sparkling Wine

[crafty john]

Hi all
Its all well and good brewinng beer which my Mrs likes, but her favorite tipple is Cava. Can anyone tell me what I need to do to make sparkling wine?, any info would be greatly appreciated.
cheers John

[arturobandini]

Hi John,

As follows is the method for making sparkling wine. It involves the following equipment;

Champagne Bottles (Or any other bottle fermented wine - thicker the better)
Muselets (Champagne wire to tie the stoppers on)
Plastic Champagne Stoppers (These have a hollow centre to trap yeast sediment)

Firstly you need to have fully fermented and cleared a wine to bottling stage. If you're going to use a kit then try and find one that your other half would enjoy. If she likes Cava then perhaps choose a grape varietal that is usual to that wine....Pinot Noir, Chardonnay etc.

Once you have a demijohn of clear fermented wine you need to make up a yeast starter with champagne yeast and add this to your wine along with the appropriate amount of sugar to reach good Champagne style carbonation but avoid exploding bottles. Once this solution has been added to your fermented wine it should be bottled into your Champagne Bottles and corked (with the hollow point corks) and tied down with the Muselets. Leave this in fermentation temperature conditions for one to two weeks then store in the cold. For cold storage the wine must be tilted so as to let the yeast fall into the neck of the Champagne bottle. The cold storage will dissolve the Carbon dioxide into your sparkling wine and the yeast will settle in the hollow point of your cork.

Leaving the wine in cold storage for long periods (minimum 6 months) will give your wine the maximum chance to absorb flavour from the champagne yeast (a very good thing) and carbon dioxide. Once your sparkling wine is ready for serving you can set about removing the yeast cap....

Get a bucket of iced water and add some salt to get the temperature right down and place the neck of the bottle into the bucket until frozen. Remove your muselet and pull out the cork along with the yeast deposit. Top up with a bit of sweet white wine and re-cork and re-wire and you've successfully made a clear and sparkling wine!

[DREADSKIN]

I havnt done it in that manner, as it sounds very complicated... i just do the same as for sparkling cider. ie make a wine, clear it, stick it in the bottle with 1 1/2 -2 teaspoons of sugar and leave it for 2 months. doesnt always work (it works about4/5ths of the time) so thats good enough for me!

[arturobandini]

Yeah, that's a similar approach as to carbonating beer Dreadskin. The difference in the champagne approach is to get rid of all sediment that is present in the bottles. If you add sugar to a bottle you'll get sediment and this is a way of removing that sediment but keeping the carbonation. Yeah it's complicated but it will give you a clear and sparkling wine. I think the sheer amount of carbonation in a champagne style wine would whip up the smallest amount of sediment into the drink and make a murky sparkling wine.

[DREADSKIN]

thats exactly what it does... but sure. i suppose i will have to experiement with the 'true' champers method. tho i can just wee it now... me trying to uncork a bottle and the stuff going everywhere... i suppose my question is, does the yeast 'stick' to the plastic cork, or does the frozen yeast cube nee poked out? why does it not just fizz everywhere?

[arturobandini]

Having not actually done it.....

The plastic corks you fit whilst the yeast is working have a hollow centre and the yeast settles in these so you can whip them out complete with yeast inside. The neck is frozen so you stop the Champagne from pushing out with a small frozen plug of wine just above the cork which contained the yeast. I was thinking of making a sparkling wine but in the end I plumped for a White Port.

[crafty john]

Thanks for that, it doesn't sound too complicated my only questions are how much chapagne yeast do you use for a 30 bottle kit? If I used a kit would I still use the stabiliser as I believe it kills the yeast? I have never made wine before so I don't know much about it.

Regards John

[arturobandini]

If one packet of Champagne yeast is made up in a starter then by the time you pitch it should be enough for a 30 bottle kit.

As far as I can tell, if you use stabilisers and finings you should leave it for at least a week before adding your Champagne yeast starter. The stabiliser (it's the same as a crushed campden tablet) will kill off any yeast working in the brew but given sufficient time for the vapors and it's effects to die down the new yeast should have no problems acting in that environment.

70g of sugar per 6 bottle wine kit so use 350g for a 30 bottle kit. Rack your stabilised and fined wine into a demijohn/bottling bucket and dissolve your sugar into this and pitch the yeast starter.

Bottle as normal and fit the stoppers as advised above.

[crafty john]

Thanks Mate My Mrs is chuffed, she only wished it would not take so long. Good things come to those who wait.

Thanks again
John & Kristy (the Mrs)

[arturobandini]

Good luck with it all and post some photos of your brewing process !

[crafty john]

May sound like a stupid question, do I have to bring the wine up to temperature before pitching the champagne yeast or will placing the bottles in a warm place do the trick?

Thanks for all your advice, I will try and get some pics and post them, if i can work out how to do it.

Cheers
John

[arturobandini]

Yes, your cleared bright wine should be brought back up to brewing temperatures so you can add your yeast starter and dissolve your sugar in it. Airlock it and when you see the first sign of activity get it in those bottles.

In this thread ( Link ) there are some pictures of Champagne style fermentation on the 2nd page. The main issue with Champagne fermentation is safety and it's not unknown for commercial makers to have issues with bottling. That's why you should only ever use good thick Champagne bottles and be very precise about sugar. The up side is that your better half has some 30 bottles to get through before you're done fermenting the wine so that ought to pass the time!

I'll be making some sort of sparkling fruit wine in the near future I just need to decide on what sort as I had originally set my mind on Strawberry before I heard bad things about it's lack of flavour when used in brewing. Theoretically you can make Champagne from shop bought commercial wine (pricey though!) so you should have little trouble turning a nicely fermented good quality wine kit into something sparkly.

Have a search around the other brews section for more wine making tips and questions and never hesitate to get stuck in and show us what you're up to as everyone here is somewhat of a brewing voyeur

[crafty john]

I do all my brewing in my very cold kitchen so I use immersion heaters, My only problem seems to be getting a good seal on my FV's so I can see activity in the lock as I have to suspend the wire with a piece of strilised metal coat hanger so the heater doesn't touch the FV, I use duck tape around the lid but there must be a tiny leak somewhere. Any Ideas?

[arturobandini]

Beats me John!

A perfect seal really isn't necessary and airlocks are more for show than anything else. A lot of brewers don't use airlocks at all and just crack the lid of their FV open and let nature take it's course.

The signs of fermentation are pretty obvious to the naked eye so you should be alright in that respect.

[crafty john]

OK sorted I will keep you updated on my progress. Thanks again for all your advice.

Regards John