells are 14 sided, and points out that sparkling wines that contain high pressure inside due to carbon dioxide don’t lose carbon dioxide through the cork – so how could air at much lower pressure pass through a cork closure (properly sealed of course) into the wine bottle?

It makes for an interesting article that home winemakers might want to have a look at.

Part 1 – “Please Stop Telling People That Corks Breathe

Part 2 – “Corks Do NOT Breathe”

Home winemaking can be a lot of fun, coming up with wines made with different fruits and vegetables. Some years ago, I made a batch of garlic wine using this recipe here. When I’ve told people about it, the usual first reaction is to hold up their nose and have a quizzical look on their face. “Who’d want to drink garlic wine? What home winemaker would want to even make it?”

Well, I don’t drink it out of a glass. But I did have it with my dinner this evening. I took out a chuck roast out of the freezer – not the most tender of cuts and best cooked with liquid. After it had thawed, I decided to put it in a small roasting pan with a cup of garlic wine and a half cup of water. Into the oven it went at 250F for three hours. The roast turned out very good – and the gravy was wonderful!

After the roast had cooked, I added some oregano to the juice, a bit of salt and some corn starch to thicken it, brought it to a boil and then simmered for several minutes while constantly stirring.

If you’ve ever thought of a “different” kind of homemade wine to make, consider a gallon of garlic wine for cooking with. It does have a wonderful flavor and makes for a good marinade too. Again, here’s the garlic wine recipe.

Won’t get into the details – but an interesting, challenging, and tough week. Thanks to my family who where there for me. It meant a lot. More than I can say.

Hey, did I ever mention that I have an awesome 20 year old son named Alex who is a drummer in a Rock ‘n Roll band? Wise, Young & King is their name, and these guys are “GOOD!” That is, if you like the sounds of classic rock – and WY&K write all their own material. I’m listening to one of my favorite songs right now that has a LOT of meaning to me. I think this song was written especially for me sometimes. Or.. especially for “US.” It’s called “Angels Cry.” You can have a listen to it, along with a few other of their songs, here. Tell me what you think. They are all awesome, but of course, I’m especially proud of that drumming sound….

I was going to provide an update on my earlier Maple Wine that I started. My math must have been wrong, when I was checking the SG and adding water – I’ll write more on that when I go over my notes.

This evening, I discovered I had forgotten to add the Isokleer to the Liebfraumilch. I was wondering why it was still cloudy. This was an inexpensive kit wine that I wanted to make and bottle fairly quickly – six weeks to bottle – so I’d have some available for a special event that is/was to occur next weekend. Things are up in the air – we’ll see. Maybe. I don’t know.

I am still undecided as to how I will proceed with the “Special Wine” I’ve been carefully making and taking care of. Trying to decide when I will blend them together to age – or let them age as they are now, and blend later.

I always wished things could be perfect – even though I’m a realist and don’t expect it – but striving for it is good, no? Trying? Hoping? Mediocrity is something I’ve never settled for.

Ok.. back to Wise, Young & King!