percival
Regular.
- Joined
- Nov 1, 2008
- Messages
- 483
- Reaction score
- 0
All seems to be going well here. its pretty vigorous, no frothy head tho, smells good.
i went rummaging about online again for info on sauternes yeast (as this is what i used). The homebrew shop that i recently did my bulk shop in recommended it for country wines, along with a selection of others that i bought (reds, whites, sherries, high alcohol etc). Anyway it turns out that a number of parsnip wine recipes stipulate this yeast! As you may have guessed i'm new to playing with yeast varieties, i used to always use a general purpose yeast until i couldn't find it. A little advice (asked for and recieved) and a little brewing knowledge and some other stuff you pick up in the course of life made for a 'lucky guess'. its kind of like that famous quote from a golfer 'the more i practice the luckier i get'. what follows is pure luck tho as i had no idea this was to come ....
More info i found was that suaternes adds esters to the brew. i dunno how they do it, whether its a by product of their metabolism or whatever. Esters are fruity smelling/tasting molecules. they are very strong and a little goes a long way. The smell of pear drops and some of those very whiffy glues comes from esters. So obviously they are not all nice flavours lol. The ones from the yeast will be tho. i was introduced to esterification at school, it was one of the things that turned me on to chemistry. Mix an organic acid with an alcohol and hey presto you get an ester (ok ok, thats very simplified, it took a catalyst, some heat and some time etc etc). different acids and alcohols give different esters. without the catalyst and the heat the reaction is soooooo very much slower, but in wines you have the acids and alcohol so it will happen very very slowly, and its one of the reasons for a long conditioning being an advantage.
there was bundle of other stuff about sauterns. one that may be of general interest is that it is often used to 'unstick' stuck fermentations. i don't know if you can get some and chuck it in now, or if thats a bad idea(if it ain't broke don't fix it), like i said i'm new to playing with yeast. perhaps someone who drops in will know.
i went rummaging about online again for info on sauternes yeast (as this is what i used). The homebrew shop that i recently did my bulk shop in recommended it for country wines, along with a selection of others that i bought (reds, whites, sherries, high alcohol etc). Anyway it turns out that a number of parsnip wine recipes stipulate this yeast! As you may have guessed i'm new to playing with yeast varieties, i used to always use a general purpose yeast until i couldn't find it. A little advice (asked for and recieved) and a little brewing knowledge and some other stuff you pick up in the course of life made for a 'lucky guess'. its kind of like that famous quote from a golfer 'the more i practice the luckier i get'. what follows is pure luck tho as i had no idea this was to come ....
More info i found was that suaternes adds esters to the brew. i dunno how they do it, whether its a by product of their metabolism or whatever. Esters are fruity smelling/tasting molecules. they are very strong and a little goes a long way. The smell of pear drops and some of those very whiffy glues comes from esters. So obviously they are not all nice flavours lol. The ones from the yeast will be tho. i was introduced to esterification at school, it was one of the things that turned me on to chemistry. Mix an organic acid with an alcohol and hey presto you get an ester (ok ok, thats very simplified, it took a catalyst, some heat and some time etc etc). different acids and alcohols give different esters. without the catalyst and the heat the reaction is soooooo very much slower, but in wines you have the acids and alcohol so it will happen very very slowly, and its one of the reasons for a long conditioning being an advantage.
there was bundle of other stuff about sauterns. one that may be of general interest is that it is often used to 'unstick' stuck fermentations. i don't know if you can get some and chuck it in now, or if thats a bad idea(if it ain't broke don't fix it), like i said i'm new to playing with yeast. perhaps someone who drops in will know.