Sep 07 2009
Why Should You Use Wine Yeast In Home Winemaking?
As far back as history can tell us, man has been making wine. Archeol-
ogists have found evidence of wine being purposely made as far back as
12,000 years ago. Wine was very present in early Egypt, almost being an
industry of its own as early as 2,000 B.C. Yet, yeast was not discovered
until the 1850′s when French scientist Louis Pasteur suggested that wine
fermentation was the result of a living organism.
So why do we need to use yeast now, when for so many years man has
successfully made wine while being completely oblivious to its existence?
There are two parts to this answer.
- Part I, Putting The Odds In Your Favor.
To say that man has successfully made wine over the years is not
completely true. Bad batches of wine where made quite often as well.
Wines that developed mold; wines that remained cloudy and visually
unappealing; wines that eventually turned to vinegar – they were all part of
the mix of what was made along side the good batches of wine that kept
man’s interest in the drink for so long.
Yeast is naturally everywhere. We can’t see it, but it’s in our homes, on
the trees and plants; it floats in the air. We breath it everyday. And it is
this natural yeast that also lands on fruit and provides for a natural
fermentation when we crush the fruit and expose its sugars and nutrients
to the yeast.
The problem is that natural yeast is a “package deal”. What I mean to say
is that yeast is not the only thing that is everywhere. Vinegar bacteria,
mold spores and many other types of little “nasties” are on the fruit as
well, waiting to spoil the fun – pun intended.
Yeast does have the upper-hand in the sense that it is, on average, more
capable of taking over the fruit more so than these other competing
organisms. It is also capable of actually destroying any remnant numbers
of these other organisms once it has taken hold of the fruit. But, quite often
yeast will let us down and allow these other cultures to take over the fruit
and cause it to become something other than wine.
And, this is how the unknowing story went for so many years. In the more
current times, since Louis Pasteur’s discoveries, we have developed a
better understanding of what takes place during a fermentation. We
understand that natural yeast is a “package deal”. We now know how to
isolate a strain of yeast, preserve it and package it.
With pure strains of packaged yeast available, the winemaker can now
simply put the juice through a sterilization process, killing all the wild
molds and bacteria (wild yeast included) and then simply add a fresh
strain of packaged yeast back to it, allowing the winemaker to start with a
clean slate and a big advantage.
The sterilization process is very simple. You add a product called
Campden Tablets to the juice – one tablet per gallon. Let the juice stand
uncovered for 24 hours and then the juice is ready for yeast to be added.
Campden Tablets are really sulfite that is stabilized in a powder form.
When the tablets are crushed up and dissolved into a fruit juice, they
release sulfur gases into the wine which does the sterilizing. Over a short
period of time the gases slowly dissipate into the air, usually within 24
hours, making it safe to add your fresh package of wine yeast.
- Part II, Taking Advantage Of Technology.
The second reason we should add yeast to wine, is that the strains that
are available to us as winemaker’s are much more suited for making wine
than what you will find floating in the wild. Like any other living organism,
yeast can be bred to respond more favorably to a given situation. There
are yeast that have been bred specifically to make beer; yeast bred
specifically to rise bread and so on.
In the case of wine yeast, these yeast are not only bred to heartily
produce the maximum amount of alcohol they can from the fruit, but also
to produce alcohol with good flavor qualities. And to take this a step
further, different wine yeasts have been bred for different types of wines.
For example, there are wine yeast, such as our “Red Pasteur” yeast
from Red Star, that are very well suited for heavier red wines. And, there
are wine yeast such as our Lavlin ICV D-47, that are very well suited
for light, fruity white wines, and so on.
For much more in depth information, check out the Complete Illustrated Guide to Homemade Wine.
