…and at the very beginning you smell ethyl acetate, how badly on a scale of 1 to 10 do you freak out?
Zero. It just the sign that your fermentation is starting.
If it does not start soon (don’t worry, it will) then start to freak out.
E
What is the temp of your must?
Not that warm. It just started. The smell had actually blown off by this morning. I’m just wondering fit the future if it is likely to turn out well like this one did or if It always at least a slight cause for concern. Seems like go through this every year but I’ve never understood if its normal or if I’m dodging bullets
Kloeckera is a wild yeast that smells like ethyl acetate. It dies off pretty fast in the presence of alcohol so doesn’t go far into fermentation.
That’s why I asked about the temp. It actually likes colder temps, which seems counter intuitive. Sometimes if you bring in really cold must it can smell that way until it warms up and the Kloeckera/Hanseniaspora dies off.
Thanks for the answers.
To be a bit more precise with my question: will the Ether Acetate always blow off after the regular fermentation takes off?
Most of the time, but it depends on the source.
If you want, you can always add more KMS. It gets eaten up almost immediately during fermentation.
Speaking of that, I never add sulfur until bottling and have yet to have a problem. Stupid?
A blanket of dry ice post punchdown also helps keep the ethyl acetate away.
From the co2?
Linda is spot on.
If you are having issues, it certainly doesn’t help things by not adding it.
In most of the home made wine I have ever tasted, the biggest issues/mistakes are insufficient SO2 adds, and too much exposure to oxygen. KMS is not the enemy.
Dry ice will not only keep your temps down, but also blanket with CO2 to protect your must before your ferm gets going.
Thank you for the help.
Im curious, have you done side by side comparisons of native and inoculated ferments? Were there differences that persisted for a long duration of the wine’s life?
I know the people out of Davis say that the differences go away after 6 months. Im curious if this has been a repeatable phenomenon.
Generally, yeast differences disappear after a year or less.
I have posted before about a study we did in our sensory lab when I was at Fresno St. We were studying the mixed culture yeasts that Gusmer now sells (they weren’t on the market yet) that try to mimic the mixtures of yeasts found in native ferments. We had our trained panels taste Pinot and Chards made at about a dozen different wineries, with a control (Sacch. inoculated wine) with the three different mixed culture yeasts from Gusmer. These were just difference tests (triangle testing), although we did record taste comments. At 6 months, the tasters did notice statistically significant differences (usually favorable, sometimes not, as noted in the tasting comments- and I did taste all of these wines myself). At one year these wines were tasted again, and there were no differences between the controls and the mixed yeasts, statistically speaking.
Thanks Linda. What was your own antidotal experience? Did you personally notice a difference at the 1 year mark?
I wonder if that mixed strain of commercial yeast really is an accurate analog of wild fermentations.
There are hundreds of wild yeasts, but Gusmer used the three most ubiquitous ones in their cultures. These and all other “native” yeasts might be present at the beginning of fermentation, but Sacch always takes over and finishes.
After one year, wine makes so many chemical changes (not to mention oak treatments if used), that any impact the yeast has made will be negligible at best. There might be a bit more complexity, but unless you are looking at it against a control, you would be hard pressed to notice any difference, and more than a year down the line? Nope. Not in my opinion anyway.
Linda, Berry, et al,
A very interesting discussion - thanks guys.
Best, Jim
In all stainless aromatic whites, particularly SB and Arneis, we see differences between yeast strains out to a year and beyond. As long as the wine is still aromatically fresh, the difference persists.
I can see that it would be hard to see that in reds, but I think it is probably still there, even if it is hard to spot. At least between say Assmanshousen and RC 212. We seem to think there are differences, but perhaps we should try a controlled test this year like we do with the whites.
Of course, if you get the wrong wild yeasts, it will last a lot longer. I personally would worry more about that possibility than I would about potential added complexity (except for experimental lots).
-Al