Alcohol-Free 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon

 You may not know that I stopped drinking regularly. This is because of the risk of getting Alzheimer's Disease because I have a bad Alzheimer's gene. My goal is to have only a few alcoholic drinks per year. According to the research, alcohol really increases the risk of Alzheimer's. 

I have a basement full of fermenting wine, about 200 gallons. I decided that I want to de-alcoholize it and drink it myself. I could not bear with pouring it down the drain. 

I built a vacuum-distillation apparatus. It can strip off the alcohol from two bottles of wine in about 2 hours and thirty minutes. I have been saving the brandy even though I can't drink it. I can describe the vacuum-distillation apparatus later. 

Today, I de-alcoholized the 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon. The machine can attain about 70 torr or 50MPa. Under those conditions alcohol boils at about 28C and water at about 40C. I trap the alcohol in an ice-trap. 

One can watch the process by watching the boiling temperature. It begins about 28C and goes up to 40C  as the alcohol boils off. At the end, I add back a cup of water. I don't can if I concentrate the wine a little, but not too much or the acidity is affected. 

I make some additive additions at the end. 

Dealcoholized Wine Recipe

1500 g de-alcoholized Cab Sauvignon

0.05 g sulfite preservative (0.03 would have been ok too)

1.4 g sucralose (to dampen the bitterness)

2 shakes (⅓ ml?) of Tabasco sauce (to mimic to "burning" sensation of alcohol)

1 ml artificial grape flavor (LorAnn Grape SS Flavor)

Why do I add the artificial grape flavor? Because most of the natural grape flavor boils off with the brandy, or actually with the methanol fraction that gets thrown away. The deacoholized wine is strangely odor-free and a bit of grape candy flavor really helps. 

 

Peppers Pickled in Pomace

I read an online article about pickling peppers in wine pomace. Pomace is the pressed wine skins & pulp left over after pressing the grapes. 

It was the author's old family recipe, and it even said "A thick layer of disgusting mold will form on top, but don’t worry about that." Pretty rustic. 

I thought, I can clean up that recipe -- find a way to make it in jars instead of in a bucket in the garage.

The recipe is clever because it does two things at once: first, the pomace and water ferment into wine vinegar, and second, the peppers get pickled in the vinegar. 

It also gives you something to do with all that pomace besides fertilize the garden. 

Pickled Peppers in Homemade Wine/Vinegar Recipe

1.5 quarts grape wine pomace
1.5 quart red or green peppers, cut into 1-2 inch pieces
water
85 g sugar

The procedure is easy. Mix the sugar with the wine pomace. Layer the pomace and the peppers into quart jars. I place the bottles in a secondary container to catch overflow, if any. 

Put the jar lid on loosely. Periodically (daily at first) open the jar and press down the contents to displace air bubbles forming inside.

The liquid will extract flavor from the grapes and pomace, and make a wine. After time, this wine may convert to vinegar. 

It might not too. Recall, we did not add any vinegar yeast, and the pomace carried in a large amount of wine yeast. 

If not the peppers will be preserved in wine -- still not so bad. 

Let this go at least a week. When it stops bubbling, I am going to put them in a refrigerator. If you don't have room in the fridge, it will probably keep a while on the counter with the jar sealed. 

When time comes to eat this, pick out the peppers to eat. The pomace isn't going to taste very good. 

October 16 Update -- The sugar and pomace have fermented into wine, and the peppers are now quite soft and wine infused. The wine is pretty harsh, so the peppers aren't really that pleasant to eat. 

October 22 Update -- What a difference a week makes! I strained off the "wine" liquid, and removed the pomace to the trash. I put the wine-infused peppers in their own bottle, and they have a pepper & wine flavor. Good on top of hummus & toast -- not too much tho because the their pretty intense. 

So next year, I think these would be better with a fleshier pepper like a poblano or even red bell pepper. I can't grow decent red bell pepper is my garden.

Wine pomace in a kimchi recipe! Now I need to try that. I'll put the pomace in a silk bag, and then in the cabbage blend. 

PZS2 Zinfandel/Syrah Pomegranate Wine: A Second or False Wine PZS2

The fermenting must from my 2022 Second Wine.

After I pressed my Zinfandel and Syrah, I put the pomace (or pressed grape skins) in the freeze mostly because I was out-of-energy to start another project. I came back two days later, and added the pomace to prepared sugar water. 

Wine prepared from once-pressed grapes is called a second wine or a false wine. Commercial vintners call their lower quality wines "second wine," but that is a different usage. False wine is less ambiguous. 

I am adding pomegranate powder to this to make it a little more interesting. I will probably ferment ten liters with pomegranate and ten without. I am always blend it later. I am also short of 20L glassware right now. 

Zinfandel/Syrah Pomegranate Wine

Pressings/pomace from 72 lb of Syrah and 108 lb of Zinfandel
20 L Water
10.8 pounds of sugar (sucrose)
3 t of year nutrient
2 t of wine tannin
After 4 days of fermentation, I added:
5.5 T 4007 Malolactic Blend from Wyeastlab

As the pomace melted the mixture was too cold to ferment, so it got a good cold soak for at least twelve hours. There was slow fermentation in the morning. No additional yeast we needed. the Zinfandel used Lalvan EC1118; the Syrah used Lalvan 4B. 

After pressing I added:

1 lb Pomegranate Juice Powder  (Microingredients of Montclair CA)

The idea of adding the pomegranate powder late is to have the fermentation going robustly before the power is added in case there is an off-label fermentation inhibitor.

October 22, 2022: pH = 3.1 TA =  0.8% as tartaric. 0.8% might be OK if I decided to finish it sweet, but probably I will add some potassium carbonate to finish it dry. 

2022 Syrah

The Syrah grapes were small and a bit dehydrated, and many of them did not break in the crusher, so we went old school and macerated the grapes with our feet. Here is my wife crushing grapes.  

I have never made a Syrah varietal, tho I made a Syrah blend in 2009. I just made a Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot last year, so it seemed like a good time to try Syrah. 

Syrah Wine Recipe

72 lb        Syrah grapes (Lodi Gold from Delta Packing; Lodi CA)
2 g            yeast energizer    
4 g            pectic enzyme
1 pk        Lalvin 4b
After six days of fermentation add:
1 t        Chestnut wood tannin (Vintner's Best; LD Carlson) (t means teaspoon)

Ferment to near dryness, then press. 
After one week added:

3.5 T 4007 Malolactic Blend from Wyeastlab 

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The density was 1.108 before formation. The refractive index gives 26.2 deg Brix. This is destined to make a 14.8 to 15% alcohol, which is a lot. 

The idea of the tannin add is to prevent grape proteins from pulling out all the grape tannins by putting in other tannin. Also the chestnut wood tannin is fairly desirable in terms of flavor complexity being similar to tannins extracted from charred wood. 

October 22, 2022:  pH = 3.4; 0.8% total acid as tartaric. This is a little high, so I will probably add some alkali to get about 0.6%. 

2022 Zinfandel

Zinfandel has been some of my favorite homemade wines. I did not make one last year, so I wanted to try another one. 

Grapes after crushing

These grapes seemed pretty good. I worked hard at pre-stemming the grapes. Other years I would crush the crapes and then manually remove the stems from the must. This year m wife and I manually removed stems on half, and then used milk-crate as a screen to do the other half. 

Recipe

 144 pound        Zinfandel grapes Valley Beauty/Delta Packing Loci California
6 g                     pectic enzyme    
5 g                    yeast energizer
2 packs            Lalvin EC1118

After one week add:

5.5 T 4007 Malolactic Blend from Wyeastlab

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The density was 1.102 which should make 13.2% alcohol. The refractive index gave 23.5 deg Brix which should make 12.3% alcohol. Not sure why the discrepancy. 

I looked it up in Pambianchi's new book, and both methods gave higher alcohol content of about 13. Maybe the new book's tables are better than his old book.  I decided not to add more sugar. I hope I don't regret that. 

The fermentation started quickly. 

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October 22, 2022: pH = 3.3; TA = 0.7% as tartaric. This is probably fine.  I have no plan to adjust. 

French Colombard

I have never made a French Colombard, but there is always the first time. My impression is the juice is pretty flavorful, so the wine should be as well. 

Recipe

 72 pounds    grapes
2 g                yeast energizer
2 g                pectic enzyme
1 pack            Lalvin QA23

The density of the juice was 1.096 which should make 12% alcohol. The refractive index gave 21.5 degrees Brix, which should make 12.6% alcohol. This seems good to me. 

The fermentation started quickly. 

October 22, 2022: pH is low at 2.9. The total acid or TA is 0.87% tartaric acid. Between the low pH and the high TA; it probably smart to bring this down. 

2021 Merlot Raspberry Wine

My 2016 and 2017 raspberry wines were so good that I wanted to make more. While I liked small glasses of raspberry wine by itself, it was too intense to drink more than a little. Though I liked to drink it at Christmas. Mostly though I drank it blended with red grape wine. 

I prefer red raspberries are superior to blackberries for wine-making and general eating because the flavor is better. (I am withholding judgment on black raspberries for now.)

Last year (2020), I made a second/false wine of my zinfandel. I liked that, and I blended with some mediocre fruit wine to improve it. 

This year I want to make a second from the must of my main red wine, merlot, this year. And then add some fruitiness with raspberries. 

2021 Merlot Raspberry Recipe

20.3 L water 
6 kg (=13.2 lb) sugar dissolved in the above water
Pressed must from about 90 lb of merlot grapes (with a 20% cabernet sauvingnon grapes)
10 lb of frozen red raspberries (various brands)
2 tsp yeast energizer
2 tsp pectic enzyme

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Yeast is primarily Lalvin EC1118 which was on the Merlot pomace.

Initial reading was 23.5 degree Brix which corresponds to 26% sugar and 12.3% alcohol.  I am looking for 13-13.5% alcohol, so I added 426g of additional sugar. 

The mixture has started foaming after 25 minutes as if the yeast is working, so I did not add any more yeast.  

April 2022: So far the malolactic fermentation has not completed. The pH is 2.7 and the titratable acid (as tartaric) is 12.7 -- somewhat higher than the 8 that I'd like.

September 2022: I transferred this wine to jugs and a smaller demijohn to make room for the 2022 vintages. The wine seemed pretty harsh but without a compensating depth of flavor. 

 Perhaps aeration will help it, but if not I might try coagulating some of the tannin with an additive -- perhaps egg whites. Maybe it just needs to age? Honestly it seemed better sneaking tastes with my wine thief, then drinking it from a glass. The other idea is to buy a bunch of cheap Australian Merlot and dilute the harshness away. 

November 2022: After some tasting tests, I took 2 gallons (7.6 L) and added 3 L of Yellow Tail Australian red wine (Merlot and Cab. Sauv.). I also added 1% dextrose to take the edge off the harshness. (I tested all the way up to 5%, but settled on 1% which killed the harshness and didn't get too sweet. 

The plan is to blend the rest with the 2021 Muscato. 

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