Many winemakers, especially beginners, have to deal with such an unpleasant problem as a noticeable aftertaste of bitterness in the finished wine. Because of this, all the labor spent on manufacturing natural wine down the drain. If homemade wine is bitter, then it is usually poured out, or used to make moonshine.
But these are not always the right decisions. Knowing the causes of bitterness, as well as methods for eliminating it, you can significantly improve the quality of the drink, that is, save the finished wine.

Causes of bitterness

Why does bitterness appear in wine and what can be done to eliminate it? One of the main reasons for the appearance of bitterness in home-made products is the high content of tannins (tannins). They give the drink a bitter and astringent taste.
Tannins are found in grape skins and seeds. Tannins are useful, they give the wine a pleasant astringency, contribute to its clarification. Grape seeds are sometimes specially added to white wines that are obtained with juice during fermentation in order to increase the concentration of tannins in the finished product and give a spicy bitterness to the flavor bouquet. But everything is good in moderation.

An excess of such substances not only worsens the taste of wine, but also gives drinks from white grapes a brown tint. Rancidity is characteristic of wines made from dark grape varieties that ferment on the pulp.

It is possible to prevent the ingress of a large portion of tannins into the finished wine at the stage of its manufacture. It is necessary to ensure accurate and soft extraction of juice, excluding crushing of seeds. It is better to refuse a drill with a special nozzle or a home processor.

The juice that is squeezed out using meat grinders also gets a large number of crushed bitter grape seeds, which can cause excess tannins in the finished drink.

Important: the maximum amount of coarse and bitter substances is found in grape seeds. They begin to give their bitterness into the liquid in case of mechanical damage. The longer the wine preparation is insisted on the pulp (maceration stage), the greater the likelihood of bitterness.

Rancid wine is obtained from poor-quality material, when the drink is overexposed in wooden barrels, and also as a result of disease.

Bitterness can appear not only in grape wines, but also in intoxicating drinks made from apples, cherries, plums and other crops.

Methods for removing bitterness in wine

Consider the solution to this problem, depending on why the wine is bitter.

Violation of the juice production technology

The most typical cause of bitterness (more than 50 percent of all cases). Intensive grinding of berries / fruits and hard juice extraction damage the bones.

Poor quality material, overexposure of the must on the pulp

Raw materials for wine must be carefully sorted out. Even a few rotten or moldy fruits can cause the pulp to rot. The same problem can occur if you miss the deadline for separating the juice from the pulp.

• How to avoid: you should make a product only from fresh berries and fruits, as well as strictly follow the recipe, timely complete all stages of making wine.
• How to eliminate: in this situation, the bitterness is removed by clarifying the wine with bentonite clay (for 1 liter - 3 g of clay). The required portion of white clay is poured with cold water in a ratio of 1:10. The mixture must be well stirred, left for a day, so that the clay is transformed into lime.
  Dilute the lime mass with water. Add just enough water so that the resulting mixture can be poured into a container. Pour the bentonite solution into the wine in a thin stream. After five to seven days, remove the drink from the sediment.

Overexposure on lees

If homemade wine is not filtered from the sediment in time during the aging period, bitterness may appear in it. The sediment contains waste products of yeast cultures, they decompose and worsen the taste, the drink is bitter.

• How to avoid: remove wine from the sediment in time.
• How to eliminate: pasting fresh will help to beat from bitterness egg white or white clay (the technology is described above). For greater effect, you can apply both methods in turn.

Diseases of wine

Wine contains microorganisms that, under favorable conditions, cause acetic fermentation, the appearance of wine mold and other wine diseases. In the early stages of the disease, most wine diseases are treatable. But, as a rule, one of the consequences of such processes is a slight bitterness.

Overaging in oak barrels

If at home the wine is in oak containers, then as a result of long storage, the drink is saturated with tannins. Getting them out of wine is very difficult.

• How to avoid: Check the taste of intoxicated liquor stored in barrels at least once a week. This will allow you not to miss the moment if the wine starts to taste bitter.
• How to fix: if the problem is detected in a timely manner, then the drink is corrected with bentonite. If time is missed, the taste is improved by adding sugar and fixing the wine with alcohol (10–15% of the wine volume).

If the proposed methods did not solve the problem, wine that is bitter will have to be put into fruit moonshine.

Home wine Delie is a great opportunity to please loved ones with natural delicious nectar. But it happens when all the work is wasted - the wine is bitter! It is not always worth resorting to extreme measures and distilling the drink into a mash. The finished wine can still be reanimated. But if the wine is moldy as in the photo - not normal, it is better to pour it out and not continue reading the article.

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5 Causes of Bitterness in Wine

To cope with the problem, you need to know the causes of its occurrence and save the situation:

Firstly, fruits undermined by mold, the ingress of rotten leaves will cause bitterness in the wine;

Secondly, the bitterness of the drink can give an increased content of tannin (tannins). They are contained in the seeds and peel of berries and fruits, from which wine juice is prepared. Yes, tannin is necessary in the recipe, it is added to the wine to give it piquancy, astringency and clarification. But in moderation!

A mistake typical for novice winemakers is the wrong preparation of juice. With inaccurate preparation of the material (rough grinding), the bones are crushed and their fragments fall into the drink;

Thirdly, bitter homemade wine due to overexposure on the lees, if it is not filtered in time at the stage of aging the drink. Yeast and fungal cultures contained in the pulp ( Mezga - a mass consisting of crushed berries and juice, as well as seeds and skin tsy), decompose and poison the entire wine bouquet;

B - fourth, the drink is a living substance and can get sick. The reason for the contamination of the drink are microorganisms (for example, the Candida bacterium), which, under favorable conditions for their reproduction, contribute to the formation of wine mold. Exceeding the norm of sugar causes the so-called "lactic" fermentation. Souring from vinegar, for example, appears in wines of 14 ° fortress when it is kept at 25-30t and if the tightness is not observed;

B - fifth If the wine is in oak barrels for a long time, it absorbs tannins, the excess of which we have already written about.

The wine turned out bitter, how to fix it?

When you understand why the wine is bitter, the next step is to correct mistakes in cooking. This can be done in the following ways:

• To correct the bitterness in wine caused by low-quality products, betonite contributes, at the same time, it will also lighten the drink. Purchase only betonite intended for winemaking!
• The bitterness of wine arises from sediment or overexposure in the pulp. Whipped protein and betonit "ambulance" in saving wine. And timely filtering will eliminate the problem. First of all, remove the mold film from the surface of the container. Then, using a thin tube, pour the liquid into a sterile container.
• The excess tannin will help eliminate the egg white from two chicken eggs. Foamed protein mass added to wine. The use of egg white eliminates some of the tannins. Crash 2 chicken eggs, from which the protein will separate, and beat with a whisk until foam appears. In this state, it is added to grape wine in a ratio of 1 to 10 or 100 ml of protein per 1000 ml of drink. Alcohol is thoroughly mixed and transferred to a dark place for 14–20 days until precipitation occurs. After that, the wine is filtered with a small rubber tube and bottled. The wine settles for two to three weeks;
• In case of illness, the drink is recommended heat treatment(pasteurization), from which pathogenic bacteria die. A hermetically sealed container is heated on the stove to 60 ° Celsius for 5-10 minutes. Line the pot with a cloth to prevent the wine from burning. It is necessary to wait for the container to cool down to 15 - 20 °T. After manipulations, the wine is drained from the sediment through a three-layer gauze into a sterilized container.
• Paradoxically, a young wine can suffer from "obesity", gradually thickening. Eliminate excess water in the drink (without diluting the wort with water). Drain the drink into another container in the open air, most of the bacteria will die;
• If the wine is bitter due to overaging in oak barrels, then the main thing is to identify the problem in a timely manner. This is the most difficult case of correcting the taste of the drink. During operational control, the wine is corrected with bentonite. In extreme cases, the drink is fixed with alcohol and sugar (in proportions of 7 - 15% of the liquid volume).

Important! In order for the wine not to be bitter, it is possible to correct its taste only in the early stages, so carefully follow the precautions when making a homemade drink. Strictly follow the technology and recipe!

How to put homemade wine

In order not to end up with unusable swill instead of the "drink of the Gods", let's take a step-by-step look at the correct technology for making homemade wine. And let's start with the preparation of the wine material:

• Fruits for wine must ( Wort- juice made from grapes by pressing, pressing) are carefully selected by hand. Fruits and berries should be fresh and healthy. Foreign cultures (leaves, twigs) are excluded. Do not process rotten berries and fruits in order to save money according to the principle “everything will ferment in wine.” The process is painstaking, but the result is worth it;
• The extraction of berries and fruits should be extremely gentle so that fragments of seeds, especially grape ones (they contain high concentrations of tannin) do not get into the juice. Grape seeds begin to give their bitterness in case of mechanical damage;
• Exactly following the recipe, remove the juice from the pulp and sediment in time;
• The development of pathogenic microflora in the drink is facilitated, first of all, by non-compliance temperature regime, unsuitable premises and containers. And disregard for sanitation!
• Large volumes of "jolly drink" aging in oak barrels require a weekly tasting!

I advise you recipes for homemade wine from the site:

Important to remember!

• Compliance with sanitary standards is the key to a quality product!
• Do not use meat grinders and home processors. Use a juicer or juic by hand, removing the pits.
• In wort, highly diluted with water, it is easier for pathogenic bacteria to multiply in a slightly acidic environment.
• At all stages of wine preparation, the dishes must be clean and dry. Using only filtered water and quality sugar. To protect the contact of wine with oxygen, constant monitoring of the tightness of the water seal will help. Constantly monitor the tightness of the water seal to isolate the wine from contact with oxygen.
• Do not miss the moment when homemade wine starts to taste bitter! And take timely action.

Following the advice, even novice winemakers can make a wonderful drink with a rich flavor bouquet! much tastier and healthier than a drink from the store.

At a recent tasting, we were asked a question about bitterness in wine. Asked the man who makes his own wine. In our slang, amateur winemakers who make their wine on a non-industrial scale are called "garazhists". And we decided that the answer could be useful not only to the person who asked, but also to other novice winemakers. So, advice to the garage driver - where does the bitterness in wine come from, how to avoid it and how to get rid of it.

Madeline Puckette (“Wine Folly”) tastes tainted wine

Let's start with the fact that this, unfortunately, is not such a rare problem. Sometimes a novice winemaker, tasting wine after fermentation, finds bitterness in it. In the worst case, this means a lost year, since the wine will either have to be poured down the drain or sent for distillation. And of course sorry for your work and the money spent.

Bitterness in most cases is hypertrophied astringency. Astringent taste adorns the wine, but everything is good in moderation. The most common cause of bitterness in wine is an excess of tannins. Tannins are called tannins, which give the wine astringency, astringency and bitterness. The sources of tannins are the skins and seeds of grapes. An excess of tannins leads not only to the appearance of bitterness in the taste, but also often to a change in the color of the wine, the appearance of brown and orange tones in it.

Let's start listing the points related to the prevention of this problem from the beginning of the process, from working with raw materials. It is important to understand that after harvesting the grapes should not be washed and should not be left in the heat. Ideally, processing begins immediately after removal from the bush. Unfortunately, most garage owners fail to organize this, and then they provide delivery of berries in a refrigerator truck. And if after delivery from the vineyard there is no possibility for immediate processing, the grapes are placed in storage in a refrigerated room. And even in the refrigerator they store it for no more than a day, a maximum of two.

The second possible reason for the appearance of bitterness is spoiled raw materials. Carefully check the grapes before launching into the crusher, select leaves, twigs, rotten and fermented berries. Naturally, it is necessary to throw out insects and garbage. From personal experience, I can tell you how seriously professional winemakers take this sorting. More than once we have witnessed painstaking and accurate work with primary material in wineries.

At the initial stage of processing, it is important to ensure that the juice is squeezed gently, without destroying the seeds. It is in the bones that the coarsest and most bitter tannins are contained. With the mechanical destruction of the seeds, this bitterness enters the wine.

By the way, the same thing happens when maceration is too long (insisting on the pulp - bones and peels). Therefore, it is so important to avoid crushing the bones and not overdo it with maceration. Maceration is necessary for the extraction of aromatic compounds, polysaccharides, minerals, other extractive components, including tannins and color. But overexposure can easily lead to excess tannins and bitterness.

While the wine is fermenting, winemakers are much more concerned with pizhage (pigeage - French, a technological operation in the production of red wines, deposition of a cap from the pulp from the surface of the fermentation tank) than with bitterness. But at the end of this process, it is important to quickly drain the wine from the sediment. Yeasts are living organisms, and after death, their remains begin to decompose and rot. Because of these processes, bitterness and the smell of sulfur can also appear in the wine.

And the last reason is the excessive oxidation of wine, its oxidation. This technological defect is associated with violations of the wine aging regime, when its uncontrolled contact with air oxygen occurs. As a result, the wine ages prematurely, fades, its color turns into an orange-brown range, aromas and tastes lose their freshness and fruitiness, and tangible bitterness appears in the taste and aftertaste.

Wine oxidation according to Wine Folly

So, the possible causes of bitterness in wine:

• violations of the rules for the delivery and storage of grapes from the vineyard
• delay in starting processing
• combs, leaves, debris, spoiled berries getting into the must
• violations of hygiene standards (non-compliance with the purity of raw materials or equipment)
• bone crushing
• overexposure of wine on the lees (uncontrolled "sur-lee")
• overexposure of the must on the pulp (too long maceration)
• wine oxidation

bad wine from delicesandgourmandises.co.uk

Now we will discuss possible ways to overcome the problem, if it has already arisen. Firstly, if the end of fermentation is missed and the yeast is still rotten, the wine will have to be drained. Alas, this defect is incorrigible, nothing can remove such bitterness and smell. Sometimes it is advised to fix the wine by adding 18-20% alcohol to it and keeping it for at least six months. But, frankly, we are not supporters of this approach. Then the race is better.

In other cases, they try to get rid of bitterness by binding excess tannins. For this, egg whites are traditionally used in winemaking. One egg white is calculated for every 50 liters of wine. The protein is whipped into foam, a little wine is added, mixed and poured into the main container with wine in a thin stream. At the same time, the wine is thoroughly, but carefully, so as not to aerate unnecessarily, mixed. The resulting suspension should settle for several days or even weeks before precipitation occurs. After that, the wine is carefully poured into another clean container, where it ripens.

Of course, there are industrial preparations based on proteins of various origins, such as casein (milk protein), gelatin and others, as well as synthetic reagents based on polyvinyl chloride. Working with these drugs requires some skill and experience, and we recommend that you seek help and advice from specialists: food chemists or professional winemakers.

Naturally, with any method, several samples are first made on a small amount of wine. According to their results, choose the method and the correct concentration of the reagent. And then they are already applied to a significant part of the party.

Making wine is a complex, delicate and even capricious process. And on the way to his comprehension, not only good luck awaits. But glory to the bold. And their reward is success, a successful product and the appreciation of those who drink this wine. Do not be afraid of falls, for each of them there is a new rise. Good luck, friends! Lechaim!

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A comment

Many novice winemakers are faced with such a problem as bitterness in wine. Because of it, it happens that all the work of making wine goes down the drain, and the wine is poured into the sewer or sent for distillation. But, if you look in more detail, with the causes of bitterness and their elimination, then you can save more than one liter of ready-made wine.

Why is wine bitter?

1. Obtaining juice with damage to the bones and seeds. They often taste bitter.
2. Fruits and berries were poorly digested. Leaves, sticks, scallops have a bitter taste.
3. The wine stood over the sediment.
4. Bad raw materials were used. For example, slightly rotten fruit or accidentally fallen leaves, stalks and other pieces that are not related to the fruit. Even a very small amount of them can drastically spoil the taste.
5. Too long without wine filtration. If it stands for a long time with sediment at the bottom, it will very soon acquire a bitter taste, because wine yeast rot and decompose, remaining in a nutrient medium.

All these reasons can be called simply - a violation of cooking technology. Be careful, and your homemade drinks will not be equal. Although homemade wine can almost always get rid of bitterness in simple ways, try to strictly follow the instructions for preparing drinks. Then your alcohol will become an adornment of any holiday table and a great gift for friends.

Prevention and elimination of bitterness in homemade wine

Attention! It is impossible to remove strong bitterness from wine. The proposed methods work in the early stages, when it first appeared.

Causes, prevention and methods of dealing with bitter taste:

1. Improper juicing. The most common situation, causing a problem in 50-65% of cases, is typical for grape, cherry, apple wine, but may appear in others. Too strong crushing of fruits (berries) with their subsequent squeezing through a press leads to damage to the bones, which contain an excess of tannins and tannins. As a result, these substances enter the juice, and after fermentation, homemade wine begins to taste bitter.

Prevention: if it is possible to crush raw materials without stones and (or) sparing methods that do not damage the seeds.

Elimination:"binding" of tannins by egg white. You need to break the eggs, separate the protein from the yolk, beat the whites with a whisk, then add them to the wine at the rate of 100 milligrams per 1 liter of drink. Gently mix and leave for 2-3 weeks until the sediment completely falls out. Then drain the wine from the sediment through a siphon (thin tube) into another clean container.

1. Rotten raw materials and overexposure of the must on the pulp. Getting into the processing of even a few rotten fruits and untimely separation of the juice from the pulp leads to decay of the entire pulp.

Prevention: use only fresh berries and fruits, clearly follow the recipes in time, removing the pulp.

elimination: clarification of wine with bentonite at the rate of 3 grams of white clay per 1 liter of wine. Pour ten times the amount of bentonite cold water, mix and leave for 10-12 hours, the clay will turn into lime. Add water to make the mixture runny. Pour the diluted bentonite into the wine in a thin stream, leave for 5-7 days, then remove the drink from the sediment.

1. Long infusion on the lees. Untimely filtration of wine during aging is also a common cause of bitterness; during decomposition, the waste products of the yeast worsen the taste.

Prevention: timely removal of sediment.

Treatment: wine fining with egg white or bentonite (you can use both methods in turn) according to the methods described in the previous paragraphs.

1. Infection of wine. Pathogenic microorganisms that cause vinegar souring, mold and some other diseases of wine, in the early stages make themselves felt by the appearance of a slight bitterness.

Prevention: sterility and strict adherence to the technology of preparation.

Treatment: pasteurization of wine with bitterness, during which microbes will die during heat treatment. Close bottles with a drink hermetically, put in a saucepan, fill up to the neck with water, heat up to 60 ° C. Maintain the temperature for 5 minutes, then turn off the heat. Remove the bottles when the water has cooled to room temperature. After 5-6 days, drain the wine from the sediment.

1. Overaging in barrels. When aging in barrels for too long (on oak wood or wood chips), the wine is oversaturated with tannins, which are very difficult to remove.

Prevention: during barrel aging, check the taste every 5-7 days in order to catch the moment of bitterness in time.

Treatment: in the early stages, clarification with bentonite helps. In advanced cases, the taste is stabilized by adding sugar and alcohol to the wine (up to 10-15% by volume).

1. An excess of tannins, bitter and astringent substances, tannins, which are contained in the skin and seeds of grapes. Usually these substances are useful to us, they give the wine a taste of astringency and contribute to clarification, but their excess, as mentioned earlier, makes the product bitter, and the color (of white wines) brown.

Treatment: if it has already happened that your wine is bitter, no need to be upset. To eliminate this negative effect, it is necessary to "bind" excess tannins. For this, "binding agents" are used, which attach tannins to themselves and precipitate with them to the bottom of the container. The most accessible and effective two "agents" are egg whites and polyvinyl chloride-based preparations.

• Protein is one of the oldest and most widely used "binding agents" both at home and in commercial winemaking. It is usually added to red wines (or fruit and berry wines, which contain a lot of tannins) at a concentration of 50 to 250 milligrams per liter. Before use, egg whites are lightly beaten with a whisk, and added to a container of wine with thorough, but gentle (so as not to unnecessarily aerate the wine), mixing. The container with wine is then left in a calm state for a period of several days to several weeks, until the sediment completely settles to the bottom. Once this has happened, it is necessary to pour the wine with a siphon into another clean container, where it will ripen.
• Polyvinyl chloride is a synthetic polymer powder, preparations based on it are sold in stores for home winemakers. As a rule, it is added to wine in volumes from 120 to 400 milligrams per liter with thorough mixing. Then the wine is also allowed to stand for some time, and then it is poured into another clean container. In addition to softening bitterness, it will also be possible to remove brown shades in white wines.

For selection the best way and the amount of added substance, it is necessary to first make several samples, on a small volume of wine, in order to choose which method suits your wine best. And also choose the required concentration of the reagent. After all, it is much more profitable than pouring the entire batch.

What to do if it's still bitter?

Finally, you opened the desired drink and found that the wine is still bitter. Having dealt with the cause, you can take some actions that will give the wine a chance for a second life.

• If the wine is slightly acidified and has just begun to turn into vinegar, it must be urgently filtered to remove all excess and, adding 20-30 ml of alcohol per liter of drink, place in a dark place for subsequent aging. So it should stand for about six months. If everything works out, then the bitterness will go away, and you will get good wine. Keep in mind that it will already be strong enough.
• The wine will have to be poured out if you missed the moment of ripening and the trembling is still rotten. There is nothing to remove such bitterness and smell. At this stage, you should be especially careful and attentive. However, if the bitterness came from the seeds, you can remove it with whipped protein. The protein of one egg is enough to clean 50 liters of wine. Whisk the egg white into foam, add a little wine, mix and pour into the wine in a thin stream and mix. The resulting suspension should settle, after which a precipitate will appear, from which the drink must be carefully drained. There will remain an overly tart aftertaste.
• Based on wine with bitterness, cook wine drink. Lots of options. If red - why is mulled wine bad? Its recipe is simple and original, and you and your guests will be so hot from fiery wine that they will not feel bitterness behind the taste of spices. Mulled wine recipe: for 1 liter of red wine you need to take 3-4 tablespoons of sugar, 2-3 cinnamon sticks, 2-3 centimeters of ginger, 2-3 star anise, 2-3 cardamom seeds, 3-4 clove buds. Spice powders and fruits are not good. If some spice is missing, it doesn’t matter, and without one or two components, everything will turn out fine. Wine is heated in a wide dish, all the ingredients are added to it. Wine with spices is brought to a boil. Takes off the fire. Covered with a lid. Infused for 10 minutes. Used hot.
• Bitter white grape wine is easy to fix by preparing a trendy drink - sangria. This is a fruity drink.

Ingredients:

1. Wine - 1 liter
2. sugar - 3-4 tablespoons
3. lemon - 1 piece
4. orange - 1 piece
5. mint - 4-5 branches.

In a free beautiful glassware, the liquid is mixed with sugar until it is completely dissolved. Fresh, washed fruits are cut into beautiful slices and placed in a vessel with wine. The drink is left for 1 or 2 hours. Cover it with a tissue paper. Sangria should be served with ice cubes or simply chilled. Mint is placed in each glass before drinking. Any wine is suitable for making sangria, not only grape ones.

• You can cope with this problem with the help of bentonite in the following proportional ratio: white clay (3 g) per 1 liter of wine. White clay is prepared for use with 10 times its volume of cold water. It should be poured, mixed and allowed to stand for about half a day until it becomes lime. Then you can add water to it until a liquid consistency is obtained and pour it into the wine in a thin stream. Leave it in this state for about a week, after which it should be removed from the sediment.

Strong bitterness in homemade wine cannot be disguised. If the wine is strong, distill it into moonshine. His reserves are never redundant.

• If none of the above methods helped, you can try to leave the bitter wine for a long exposure (6 months) in an oak barrel with the addition of a small amount of alcohol. In the absence of an oak barrel, you can do the following:

1. add 1 tsp. crushed oak bark for every 3 liters. guilt;
2. cork and store for six months in a dark, dry place;
3. drain from the sediment, strain;
4. add 1 tsp. glucose.

You should be careful with this method, because if Oak barrel is not well cured and laundered, exposure to it can further increase the bitter taste of the drink. As a rule, it is used if all other methods have proved useless.

1. Causes determine consequences 2. Prevention is better than elimination of consequences 3. If prevention did not work out 4. If nothing helped

Home winemaking is very popular and quite common, so the question of why homemade wine is bitter is a frequent one. Basically, bitterness occurs in beginners with no experience in winemaking and is caused by the unsuccessful preparation of this drink.

1

To avoid this turn of events, you should first find out the cause of the unwanted taste. Wine is bitter - what to do? Methods of struggle vary depending on the cause of an unpleasant taste and require a different approach to eliminating bitterness.

What is the reason for the bitterness of homemade wine?

The appearance of an unpleasant taste is caused by one, and sometimes several erroneous actions of a novice winemaker in the process of preparing a drink. The most common mistakes are the following:

1. Insufficient accuracy or attentiveness when working at the first stage - obtaining juice from fruits. The seeds of many fruits, fruits, grapes contain tannins and tannins, which, if the seeds are damaged, enter the juice. It is they who, in the process of fermentation, will give a sufficiently strong and persistent bitterness to the drink. The stones can be damaged by the blades of electric rotary juicers or by a powerful press that squeezes the juice from the fruit mass.
2. An even more common and widespread reason is carelessness in the selection of raw materials for making wine. If you do not carefully sort out the fruits used, then poor raw materials in the form of fruits that have begun to deteriorate a little or foreign impurities (leaves, grass) can spoil the taste, including making it very bitter.
3. The untimely separation of wine from the sediment formed during the fermentation process always leads to the fact that the wine has a bitter taste and requires further action to remove the bitterness in the wine. The reason is that fermentation proceeds due to wine yeast, which, remaining at the end of the process in a container with an already fermented product, quickly decomposes and rots, filling the wine drink with a bitter taste.
4. A bitter taste can also appear in wine as a result of the ingress of pathogens, such as bacteria or fungal spores - in the course of their life they release substances that spoil taste qualities drink.
5. Another reason why wine can become bitter in taste is the wrong choice of packaging for long-term storage. When fermenting and storing wine products in wooden barrels for a long time, tannins get into the wine from wood, which will spoil its taste and make it almost unfit for consumption.

2 Prevention is better than remediation

For convenience and clarity, measures to prevent the occurrence of a bitter taste in wine are given in the same order as in the first section. In order to prevent their occurrence, you need to do the following:

1. To avoid getting tannin or tannins from the seeds of fruits, fruits or grapes in the process of obtaining juice from raw materials, you should try to keep the seeds as intact and intact as possible. To do this, use the most gentle methods of juice separation, which are only possible. Alternatively, you can pre-seed the fruits (only relevant in some cases, not for all fruits and for small quantities of raw materials). Also, for some types of fruits, pre-freezing them can help, which will lead to a decrease in the effect on the resulting juice.
2. Obtaining good quality raw materials can sometimes be laborious, but simple in nature - you only need to carefully sort out the prepared fruits, fruits, grapes, removing all unnecessary impurities in the form of grass, foliage, wood chips, and you also need to remove all spoiled or overripe fruits in order to they could not, in the process of fermentation, let the wine go rancid.
3. With the untimely separation of the sediment from the wine, there should not be any problems at all, since you only need to carefully monitor the process of wine fermentation. Upon completion, as soon as possible, carry out the procedure for separating the finished wine from the sediment containing wine yeast, which, when decomposed, can introduce an undesirable taste into the drink.
4. Measures to prevent the ingress of pathogens are fully consistent with the elementary sanitary standards for working with perishable products - cleanliness and accuracy at every stage of the preparation of the wine composition. It is desirable to pasteurize the finished wine, preventing harmful microorganisms from developing in the wine in the future. Sterilization of the container into which the wine will be poured for storage is also of great importance.
5. When storing finished wine in wooden tubs or barrels, the only in an efficient way to avoid the appearance of a bitter taste in the drink is the regular sampling. It is recommended to do this at least once a week. When the first signs of bitterness appear, homemade wine must be immediately poured into an inert container ( glass bottles or ceramic container).

3

The methodology for eliminating the resulting bitter taste in wine depends on the cause of its appearance. Below are ways to remove bitterness.

1. You can remove the taste from tannin and tannins that got into the drink at the stage of obtaining juice from fruits using a simple tool - egg white. To do this, take 100 ml egg whites for each liter of finished wine with bitterness and beat them (not very hard, you should not beat the whites to a state of persistent foam). Then add them to rancid homemade wine, mix thoroughly but gently and leave the drink in this state for 2-3 weeks. Complete precipitation will serve as a sign of the end of the cleaning process. Now all that remains is to carefully (preferably using a thin tube) strain into a clean prepared container, avoiding sediment getting into the drained wine.
2. With the bitterness that appeared due to impurities and low-quality raw materials, you can cope with the help of white clay. She is also famous in Food Industry how food supplement E558 or bentonite. To use it, it is necessary to prepare it by pouring ten times the amount of water (cold) in excess of its volume, mix and put it to infuse for 10-14 hours - during this time the composition will turn into lime. The amount of bentonite from which lime is prepared is taken at the rate of 3 g per liter of spoiled drink. The resulting bentonite lime should be carefully diluted with cold water to a liquid state and poured into the processed wine in a small stream. After a week of settling in this state, a precipitate will form in a rancid drink, this is a sign of purification. Now it is necessary, as in the first paragraph, to carefully separate the purified product from the sediment and pour it into prepared containers.
3. If it happened that the late filtration of the finished wine drink turned out to be the cause of the appearance of an unpleasant taste, then the first two methods from this list must be used in combination. They must be applied in order. The process itself is described in paragraphs 1 and 2.
4. If the cause turned out to be multiplied microorganisms, then they should be destroyed by pasteurizing the wine by heat treatment. To do this, place the sealed containers (hermetically) with the liquid to be treated in a large container with water, bring it to 60ºС, and hold for 5-10 minutes, then let it cool to 15-20ºС, remove the cooled containers with a wine drink and leave to settle for about a week . During this time, the wine will clear, and the impurities will precipitate. Now the wine must be carefully decanted and poured into prepared storage containers.
5. If bitterness appeared due to storage in wooden tubs or barrels, you should first of all try to remove it using the method from point 2 (with white clay), but this can only help at the very beginning of the "rancidity" of the wine. If such an attempt is unsuccessful, then the wine should be turned into fortified by adding alcohol and sugar to it (within 8-15% of the volume).

You can try to turn the wine into fortified by adding alcohol and sugar to it.

4 If all else fails

It may happen that none of the given purification methods worked, and the bitter taste in the wine was preserved. The method of long-term storage in oak containers can help here: pour a rancid drink into a carefully processed and washed oak container, introduce a not very large amount of alcohol and leave for a long time (up to six months).

If there was no oak container on the farm, then it is quite possible to simply add chopped oak bark at the rate of 1 tbsp. l. for 5 liters of drink. Seal hermetically, put in a dark, cool room for 6 months, then separate the wine from the sediment and add 1 tbsp. l. grape sugar for every 5 liters of wine.

If, despite all the efforts, nothing happened, and the wine remained bitter and unpleasant in taste, then this does not mean that it is only suitable for throwing away. There is always the opportunity to get homemade fruit or grape brandy from it, simply by distilling the spoiled wine drink with the help of a moonshine still.

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