Wine Stabilizing

Why and what is Stabilizing?
Different yeast strains have different alcohol tolerances, meaning that at some point there is too much alcohol in their environment that the cells start to die due to alcohol toxicity. Once this point is reached it is unlikely that fermentation will start up again (unless a more alcohol tolerant yeast or bacteria is introduced) however, it is possible for some fermentation to continue unless you stabilize your wine. If you want to assure that no corks start popping out of bottles down the road, or you would like to “back sweeten” your wine, stabilizing is an important step to finishing your wine.

 



What is happening?
Stabilizing consists of two steps; stopping the current fermentation, then preventing further fermentation. This is done with wine additives, starting with a sulfite, usually either sodium or potassium metabisulfite (Campden). This produces sulfur dioxide gas that will kill yeast and bacteria (although a small amount of yeast will go dormant to survive the hostile environment). Use Potassium Sorbate in conjunction with Campden. Sorbate will work better with sulfites present, and the combination works better than sulfites alone. Sorbate will stop the reproductive cycle of yeast, so any cells that may have survived both the alcohol and the sulfur dioxide have no real chance of fermenting anything.

How to do it:
Crush 1 Campden tablet along with ½ teaspoon of Sorbate, per gallon of wine, and stir up into roughly a cup of warm water or your wine. Make sure any clumps are dissolved and then add cup to your batch of wine. Stir in well. You can now sweeten to taste and bottle, or wait a week or two to allow any of the dead and dying yeast to fall out of suspension. This will make for a clearer wine in your bottle.

Back Sweetening:
Sweetening your wine to taste, or “back sweetening / back blending” is the process of adding juice or sugar back into your wine to give it more pronounced flavor, body, sweetness, or all three. Since many wine yeasts will eat enough sugar to “dry” out your beverage, you may want to add back to it. You can only do this if you stabilize first. Table sugar is common, but it is recommended to use whatever you fermented (strawberry juice for strawberry wine, grape juice for grape wine, apple juice for apple wine or cider, honey for mead, etc.) This will be to taste, so it is hard to give an amount. It is whatever YOU think tastes good. Just add a little bit to your stabilized batch of wine, taste, and repeat till you get it right. White grape juice or apple juice can be used as an all purpose sweetener and is recommended in most cases over table sugar.

Carbonating stabilized wine:
Because active, live yeast is necessary to bottle condition (carbonate naturally), once you have stabilized your wine, cider, or mead you can no longer carbonate unless you keg and force carbonate with CO2.

Next, how dry/sweet do you want it? 
The commonly accepted final gravities for each level of dry/sweetness are:
Dry:   0.990 – 1.006
Medium: 1.006 – 1.015
Sweet:  1.012 – 1.020

DIY1G

 



Do It Yourself projects are growing in popularity, partly because people are getting a little tired of mass produced homogenized products that appeal to a mass market, and partly because it feels good to... well, so something yourself. With a very long standing history home brewing may arguably be the first DIY home project, but it is now being drowned out by the recent movement to do things yourself. So how do we help people start into the rewarding hobby of home brewing? Make it simple.

While there is a trend in 1 gallon beer kits, we at Salt City Brew Supply didn't want to limit people to just beer or just wine or even just alcohol for that matter. We decided to put together equipment that would span the needs of all fermenting into a small one gallon kit.

Maybe your just realized that you can actually make alcohol from all the fruit or vegetables in your yard, or maybe you even already brew beer or wine at home but want to try something new, like Mead or even Sauerkraut. Our new DIY1G kits let you test out whatever it is you would like to make, then adjust it till you get it just how you want it. We have Beer Recipes along with Mead and Cider, and we will soon add Fruit Wine, Vegetable Wine, Kavas, and Sauerkraut Recipes, with things like Kombucha and Kimchi down the road.

We will be supplying these kits to small stores around town who share a love for DIY projects, and already have a presence at the Wasatch Front Farmers Market Store and the Honey Stop, but we are planning to grow, so keep your eyes open.

Hydrometer Readings

When you are brewing beer, wine, mead, cider, or anything else with alcohol a hydrometer is as close to a necessity as you can get. Sure, we have all brewed a batch or two without one, just waited till the airlock stopped bubbling, then waited a little longer, but this is not ideal. Without reading your specific gravity, you can't really be sure that your beverage has fermented all the way, and you wont be able to tell what your alcohol level is. A hydrometer is the least expensive way to read your specific gravity. 

 

Specific gravity is a measurement that shows you the density of your liquid. The illustration below demonstrates how to read your hydrometer. Fill the container it came in, or a test jar with the liquid you would like to measure (at room temperature). The Hydrometer will float in the liquid. Read the number at the top of the liquid. Surface tension will try an pull up on the liquid touching the glass, but make sure you read the number where the liquid would be if it were a perfectly flat surface. The diagram to the right is illustrating a Specific Gravity of 1.046, which could be the Original Gravity (density before fermentation) of a 4.6% ABV beer.

Brewing Jargon
We home brewers refer to a gravity of 1.010 as "ten ten", and 1.020 as "ten twenty, and so on.

As a rule of thumb

<1.010 = Very Dry finished beverage

  1.010 = Common F.G. for finished beverages. Well fermented, slightly dry finish.

  1.011 - 1.020 = Still OK. Finishing a little sweet.

  1.021 - 1.030 = Super sweet. Possible stuck fermentation.

 

Alcohol Content

Take your O.G. and Subtract your F.G (1.045 - 1.010 = 0.035)

For Alcohol by Weight "ABW" Multiply by 105 (0.035 x 105 = 3.68% ABW)

For Alcohol by Volume "ABV" Multiply your "ABW" by 1.25 (3.68 x 1.25 = 4.6% ABV)

 

For a quick gauge of ABV just take the last two digits of your OG and move the decimal. In the above example you started with 1.045, this is approximately a 4.5% beverage.

Stuck Fermentation
If you have determined that your Starting Gravity should be at 1.050 and your Final Gravity should be at a 1.010 but your airlock has stopped bubbling for a  week or more and you have only fermented down to 1.030 you probably have a stuck fermentation. Here are some trouble shooting tips:
1: Make sure your beer/wine temp is between 65 and 75 degrees. If it is on the lower end, try and move it somewhere warmer and see if fermentation starts up again.
2: Try some yeast energizer. It is possible that the yeast has only consumed the simple sugars in your beer or wine and need some help getting to the harder stuff, energizer has essential nutrients to help get them going again.
3: Try re-pitching yeast. Yeast can fall out of suspension before they are really done working, some strains are more likely to do this than others, but any of them can do this. Putting the same yeast you started with can be a good way to start fermenting again, or using a highly attenuate neutral yeast like champagne will definitely eat left over sugars, but could leave your beer a bit more dry that you wanted 

 

 

 

 

 

Citra Pale Ale Partial Mash Kit

What better way to celebrate Independence Day than brewing this American Pale Ale. It is our first pre-made partial mash kit on the shelf, but has been one of our most popular recipes for some time. Light and refreshing with bright citrus flavor from Citra hops, it is a great way to beat the heat this summer.

Try adding some Citra leaf hops to your secondary fermenter for 7 days. This will give this already bright beer a citrus/malty aroma that is refreshing all on its own.