Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption
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jema
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Bottle by Bottle variation in wineWe had an Elderberry last night, and unlike the other bottles in the batch it lacked "depth", I feeling a little hungover, as we just had to open another, which was much better.
Quite surprised at this variation from the same fermenter.
jema
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sean
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Are you using real corks?
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jema
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They are some waxed no soak needed type.
jema
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sean
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Interesting, your description is a text-book one of cork taint. A small amount of TCA in/on the cork is not enough to make it 'corked' in the full-blown stinky sense, but will strip out the fruit flavours, leaving the wine thin and lifeless tasting. 
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sean
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Interesting, your description is a text-book one of cork taint. A small amount of TCA in/on the cork is not enough to make it 'corked' in the full-blown stinky sense, but will strip out the fruit flavours, leaving the wine thin and lifeless tasting.
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jema
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Guess I need to be stricter about steralising the corks.
jema
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jema
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Reading a bit more, does not sound like this would help.
jema
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cab
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Yeah, that kind of does sound corky, but that isn't the only way a wine can flatten out in such a way.
However hard you try to clean and sterilise a wine, sometimes you'll just get some contamination in there that'll ruin it. And it isn't just that, sometimes a cork will just be a bit too 'leaky', and the wine will get over-matured, kind of mildly oxidised like a wine that's been opened for four days.
The way to mimimise this kind of thing happening is just to be very, very careful (one of the reasons I like gallon batches rather than big batchers, I feel I can be more attentive to each bottle if I'm bottling them two batches at a time). Make sure the corks are sound with no obvious deep cracks, be damned sure about cleanliness, and only bottle when the wine is 'good and done', with all the sediment out of it that seems likely to come. Bulk maturation really
helps flatten out bottle variation.
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jema
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we have a bit of production line, bottles being soaked in the steralising solution, about 6 in a bucket at a time, and being passed to the rinser for a double rinse out.
It does make me try to think of better ways of doing it.
jema
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cab
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| jema wrote: | we have a bit of production line, bottles being soaked in the steralising solution, about 6 in a bucket at a time, and being passed to the rinser for a double rinse out.
It does make me try to think of better ways of doing it.
jema |
Personally, I rinde my bottles in sulfite solution and then bottle; I don't rinse out the residue. I think that doing so increases the chance of spoilage.
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jema
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| Cab wrote: | | jema wrote: | we have a bit of production line, bottles being soaked in the steralising solution, about 6 in a bucket at a time, and being passed to the rinser for a double rinse out.
It does make me try to think of better ways of doing it.
jema |
Personally, I rinde my bottles in sulfite solution and then bottle; I don't rinse out the residue. I think that doing so increases the chance of spoilage. |
I worry about a chemical taste occurring?
jema
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cab
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| jema wrote: |
I worry about a chemical taste occurring?
jema |
I don't. The sulfite solution I'm using (campden tablets in water) will leave a residue on the surface of the bottles, but it's not going to leave a greater concentration than obtained by adding a campden tablet to a gallon of wine.
1 campden tablet in a gallon = 1/6 tablet in a bottle.
5 campden tablets in half a pint of water, rinsed through a bottle, will leave a residue around the outside. Said residue is, say, 1ml. So that's, say, 1/250th of 5 campden tablets, or 1/50th of a tablet.
I don't worry about it.
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jema
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| Cab wrote: | | jema wrote: |
I worry about a chemical taste occurring?
jema |
I don't. The sulfite solution I'm using (campden tablets in water) will leave a residue on the surface of the bottles, but it's not going to leave a greater concentration than obtained by adding a campden tablet to a gallon of wine.
1 campden tablet in a gallon = 1/6 tablet in a bottle.
5 campden tablets in half a pint of water, rinsed through a bottle, will leave a residue around the outside. Said residue is, say, 1ml. So that's, say, 1/250th of 5 campden tablets, or 1/50th of a tablet.
I don't worry about it. |
 well that will save me some work then!
jema
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