When attempting to learn about wine making, the first thing to study is the number of different chemicals and additives that are essential to homemade wine production. One of the most mysterious additives is the Pectic Enzyme.
Let’s take a look at what the pectic enzyme is, how it works, and why you need it in the first place.
Take a moment and picture a hot buttered biscuit covered with delicious grape jelly. This jelly has that nice gooey jell-o like consistency. Unlike jell-o, which gets its consistency from gelatin, fruit jams and jellies get a great deal of their consistency from a substance called pectin. Pectin is commercially made as a light colored powder. It’s taken from citrus fruits and added to food as a gelling type agent.
When attempting to make wine out of peaches, grapes, strawberries, or any other type of fruit, you have to address the natural level of pectin. This pectin will cause solids to clump together in your wine in a colloidal suspension. The result is a “cloudy” wine. You can leave in sitting in the secondary all you want. It still won’t clear up.
So, as a homemade wine producer, how do you deal with pectin? It’s quite simple. You just have to add something that EATS pectin! This brings us to the Pectic Enzyme.
When making your own wine at home, add about a teaspoon of pectic enzyme per gallon of fruit juice prior to starting the fermenting process. Once the fermenting begins, the pectic enzyme will start dissolving the pectin by eating it. Your wine will clear faster and be devoid of unsightly suspended solids.
Researching all the additives, enzymes, and chemicals that are essential to wine making can be an intimidating task but you don’t have to be a scientist to be a wine maker. Many before you have acquired wine making knowledge that can be passed on to you in a very simple and easy to learn fashion. You can get a FREE detailed step by step 24 page instruction guide to wine making at how-to-make-wine.net. -Stanley Beckheimer
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