Young’s Winebuddy 1.8kg advice

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Tea contains tannin, an essential ingredient of wine. Normally, black grapes skins and pips are fermented with the juice to extract the colour to make red wine. This also extracts tannin, mostly from the pips, which not only contributes to the flavour but also assists in clearing and preserving the wine. Cabernet sauvignon has a particularly high tannin content. Grape juice concentrate and carton juice have a low tannin content. Although you have added extra grape juice, the proportion of juice to water is still under 40% and therefore deficient in tannin, and also acid. This is why cheap kits are rather bland.
You can use grape tannin in preference to tea but the effect is much the same.
 
Acidity is another issue. As a very general rule, the pH of cabernet sauvignon is in the range of 3.2-3.6. A recent batch of the Australian Blend (£30) kit version came out at 4.6. It tastes OK, but extra acid would give it a bite. So if you brew turns out to be rather bland for your taste, before bottling, adding 10 g of tartaric acid will literally tart it up!
 
Acidity is another issue. As a very general rule, the pH of cabernet sauvignon is in the range of 3.2-3.6. A recent batch of the Australian Blend (£30) kit version came out at 4.6. It tastes OK, but extra acid would give it a bite. So if you brew turns out to be rather bland for your taste, before bottling, adding 10 g of tartaric acid will literally tart it up!

Looking forward to this brew - don’t usually add anything as I buy the kits with a lot more juice concentrate. Beaverdale and Cellar are my faves.

Any suggestions for some hidden gem kits would be great.

Happy new year
 
I've used Cellar 7 reds which are OK, but some suppliers have raised the price. Are Beaverdale worth the extra?
Couple of other points: Yeast produces a substance called diacetyl, which adversely affects flavour. When all the sugar is used up, it reabsorbs diacetyl, if given the chance. As a rule, I rack wine at sg 1010 and let the fermentation complete slowly then leave for a few days before racking. I don't use stabiliser for dry wines and only use finings for white wine. Finings remove at least some tannin. Red wines usually clear on their own fairly quickly and also benefit from sitting on a thin layer of yeast sediment for a while.
Quick kits use a yeast nutrient mix similar to that used in the rapid production of biofuel (ethylene). More refined wine yeasts will give better flavour, but take longer.
 
Are Beaverdale worth the extra?
Yes, yes, yes, damned yes. You could do what I do with beer and wine and drink a few of the good ones early doors and then switch to the cack later for the hours you only remember with video evidence.

Two nights ago I put the flavour pack in the cab sauv and it was nowhere near as bad as ones I've done before. I then had about 3 pints of it. The last batch I made never made it to bottles, I just scoop it out with a tankard. And I just put the flavour pack in the chardonnay and it smelled like nail varnish remover. I had a quick scoop and it really was caustic. That'll settle out as I've had no problems with the chardy kit before and it mellows out to something almost tasteless; haunted by the ghost of a sherbet fountain.
 
I’m proud to say I’ve brewed a corker on this one so it’s going in the recipe book.

Cab Sav is more like a Merlot and not full bodied like a shop bought one and I’m think I prefer it. Goes well with meat and a bit of spicy food without overwhelming my senses.

12% but the best bit - zero hangover!!

I can have a few laaaaarge glasses and no hangover!! Well oiled without the dreaded morning after bitter pill to endure.

Feeling quite chuffed for a novice.
 
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