Wine Additives

In many ways wine is easier to make than beer, but all of the additives can get confusing.  In a culture pushing towards preservative free foods and beverages, it is easy to be turned off by the word additives, but almost all of these items, with the exception of many of the clarifying agents, are naturally produced in wine to some degree. The home winemaker just needs to use them in a way to help them control the outcome of their wine and to keep it fresh and palatable over a long period of time... something that humans have been doing since ancient Greece. Here is a list of items to help you make your next batch of wine.

Preservatives

Kills unwanted bacteria and helps to protect your wine from oxidation. Used by the home wine maker to inhibit bacterial growth, stop fermentation at a desired point and even for sanitation, these are important chemicals, and while sulfides are also naturally occurring in wine, some people do have sulfite allergies.

Campden (potassium metabisulfite): Forms sulfur dioxide gas prevents microorganism growth and acts as an antioxidant.

Sodium Metabisulfite: Acts in the same way as Potassium metabisulfite, but adds sodium, which some people try to avoid in their diet. Tannin: This naturally occurring preservative is found in many plant materials including parts of the grape itself. Tannins lend a sharp bitterness that helps balance the sweetness from the grape juice and enriches the body.

Stabilizers

Sorbate: Although not a sulfite, it goes hand in hand. Sorbate is used to inhibit future cell growth and multiplication, but when Sorbate is used a sulfite needs to be added also, not only to kill current yeast/bacteria cells, but to prevent a compound called geraniol from forming which can give you off flavors and aromas.

Dimethyl Dicarbonate: The application of DMDC is particularly useful when wine needs to be sterilized but cannot be sterile filtered, pasteurized, or sulfured

Yeast Nutrient and Energizer

Diammonium Phosphate: A major element in most yeast nutrient mixtures:

Energizer: Vitamin mixture, almost pure vitamin B, Which is also found in yeast nutrients.

Enzymes

Used to break down fruit cell walls to increase juice production and clarify.

Pectic Enzymes: Used mainly in home wine making to clarify by removing pectin haze.

lysozyme: Slight flavor modification by changing malic acid into lactic acid

Oak

This is an additive in the sense that flavors can be leached out of oak barrels or cubes to add a level of complexity to the wine that it might not have otherwise. Oak Tannins are similar to grape tannin, but can react with people differently.

Oak Essence: To impart oakiness at any stage of production

Fining and Clarifying

These are additives, but they are “added” in an effort to attract unwanted particles from your wine and eventually fall out of suspension, leaving virtually all of the additive behind and out of the bottle. You could call the take-outatives. + indicates positively charged (attracts negative particles). - indicates negatively charged (attracts positive particles)

+ Albumin:  This is one of the proteins found in egg whites, and yes many wineries in Europe still use egg whites to fine wine today, although it is required that the bottle is labeled as such.

+ Casein (potassium caseinate):  Milk byproduct usually used as a substitute for gelatin it can reduce tannins from reds and brown color from whites.

+ Isinglass: - Made from the swim bladders of fish this fining agent is not very aggressive and best used as a final touch to wine that is already fairly clear.

+ Gelatine:  Like Bentonite this animal protein can be used before and after fermentation, This fining agent is popular in clearing out unwanted tannin (negatively charged) from red wines. Gelatine has the potential to create haze in relatively tannin free white wine.

- Bentonite:  Popular in North America this volcanic clay is super absorbent and fall out of suspention well. It can also be used before or after fermentation.

+ Sparkolloid:  Fossilized remains of algae this is a brand of clarifying agent that is a mix of polysaccharides and diatomaceous earth.

- Kieselsol:  Silicon Dioxide works well with positively charged agents and has the benefit of removing bitterness from white wines.

+ Chitosan:  This fining agent is gentle on the character of your wine, but should be used in addition to a negatively charged agent. Chitosan is the structural element of the exoskeleton of crustaceans.

+/- Super Kleer:  Promotes flocculation of suspended proteins & other matter, producing a clearer wine. Kiesosol & Chitosan formulation

Bocksin: Fixes Hydrogen Sulfide problems (rotten egg smell)

Acid Control

Acid helps determines the very nature of the wine itself. Color, flavor, intensity, aroma, and brightness, so controlling acid is critical in wine making, or at least wine recreation. An acid test kit may be used to determine the acidity and usage

+ Increases Acidity (lowers pH)

Tartaric Acid: Sour/Bitter flavor found in many plants, particularly grapes and bananas. High in antioxidants

Malic Acid: Contributes to the sourness of green apples and grapes. Part of an acid blend.

Citric Acid: A natural preservative used to add an acidic taste to foods and soft drinks.

Acid Blend: Combination of citric, malic and tartaric acids used to increase acidity of wine.

Ascorbic (Acid Vitamin C): Has anti-oxidant properties, acting as preservative and helps preserve color in white wines.

Lactic Acid (bacteria): Responsible for the sour flavor of sour milk products and sourdough breads.

-Decreases Acidity (raises pH)

Calcium Carbonate (chalk): Used for acid reduction in wine (raise pH). First reduces tartaric acid, so care in dosage should be taken to prevent complete deduction of tartaric acid. 1/2 ounce in gallon reduces acid by .1 pH unit.

Potassium Bicarbonate: Used for acid reduction in wine. Use at a rate of 2gm/liter for acid reduction. Dissolve in small quantity of wine then add to batch ¾gm/gallon reduces acid by .1pH unit.

Now that it is warming up, it is a good time for homebrewers to try their hand at an old Belgian style beer that gets “better with a little extra heat. Saisons can be a light bodied flavorful ale that is perfect for summertime, but in direct contrast to lagering a beer to smooth it out, Saisons embrace a warm fermentation.

Some History:
Saison is an old world style of beer that has recently received a revival amongst craft brewers and home brewers throughout the world.  A group of beers more than a exact style, Saisons originated in Wallonia, the southern and predominantly French speaking region of Belgium, as a refreshing and nourishing drink for farmhands and seasonal harvest workers (les saisonneirs). Much like an unwanted house guest, farm workers would consume upwards of five liters of this beer per day since the other available water sources were of questionable quality.  Given the volume of consumption, alcohol was only 2-2.5% or less making the beer refreshing which prevented the hired help from getting plastered.  The mechanical revolution took all of the farm jobs and put them into factories, and as a result most all of the rustic farmhouse breweries disappeared, taking with them hundreds of years of brewing tradition. 

What most Saisons have in common is a light golden/orange color, very dry finish, and either a crisp sourness or bitterness (or sometimes both).  The farmhouse breweries would use their own grains, and due to the higher tax rates on malted barley versus other grains, would have certainly used a mixture of barley, oats, rye, wheat, and spelt.  Each brewery had their own unique strain of yeast that was a blend of common brewing yeasts, wild yeast, and other bacteria.  These wild yeasts and bacteria, combined with limited knowledge of sanitation, gave the Saison a distinct dryness and sour flavor reminiscent of other farmhouse style such as Bier de Garde and Gueze. The Saison was fairly generously hopped with local noble hop varieties, which helped preserve the beer during aging. Typically, only generous bittering and aroma additions were made, and it wasn't uncommon to dry hop the finished product. Other spices such as ginger, coriander, peppercorns, and orange peel were commonly used as well. The beer was then aged in oak barrels for four months or as long as several years to give the sourness from the yeast time to blend and balance with the bitterness from the hops. While the versions given to the farmhands were lower in alcohol, export and specialty versions could have alcohol levels from 4-9%

If you want to step out of your comfort zone a bit from the classic ales or lagers you have been brewing at home, give this recipe a try:

Caramunich III 8 oz
Acid Malt          4 oz
Wheat DME     1 lb
Pilsen Light LME 4 lbs
Corn Sugar      1 lb
Kent Golding    1.5 oz (60 min)
Strisslespalt     .5 oz  (20 min)
Strisslespalt     1 oz  (0 min)

Yeast:
Wyeast 3711 French Saison
(Ferment 70-80°F)
Get even hotter:
Wyeast 3724 Belgian Saison
(Ferment 75-95°F)

5 Tricks For Your Next Extract Batch

Just a few things to help out hopefully.

Boil some water while you are steeping:

With stovetop home brewing, much of your time is spent heating up water. A simple trick to cut down some of this time is to use two kettles at the same time. Try doing your 30 minute steep in a smaller pot, since you only need a gallon or so (enough to cover your grain). During the steep (or maybe even before) start bringing your big kettle of water to a boil, making sure to leave some room for the water from your steep. Now you will have water near a boil the instant you are done with your steep saving you some time.

Use one muslin sock for your hops

Many times people will almost instinctually assume that all of their different hop additions will need to be separated in the boil, leaving them to buy a separate small straining (muslin) bag for each hop addition. Muslin bags are pretty inexpensive, but if you are doing a big IPA the cost can start to add up, not to mention the hassle of tying up a bunch of hops in a bunch of different little bags. Next time try just one large muslin bag, and keep the open end out of the pot (wrapped around the handle so it doesn’t slip into the pot). Each time you have to add some hops to the boil, just Keep adding them into the same sock.

Wort Cool Down:

Cooling down your hot wort can take some time and while putting it in an icebath in your sink is a great way to cool it down quickly there is another technique for a quick cool down in the event you are out of ice. If you have ever just put your pot in some cold water in your sink you have undoubtedly found out that all you get is a sink full of hot water in a matter of minutes. Ice helps this, but you can also put a rag or paper towel at the bottom of your sink rather than stopping up the drain completely. A partially stopped up drain  will allow the water to slowly drain, and lets you to simultaneously run cold water from your tap into the sink. Now you have a cold water bath that will continue to transfer heat away from the pot and down the drain.  

Chill Your Top-Off Water:

If you find yourself needing to top off with some water in your fermenter to get to the five gallon mark there are actually some benefits to doing so. In a five gallon pot (20 qt) you usually start your boil at about four gallons and boil down to 3-3.5 gallons leaving you with about two gallons needed to add to your fermenter. Put this water in the fridge (or even the freezer) to get nice and cold. Now you don’t have to wait so long cooling your wort in an ice bath. If you can get two gallons of really cold water into your fermenter it is likely you only need to get your wort down to about 100 degrees. The top off water will bring it down the rest of the way to room temp and you can pitch your yeast. There is an added benefit to this. Pouring in the cold water aggressively will churn up your wort and plenty of oxygen which is essential to a healthy start to fermentation.

Use the sani rinse on your dishwasher:

Lot’s of people complain about the bottling process because you must clean and sanitize dozens of bottles. Washing, rinsing, sanitizing can be a pain, but if you treat them like any other dish you would use at dinner time, you can take out a bunch of the hassle. First, treat them like a dish; when you are done with a beer, rinse out the bottle and make sure you get all the yeast sediment at the bottom, then put it in the dishwasher with the rest of you dishes. Then just put your clean bottle away in your bottle box to use again some day. When bottling day arrives, put all your cleaned bottles in your dishwasher and set it to sanitize (most newer washers have this setting). Use a little bit of Oxy based cleanser, like PBW or OneStep and you will have a couple of racks full of sanitized bottles ready to use for bottling.

Top 12 Mistakes New Home Brewers Make

Here are a dozen things that can help the new home brewer when starting out. These are common issues that can easily be avoided and help make a better beer.

12. Using 5 ounces priming sugar

Your Local Home Brew Store (LHBS) will often sell pre packaged priming sugar for bottling, which is just what you want for a five gallon batch for most beers (1oz/gallon). However, many batches of beer may start as five gallons, but after transferring the beer off the yeast cake, evaporation, samples you take, and any spills that may happen, the final bottling volume of beer may be considerably less than this. If the full 5oz of priming sugar is used, this can create an overly carbonated bottle of beer that could potentially just spew out foam when opened or poured.

11. Relying on Airlock / Not waiting long enough Getting excited about your first few batches of beer is common, but moving them along too quickly in the process can be a mistake. Getting anxious to bottle your beer before it has fully fermented can result in blown bottles down the road. Relying on just the airlock as an indicator that your beer is done and ready to be bottled is a common mistake. Even after your airlock has stopped is it a good idea to let you beer age for a while. The extra time won’t hurt it. The only way to truly tell that your beer has stopped fermenting is by taking a hydrometer reading a couple days apart to make sure the specific gravity is not changing.

10. Squeezing the bag after steeping Steeping grain is something you can do to greatly improve an extract only beer. Most ingredient kits are built with a healthy amount of steeping grain and a muslin bag (sock) to hold it all (1-3 pounds). After steeping the bag of grain in some warm water you should pull it out and discard it. However, it is a natural tendency to want to squeeze this bag of grainy goodness to get all the sweet liquid from it, but this is not a good idea. There is a bitterness (and not the good kind you get from hops) that reside in the barley husk, that can be very noticeable in your final beer.

9.Starting with a complicated beer

It is true, that for many beers the brewing process is very similar, but as a beginner it is easy to get excited and want to go for a complex and high alcohol beer such as an Imperial Stout, Belgian Tripel or Double IPA. These beers can have extra steps or ingredients, or just a bunch of hop additions to keep track of, but the biggest reason not to start with one is time. Big beers need time to age properly and you don’t want to wait 3-6 months to find out you did something wrong. Worse, if you only have one equipment kit, you will be taking up space in your secondary fermenter for three months and not brewing more beer. Start with some beers that will be done in a month or so, if for no other reason than to fill the fridge before you start aging your 10% monster brew.

8. Not following the recipe/Just following the recipe/worrying too much

Some people get stuck doing exactly what the instructions say which leads to some anxiety when the inevitable problem/situation happens that forces them off that course. Others throw caution to the wind and start adding a bunch of extras like 50% more extract or hops than the recipe calls for. Both of these extremes will produce beer, but brewing should both be fun and produce good beer. Getting too worked up about getting everything just right can reduce the amount of fun you have while you are getting into a new hobby, and throwing your beer out of any recognizable style can possibly make the beer something you don’t want to drink. So don’t worry while you are brewing your first beer, just have fun while trying to brew a recipe that is tried and true so you can enjoy the fruits of your labor.

7. Not removing brew pot from heat

You will probably have a boil-over eventually, but there is a really easy way to help keep this from happening. If you remove your kettle from the heat source before you add your extract the slower thermal change will help keep this from happening (at least less violently). There is also the added benefit of not scorching your Liquid Extact as you add it, since there won’t be a direct heat source on it as sits on the bottom of the pot before you get it stirred up and in solution.

6. Not aerating the wort adequately

To make it simple, your yeast needs only a couple of things to sustain a healthy start to fermentation; sugar and oxygen. The only time you should intentionally add Oxygen to your beer is when you are adding (pitching) your yeast. Feel free to shake, aggressively pour, or slosh your wort (unfermented beer) at this point in time, as this will introduce the Oxygen that your yeast needs to reproduce at a healthy rate.

5. Wrong temps

Temperature control is what making beer is all about. It is a little less critical in an extract/grain kit, but controlling the temperature at every stage of brewing is what leads to consistent results and minimal off flavors. Just as a rule of thumb for ales; 155°F (Steeping), Aggressive boil, 70°F (pitching yeast), then 60-70°F (fermentation).

4. Not keeping records

This might not seem as important as some of the other things, but if you don’t keep notes of - what you used in your recipe, how much yeast you added, and what temperature you fermented at and for how long, you could find yourself wishing that you had down the road. These are just some of the notes you need to record per batch so you can dial in your recipe for the best beer the world has ever seen, make the same beer over again... or heaven forbid, help you sort out what went wrong.

3. Chlorine

Many municipal water supplies have a good water profile for making beer. Hard water can be good for some beers, soft can be good for others, but chlorine (or the more stubborn form, chloramine) is not good for any beer. Depending on the amount you get in your finished beer it can lead to a plastic or even band-aid taste, which can be very unpleasant. Using fresh spring water is ideal, but you can also treat your water with campden (metabisulfite) to help the chlorine “gas-out”. Just one campden tablet can treat up to 20 gallons of water.

2. Incorrect pitch rate

Adding yeast to your cooled down wort (pitching) is pretty straightforward, but adding the correct amount is a really easy way to reduce “off flavors”, and unfortunately this is commonly overlooked by the home brewer. There are benefits to having a quick start to your fermentation, and adding correct amount of yeast cells to your batch can make that happen. Your LHBS can give you the long explanation on how to calculate the correct pitch rate, but for a 5 gallon batch of beer over 5% alcohol, you will benefit from either one packet of dry yeast, or two packs (or vials) of liquid yeast. You will need even more than this for even higher alcohol beers, or any lagers.

1. Cleanser vs Sanitizer

Back in the old days of the 1990s and earlier, home brewers would use soap to clean and either iodine or bleach to sanitize, but this combination was hard to deal with and replaced worrying about bacteria to worrying about off flavors from soaps and chemicals. These days home brewers have access to products made specifically for their hobby, but starting out you may get these items confused.  First use a cleanser to clean any organic matter from your equipment such as One Step, or PBW (both brands are cleansers designed for brewing). These products contain what is essentially dry hydrogen peroxide and while some people even use them as sanitizers, they tend to leave a film so rinsing is recommended, and once you rinse something, you are assuming the water you used for rinsing is free of microorganisms. This is where sanitizer comes in. Products like StarSan and iodophor are no rinse sanitizers that will not harm your beer. However, you can’t sanitize something if it isn’t first cleaned, so clean  with a cleanser then sanitize with a sanitizer, and you will greatly minimize the potential for a ruined beer. Some may call this over kill, but it is a small price to pay to avoid dumping 5 gallons of precious beer down the drain.

Yeast Starter

Putting the correct amount of yeast in your beer can be one of the easiest ways to eliminate off-flavors. However, it is probably one of the most common oversights by the home brewer. Most people like the variety available in liquid yeast, and feel like it is a better product than the dry counter part, but the fact is, the large Wyeast pack and the standard Whitelabs vial, contain about half the necessary yeast for clean start to fermentation for a 5%, 5 gallon batch of ale. Using dry yeast has twice as many yeast cells for nearly half the price, but dry is limited to just a few strains. Doing a yeast starter is a great way to use liquid yeast correctly, but many beginners are intimidated by them. Salt City Brew Supply has created a helpful infographic to help understand yeast a little bit more, with simple instructions on how to do a yeast starter. You just need 24hrs, some yeast, dry malt extract, water and a container. Hopefully demystifying the Starter will be an easy way to increase the quality of your home brew.   

Home Brewing Equipment - Beer!

So you have decided to start home brewing beer. You have tried a friend’s home brew, got some stuff as a gift, or you have just been a big fan of craft brew and want to give brewing a shot for yourself. How do you get started? Well, you need some equipment.

Home beer brewing is typically geared toward 5 gallon batches, which makes about 2 cases (24 12oz bottles) of beer. While there are other products found in big box retail stores that provide good alternatives and are an easy way to get started, such as Mr Beer 2.5 gallon extract kits, or Brooklyn Brew’s all grain 1 gallon kits, it is not that much more expensive to get a basic 5 gallon home brew kit. The advantage is not only do you get more to drink, but that you have the basic equipment to fully immerse yourself in the hobby if you decide to. You will continue to use the 5 gallon equipment even if you start to upgrade your system down the road. Here are the recommended pieces of equipment you will NEED to get started, all of which can be found at your Local Home Brew Store (LHBS).

A primary fermenting vessel (with airlock) - This just needs to be a food grade container with a volume of 6 gallons or better that you can seal. The airlock will let gas out and keep oxygen from coming in. Most commonly used are glass or plastic carboys, or plastic buckets. There are pros and cons to both options, but both work great.

A kettle (big pot) - You can start by borrowing your mom’s stock pot, either Aluminum or Stainless steel, but she probably wont have a 7 gallon pot for a full 5 gallon boil. This is OK, 4 gallons or bigger will do for starters and will allow you to boil 2.5 gallons, you will just add water later in the process to get to the 5 gallons.

A siphon hose - You need to be able to move your beer around without pouring, so a length of tubing will due for siphoning. 5/16” hose is common, and can be used if you upgrade other items such as an Auto Syphon down the road.

Bottling bucket - If you would like to put the fizz in your bottles you need to “prime” it with just a little more sugar before bottling it. A bottling bucket will allow you to add the extra sugar to your beer that will provide the carbonation once bottled.

Bottles, Caps, and a Capper - Putting your beer in something when it is done is the last step before drinking, and while a pressurized keg system is very nice, it is quite a bit more expensive than bottles.

Cleanser to clean, Sanitizer to sanitize and Thermometer to meter your thermo.

There are many other pieces of equipment to make brewing beer easier, more efficient, and more consistent, but these are the things you will absolutely need.Your LHBS can help you start down the home brewing journey, and if they are any good, will help you find what fits your situation best.

Follow this site for helpful tips and tricks on home brewing Beer, Wine, Cider, Mead, Soda and more. We will start posting weekly home brewing content to help the home brewer understand the process, and feel comfortable about the hobby.