Saturday, February 2, 2008

Acid Reduction in Wine

Four different acids can be typically found in wines during fermentation. These include tartaric, citric, malic and lactic. Acids in too high quantity have an adverse affect on the taste (and quality) of wine. Whereas increasing the acid levels in wine is a relatively easy process, reducing acid levels in wine can be difficult.

Over the next few days a discussion will be held about procedures for reducing or increasing the various acid levels.

A summary of these articles is as follows:

Addition of tartaric acid will result in an increase of the tartaric acid levels (that one was pretty obvious!);

Addition of acid blend will increase the levels of tartaric, malic and citric acid;

The blending of other wines with the wine in question can either increase or decrease the levels of tartaric, malic, citric or lactic acids;

The addition of potassium (or calcium) bicarbonate will decrease the level of tartaric acids;

Causing the onset of a malolactic fermentation will decrease the tartaric and malic acid levels while increase the lactic acid level;

Cold stabilization will decrease the level of tartaric acids;

Use of products known as ACIDEX or SHADEX will reduce the levels of tartaric and malic acids; and

The addition of water will decrease the levels of tartaric, citric, malic and lactic acids.

BlueStem Winery is a purveyor of wine ingredient kits from both WinExpert and Cellar Craft. These kits allow you to make excellent wines with never a worry about tartaric, malic, citric or lactic acids as the kits are acid balanced to assure you a perfect wine every time. Making wine could not be easier and the results are world class. WinExpert wine kits have been part of BlueStem's inventory for almost four years and our customers have expressed nothing but satisfaction with these fine kits. We added Cellar Craft wine kits about eight months ago and the reports coming back from customers have been nothing but fantastic!

BlueStem also has a full array of winemaking equipment, wine making supplies, homebrewing ingredients, homebrew supplies and brewing equipment.

Today was a fun day at the store with two couples getting started with their new wine making hobby and another couple purchasing beer brewing supplies to start their new hobby. I always tell my new customers that home wine making is the greatest procrastinator's hobby that there is. Other than the first week when you have to stay pretty close to the schedule it is a hobby that you can attend to with quite a bit of variance in timing.

Need home brewing supplies? A good Cellar Craft wine ingredient kit? Our website features one low cost shipping fee per order. We would very much like to ship a new hobby to you and are more than willing to support you with answers to your questions after you get started.

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