I checked the chemistry of the persimmon wine this evening before pitching the yeast.
SG: 1.113
pH: 3.79
TA: 0.24
The titratable acidity is way too low, but some acid may be locked up in the pulp, so I merely added another tablespoon of acid mix, to match the original recipe. I’ll check in again after fermentation and adjust [...]
Today I started six gallons of persimmon wine, using fruit from the Quaker Center in Ben Lomond and a recipe in the Winemaker’s Recipe Handbook by Raymond Massaccessi (available from Fermentation Solutions).
One certainly doesn’t need a crusher or press for ripe Hachiya persimmons: they squash quite nicely. Just pull the top off, quarter with [...]
This evening I checked the chemistry of the strawberry guava must (~5 liters).
SG = 1.077
pH = 3.38
TA = 7.5
I added 1.5 pounds of sugar to bring the specific gravity up to about 1.088, which will give me about 12.5% alcohol in the finished wine.
For next time, I noted that the titratable acidity is too [...]
Last Friday I went down to Aptos to pick fruit for winemaking. I’d advertised for free fruit on Freecycle, and a master gardener and member of the California Rare Fruit Growers responded with an offer of persimmons, pineapple guavas, and strawberry guavas.
Tonight I began making an experimental one-gallon batch of strawberry guava wine, based [...]
Today I drove out to UC Davis for the first part of a two-Saturday course on the fundamentals of wine chemistry, taught by Clark Smith. My chemistry is 25 years in the past, but it came back rapidly. This first part covered basics like molar weight, pH, titratable acidity, and equilibria, but he puts as [...]
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