Home Brew is too Yeasty

[vancheese]

Hi people

My numerous attempts to make homebrew wine have turned out too Yeasty. Does anyone have tips on how to reduce the yeasty taste??

Andy

[MKG]

Well, let's see. A yeasty flavour is either because ...

a) there's still yeast in the wine, or ...
b) it's been left too long on the lees (that's the residue at the bottom) after fermentation has finished and the yeast has autolysed (ie died, the outer membrane ruptured, all the cell contents released into the wine).

a) is easy - just rack your wine a couple of times to make sure it's as bright as it can be. If you really want to make sure, filter it.

b) is not so easy - once that flavour is in solution, there's very little you can do. Make sure that next time you get it off the lees as soon as you can. However, just about the only thing you can do with your present lot is blend it or flavour it. The problem, of course, will be finding a blend wine or flavour which will happily sit with a yeasty taste.

Never having had the problem, I hesitate to suggest anything - but coffee essence might work.

Actually, there's a c). Did you happen to use (that is, overuse) Marmite or Vegimite as a yeast nutrient?

Mike

[frozenthunderbolt]

1. Use a proper wine yeast like red star premieer cuvee - they are often designed to brew a very 'clean' taste.

2. be vigilant in your racking - don't let ANY sediment get suck up your siphon and make sure that you rack your wine in a timely manner before it has been sitting on the sediment too long.

3. Shock the yeast before racking by adding the right number of campden tablets /amount of metabisulphate.

4. use isinglass type finings to reduce haze, so of which will be suspended yeast.

5. Make sure you wine has finished working and has dropped all its sediment before you try to drink it.

6. If making beer make sure you calculate your sugars carefully and that it is fully worked out before you bottle it. also add finings and slightly less priming sugar than recommended then make sure you bottles dont get shaken up before opening.

All the best, im sure some of the others will chime in here too

[vancheese]

I have been using c) and I used a teaspoon of marmite! Should I drop the marmite form my recipes?

[frozenthunderbolt]

try using blackstrap mollasses (1/4 teaspoon per gallon) instead if you cant get a real yeast nutrient blend.

[MKG]

I have been using c) and I used a teaspoon of marmite! Should I drop the marmite form my recipes?

Nail on head, I think. I assume that you mean a teaspoon in a gallon? It's FAR too much. Try a quarter of a teaspoon, maximum. You don't have to stop using it - just use it sparingly. Better still, get hold of some proper yeast nutrient. And remember that if your recipe includes a lot of solid ingredients, you probably won't need any nutrient at all.

Mike