Its the end of summer and our zucchini plants have been pretty productive this year. I decided to use a couple of our larger zucchini and try a Spiced Zucchini Wine recipe that my brother sent to me. I made a few changes and decided not to add lemons and oranges for acid because I feel that is a bit too imprecise, and that is the reason my Dandelion Wine turned out so acidic. I will used acid blend instead after measuring the TA%.
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Process:
Heated one gallon of water to a boil. While it was heating I thinly sliced my ounce of ginger, leaving the skin on. I then added the ginger to the water when it began boiling, and simmered for 15 minutes.
As the ginger steeped, I washed my zucchini. I then cut them into four sections lengthwise and sliced them thin. I added the cut zucchini to my primary bucket. I also added the sugar on top of the zucchini.
After the 15 minute steep was done, I poured the boiling water over the sugar and zucchini in my primary bucket. I then added the acid blend and crushed Campden tablets. TA% was 0.6 and the OG was 1.110 giving a potential strength of 14.4 %ABV.
10-23-11: Put the wine into primary with Campden tablets. OG measured at 1.110.
10-24-11: Pitched the yeast and stirred it into the must.
10-26-11: No airlock activity yet. I removed the blow-off tube and attached a regular airlock. I added 1.5 teaspoons of yeast nutrient and moved the primary bucket to a warmer location (from 55 F to 65 F) in hopes of getting it to start fermenting.
10-28-11: Fermentation was just beginning to start yesterday. Today the airlock is bubbling away steadily and the yeast is finally doing its job.
12-17-11: Finally got around to straining and racking this to a secondary 1-gallon carboy. FG measured at 0.990 giving it a strength of 14. %ABV. Has a pale color with a green tint, and tastes strongly of ginger.
10-16-12: Bottled into 10 12-ounce bottles. The wine tastes very much like ginger, and it is not one of my favorites. I will be giving it plenty of time to age and see if it gets any better.
How did you measure TA%?
I purchased an acid titration kit for wines. Basically you take a 15ml sample of the wine, add 3 drops of phenolphthalein, and then slowly add sodium hydroxide (NaOH) while stirring the sample until the color changes. How much NaOH you add lets you know how acidic the wine is, and then you can adjust it to your desired levels by adding an acid blend.
I kind of figured that might be the case. Since I looked up how to measure TA% and titration was listed.