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Malolactic fermentation
- Thread starter McJeff
- Start date
haha sorry of course i need to post the recipe. Bought 96 ounces of canned Gooseberries and did a basic 4 gallon batch with D47. Feed it with stepped Fermaid K and Dap. Think it had like 11.5 lbs of honey was goin to take it dry and backsweeten it as needed. I just couldnt find a solid answer on what is in Gooseberries for acid.
That aside how do you do a Malolactic Fermentation?
That aside how do you do a Malolactic Fermentation?
http://www.hawkinswatts.com/documents/Natural Acids of Fruits and Vegetables.pdf
Can't find a listing of percentages...
Can't find a listing of percentages...
You can just add the culture in at pitch so its happening alongside the main ferment. You can add it once the main ferment has finished.
The thing to avoid is sulphites. The levels have to be below 20ppm I believe. Which is why you dont stabilise without both sulphite and sorbate. The MLF bacteria will metabolise the sorbate causing geraniols but 1 campden tablet in a gallon provides about 50ppm of sulphites preventing this from happening.
So its usually done before you would stabilise.
it can happen naturally. If you already stabilised it would be a pain as it would be more complicated having to work out whether the sulphite level was low enough if you'd been trying to drive off the sulphites but then the sorbate would be exposed to being metabolised.
Which returns you to doing MLF before stabilising.......
But would it make a difference with gooseberry ? Well on checking around the link that skunkboy posted, while there doesn't seem so much data on percentages, there is malic in them.
So with that in mind, look up grapes.......and you'll likely note that while tartaric is the predominant acid in grapes, there is also some malic to and MLF is a wine making technique thats used successfully.
Ergo, you'd have to take a chance (MLF cultures are produced seasonally I understand so harder to get out of wine making season), tasting and then hitting the batch with the culture, letting it do its thing and then tasting again to see if there's any difference/improvement.
Personally, I'm thinking it'd just be easier to mask some of the acidity with extra sweetness. I doubt MLF is worth messing with except in a planned process sort of way. Doing this process to modify a flavour once its in there is likely to be much more tricky.
I believe the wine world tends to test for acid levels first i.e. before ferment and only MLF if the harvest seems to be high(er) acid and they want to reduce that in the finished wine.
Gooseberry is easy to reduce the acid, cook it first as it acts like apples and kiwi fruit when heated.
All you could do is to try it......
This is all speculation right now, goin off the taste of the fruit pre fermentation. Its only 2 weeks fermenting so i have a bit of time. I might give it a try anyways just to see how it changes things. I doubht ill ever do anything with gooseberries again, crap was nasty tasting. hope it turns out drinkable.
We grow gooseberry and if you like getting spiked to hell and back while picking the fruit, they have uses. They do make a good jelly/jam, but of course, the flavour is "cooked" and not sharp at all. We have a couple of different varieties, one is very sharp, the other less so and sweeter. They make a good pie filling, but they're among a few fruit that I wouldn't have even bothered considering for a melomel.
You'd likely have to use them cooked or at least quite a sweet batch. I'd doubt that they'd make a "quick" brew, more like one that would need to be aged for some time......
This is what i used, it was a semi liquid with broken fruit, stems and all. I put it in a bag because i considered not leaving it in the full fermentation. So im thinking i might just pull the fruit right out.
http://www.amazon.com/Gooseberry-Vintners-Harvest-Fruit-Bases/dp/B0064OLJ4C
http://www.amazon.com/Gooseberry-Vintners-Harvest-Fruit-Bases/dp/B0064OLJ4C
I have a gooseberry plant....some larva/caterpillar chewed all the leaves off last season, but left the berries. Was very strange. I read BT will control them
Sent from the Nexus of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy which has been infected with Vogon poetry, some of which leaked out here.
Sent from the Nexus of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy which has been infected with Vogon poetry, some of which leaked out here.
We had that on one plant, but Clare picked off the larva/caterpillars. Seems they can also live in the soil and you can get 3 generations a year. Once we'd got the bugs off the plant we then looked out a spray for them. The fruit tasted ok but were a bit small in size.
The leaf didn't regrown but the bugs didn't spread to the other plants either. So whether they are a variety specific pest I don't know.
Little bxxxxxds... Trying to find BT over here to control them.
http://www.shootgardening.co.uk/forum/topic/view/topicid/12118
http://www.shootgardening.co.uk/forum/topic/view/topicid/12118
If you can find it, you might want to try neem oil. Mix it with water and spray the leaves. I don't know if it'll work for this particular pest, but I know most of 'em don't like it.
Joe
