No, you cannot substitute tartaric for acid blend. You can, however, use it
instead of acid blend. I know I am being picky in my symantics, but I say
this because they are not the same thing. Acid blend is a blend of several
different acids. Usually Malic, Citric, and Tartaric. You could used any
one or more of these in different combinations for different tastes and will
definately change the wine.
Citric is dominant in citrus fruit and it's acid will impart just such a
flavor in the wine.
Tartaric is dominant in grapes and help give the vinuosity to grape wine.
Malic is dominant in Apples. Without it apples would not taste anything
like apples. Also, Malic is the acid eaten by the MLF fermentation. You do
not want MLF anywhere near an Apple wine or any wine where malic acid is in
large amounts. It will absolutely ruin it.
I use tartaric in many of my wines and in general prefeer it to acid blend.
But my recomendation is to only add acid of any type by taste, not by
mesurement and only after the mead has aged for a while. This is one of the
main differences between wine and mead. With wine you adjust acid at the
start of fermentation by acid tests. With mead, you adjest acidity after
the mead is made and only by taste. Standard acid tests will not work with
mead because of honey's buffering power.
Ray
Post by PhilI was planning on adding some acid blend to a batch of mead I was
going to bottle this morning, but I don't have any. Can I substitute
tartaric acid?
Phil