A Quick & Easy How to Use EC-1118 for 1st Fruitwine Batch - Please !

Hi.
I just got myself some Lalvin EC-1118 and would like to make my 1st Fruit-Wine batch with it.
I'm thinking to ferment in a 18 liter plastic bottle container, probably using Strawberries or Mulberries.
A plain quick & easy how-to get this thing going would be very much appreciated - As less scientific as possible.
Thanks in advance for any help,
Cheng

Hi Cheng. Welcome to the forum.

I suggest you take a look at is thread, first post, before starting your wine... http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/f2/dangerdaves-dragon-blood-wine-41825/. Hope this is what you're looking for as far as "quick & easy".

You might want to give consideration to investing in a primary fermenting bucket and carboy and plan on making 23L/6 gallons of your fruit wine.

Do you have all the equipment you think you'll need? If not then maybe that's where you need to start and maybe complete a few kit wines before moving on to scratch wines.

If the bottle container has a small opening, it will be easiest to find a food grade bucket and use that for the primary. Get a ferment bag to hold your fruit. A 5 gal. paint strainer bag works well. Freeze the fruit first. Put the fruit in the bag, the bag is to help you get the fruit back out without clogging up your racking canes later. Probably want to use 5 lbs. fruit per gal. Add k-meta, pectic enzime and enough water to make however many gals. you are making. Wait 24 hours and add your nutrient and energizer if you are going to use it. Use about 1/2 of the nutrient now, the other half when the specific gravity gets down to 1.050 or 1.060 or so. Add enough sugar to bring your specific gravity up to about 1.085. Pitch your yeast. Either sprinkle on top or make a starter out of a cup of juice, a little nutrient and the yeast. Warm the juice up to about 100 degrees or so, not much hotter. When the yeast takes off, you can either add it to the must or add another cup of juice and let it start some more then pitch it in the must. When it is fermenting well, make sure you stir it good at least once a day. Add the rest of your nutrient at 1.050 or so. When it ferments down to 1.010 or lower, you can transfer it to your other container or let it ferment to dry, less then 1.000 and keeping the same reading for 3 or more days and then transfer to your carboy. Put some kind of airlock on it that will let the co2 out and keep the oxygen from getting in. After time passes, probably 30 days or more, you will have it starting to clear and there will be a thick layer of lees on the bottom. (The gunk that falls out and lets the wine clear.) Rack it over to another container, give it a shot of k-meta, airlock it and let it sit. Now you can either let it sit to clear or use some kind of finings to help it clear. If it all smells good, go ahead and taste it. You can taste it at any stage along the way, but it is always better when it has started to clear a bit. The wine should be dry at this time and mite need to be sweetened some. When tasting you can just add a little suger to the sample. If you are going to sweeten the whole batch, you have to stabalize it, (add k-meta and pot. sorbate.) After sweetening to taste, if it is clear, it is time to bottle it. Ask questions along the way. Folks will most likely answer. Arne.

A few basics first:
You absolutely need a Hydrometer, this is one of the most important tools you can get as a new wine maker.
You will need to start with your desired amount of water, your fermenting container is 18 liters, or 4.75 gallons, I wouldn't start with more than 3- 3.5 gallons to allow for the fruit and fermentation.
You will need to add sugar (8 or 9 cups of sugar for 3.5 gallons should bring you to 1.070 or so) or honey to the water to give the wine a starting gravity (SG) of 1.070-1.090, (use the hydrometer to read the SG level, add sugar slowly, mixing it in well, you can use warm water to dilute it) the higher the SG the higher the Alcohol% will be, most new winemakers tend to think that a 15% fruit wine will be good, it will not. The higher ABV%, the longer you will have to age it, it will overpower the fruit and possibly strip the fruit flavor.
Use 3-5 lbs of berries per gallon of water, freeze the berries and thaw them before using, berries bought at the local grocery store work fine.
I would put the berries in a mesh bag so it is easier cleanup, less floating particles.
You'll need to add pectic enzymes, it helps the clarification process/pectic haze and increases the extraction of body and color from the pulp during fermentation.
You will need a yeast nutrient, Fermaid K is my yeast nutrient of choice.
If you have Tannins, I would add it, amount will depend on what type that you have, if not a small amount of medium toast oak will do.
EC-1118 will ferment the wine with no issues, personally, I'd use Lalvin 71B-1122.

To make the wine as simple as possible:
Take your 3.5 gallons of water, add the necessary sugar to bring the SG to 1.070,
Add the thawed berries (again, I'd use a mesh bag)
Add the Pectic enzyme
Add the Yeast nutrient
Add the Tannin or Oak
As long as the water is room temp, hydrate the yeast in 110° water and add it to the must.
I cover my fermenter and put an airlock at this point, others just put a cloth over the top.
You will need to use your hydrometer to ensure that fermentation is complete (this can take up to a week) The SG reading should be below 1.000, .992 -.994 is fine.
You will need to stabilize the wine with Potassium Metabisulfite (Meta).
Your wine will be fermented to dry at this point, you will have to decide if you will drink it as is, or if you want to back sweeten it, if you plan on back sweetening, you will need to add sorbate to stop any new fermentations, without sorbate, if you add more sugar to sweeten, it will start fermenting again.
I recommend using a simple syrup to back sweeten.

This is about as non scientific as I can get, I hope that this helps, and I'm sure that others will add their ideas as well.

@ Pumpkinman

....... thanks for the very basic unscientific rundown on how to get started.
Telling you the truth, is that I had a few batches going before with just baking yeast and I was looking for something a bit better than that.
Anyway, I really do appreciate your basic rundown - Just have to go through the details again when I'm a bit more sober than right now.
Very much appreciated though - Will be back soon with a couple of more stupid questions .......


@ bkisel & @ Arne

....... thanks for this link as well, seems worth checking out.
Telling you the truth, I thought all this would e a bit easier.
All your comments are very much appreciated - Just didn't thought that I have to get a degree to make some boose .......

Cheng,

Costco carries a variety of wine starter kits for roughly $50 which will make 30 bottles of (fairly poor) wine. But with it, you get most of the stuff you need to make proper wine on your own. Alternatively, goto a local wine making shop and they can give you everything you need (including glass carboy) for < $100. It's a fairly large startup investment, but once you have started and have all the equipment, you can start making wine at roughly $0.30 per 750ml bottle!

Www.skeeterpee.com has a recipe for a VERY good lemon wine and if you shop around for the ingredients, it averages $0.30-0.80 per bottle! And tastes better then most commercial wines!!

Also, Skeeterpee was my first "from scratch" wine and the instructions were very easy to follow. I even found a link on YouTube which walked me through every step the first time I did it.

I only started making wine in January and since then I have made:

Red barolo (kit)
White Riesling (kit)
Skeeter pee (original recipe)
Tropical Dragons blood (recipe linked above in earlier replies)
Skeeter pee (original recipe, first batch is almost gone)
skeeter pee (added some oak and bananas to see how good I can make it!)

One word of warning... Once you make either Skeeterpee or dragons blood you WILL become obsessed! With the instructions being so easy and the finished wine so tasty, you just can't stop

....... thanks for all your replies.
I think I have to mention that I'm living in south east asia somewhere in the sticks and no wine kits available here.
Apparently I have to figure out a way to get some equipment somehow.

@ JDesCotes
The link to the youtube tutorial would be nice if possible ........

Here you go!

[ame]http://youtu.be/PiqOQ8EBIeU[/ame]

@ JDesCotes

....... thanks a lot for the YouTube link, it's very much appreciated - I do have about 20 lemon trees in the back yard and looking forward to give this recipe a go.

And here another cry for help !

The only chance I've got is to get some needed stuff from Germany or Switzerland.

I found this Hydrometer on Amazon Germany and was wondering if one of you guys can tell me if this one would work for someone green behind the ears like myself.

http://www.amazon.de/dp/ALKOHOLOME/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

It's some kinda 3in1 device which I think might do the trick and it's not expensive as well.

Here a quick translation of what it can do:
-------
Alcoholometer with thermometer 0-96% plus an additional test tube, which serves as a measuring cylinder

Thanks to the built-in thermometer and the correspondingly marked measuring scale corrections for deviations from the ideal temperature (20 degrees) are immediately possible.

In order to measure the alcohol content of sugary spirits, liqueurs such as wines or fruit brandy, you need a Vinometer (these can be found in our other offer)

Measuring range: 0 - 96% by volume length: 22 cm Scale: 8 cm Material: Glass
-------

Do I need the Vinometer as well or am I OK with this for the beginning ?

I did found Tannin on Amazon Germany and Yeast Nutrient on eBay Germany as well:

http://www.amazon.de/dp/B002TMQRRC/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

http://www.ebay.de/itm/Hefenahrsalz...pt=Spezial_Landwirtschaft&hash=item58a9486748

These two should do I guess, still searching for:

Yeast Energizer
Yeast Slurry
Potassium Metabisulfite (Kmeta)
Potassium Sorbate (Sorbate)
Sparkolloid

Not as easy to find as one would think, because of translation problems I'm having - Which means I might be back seeking some more advice from you guys.

Here a quick translation on what the Yeast Nutrient from Germany does:
-------
Fermentation Salt - Yeast Nutrient:
Contains various nutrients and vitamins. Promotes growth and metabolism of yeast cells. They are thus able to process sugar better additives to achieve higher alcohol levels and to ensure a good and speedy fermentation at lower temperatures for optimum alcohol levels and help stuck fermentation.

Application:
Add a little water or juice dissolve in the wine and stir, before or with the yeast.

Dosage:
For every 10 liters or wine sweetened mash approach is added to about 4 g Fermentation Salt (Yeast Nutrient). When undiluted and not be sweetened fruit juices a rule satisfies the addition of 2-3 g
-------

I know this is heavy, because of language barriers, but I hope someone will figure it out and give me a hand.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions concerning the Hydrometer as well .......

Hi,

As shown in the video you don't need the yeast slurry which may be impossible for you to get. Get a yeast packet. Also, there are other clearing agents besides Sparkoloid that will work (Google wine clearing agents) or by just waiting long enough the SP should clear by itself.

@ bkisel

....... thanks for the quick reply.
I'll try to find some other wine clearing agents like you suggested.
What about the Hydrometer I've mentioned in my post above - Is it okay to start with ?
Thanks again for all your feedback - It's very much appreciated .......

cheng said:

@ bkisel

....... thanks for the quick reply.
I'll try to find some other wine clearing agents like you suggested.
What about the Hydrometer I've mentioned in my post above - Is it okay to start with ?
Thanks again for all your feedback - It's very much appreciated .......

Click to expand...

I snipped and enlarged the photo by 300%... This instrument combines a thermometer with a hydrometer but I can't make out the scale to determine whether the scale is in Specific Gravity like I'm used to seeing. Sorry.

http://www.amazon.de/dp/MULTIMESSE/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20


it is hard to tell by the picture....but I think the one you want is from the url above. The one with the thermometer is nice, but not sure you will get the reading you want. It is hard to tell by the pictures. There is a great thread on here about how to read a hydrometer, but I could not find it, not sure which forum it is under. It may seem like you need a degree at first, but once you get going it will become easier!

....... here I'm back again seeking a little more advise from you guys.

i would like to go for the skeeterpee version as shown in this YouTube video.

The things I've ordered from Germany will arrive today, except for the "Yeast Energizer" which wasn't available on time - Instead the seller offered to go with the following product as a substitute which I agreed to: VitaDrive F3

Is it okay to use this on the skeeterpee recipe or should I wait until I get my hands on "Yeast Energizer" ?

Apart from that I'm not able to buy RealLemon here, that's why I thought to use pineapple juice instead, because my lemons in the backyard aren't ripe enough yet.

The juice that is available here is produced in this country and is 100% without sugar and preservatives added - It comes in 1 liter cardboard containers same like milk.

Here just one example of many other brands available: Malee Pineapple Juice

Is it possible to use this instead of RealLemon or is there anything I have to look out for if I do ?

Last but not least, "Star San" sanitizer is also not available here - Is there an easy way to do the sanitizing similar to "Star San"

Looking forward to get the show on the road.

Any feedback of you guys would be greatly appreciated .......

In addition, I just got an answer from a seller in Australia on my request for "Yeast Energizer" and they told me:
""We call yeast energiser, yeast nutrient""
They provided me with the following links - Still not sure if this is "Yeast Energizer" - This is all very new to me.

http://www.ibrew.com.au/products/lalvin-fermaid-yeast-nutrient

http://www.ibrew.com.au/products/lalvin-go-ferm

http://www.ibrew.com.au/products/diammonium-phosphate

Cheng

The VitaDriv looks like it aims to be a yeast energizer, that is, a rehydration aid. Should be good. (Also, the Lalvin GoFerm Protect you link to also looks fine.)

I have no experience with the pineapple juice, but it looks like a good plan to me. Give it a try! I don't think there is anything magical about RealLemon; it is widely available here, so it is a convenient ingredient for us.

Base on what Dave has written (see highlighted below) in his DB recipe folks have substituted Pineapple Juice for Lemon Juice.

SO MANY VARIATIONS!
Any kind of fruit you can imagine may be substituted for the triple berries in the above recipe. Use the exact same procedure, just use different fruit in the bag. I personally have made blueberry, blackberry, strawberry, raspberry, and a delightful tropical blend using pineapple/mango/peach/strawberry. Other wine makers have had success with a quad-berry blend (blueberry/blackberry/raspberry/strawberry), a tropical blend using pineapple juice instead of lemon, and even cherry-lime (with lime juice). Fruit purees and fruit wine bases abound on the market. Try oak and/or raisins in the primary or secondary. The list of possibilities is endless. Use your imagination. Pick your favorite fruit, and make a Dragon Blood version of your own. Try raisins, spices, oak, or extracts. Give it a catchy name, and make this recipe yours!

....... thanks for your replies.
This sounds kinda refreshing, I'll definitely give it ago very soon - Probably starting with the pineapple juice and the skeeterpee recipe.
What about an easy way of sanitizing similar to 'Star San' ?
As far as I understand is keeping your utensils clean seems important.
Thanks again and I'll let you know how it worked out .......

Cheng

....... I know it's been a while, but I'm still waiting for some stuff from abroad which means I hadn't had a go at it yet - It's on the way by now and I'll expect it in the next couple of weeks.
The question I'm having today is: What is better white sugar or light-brown cane sugar?
My thoughts are the brown cane sugar will add some color to the wine as well and I usually prefer cane sugar anyway.
Does it make a difference using white or brown ...?...

,,,,,,, happy holidays to all of you.

It took me longer than expected, but my 1st batch with pineapple juice instead of RealLemon is in the making.

My SG is at 0.990 by now and I'm a little confused how to go about it from here now.

Do I have to rack 1st before adding K-Meta, Sorbate and Sparkloid or just add it to the primary and rack after its cleared ?

Some feedback on how to proceed would be very much appreciated.

Thanks in advance for any input .......

Rack it off the lees (the gunk in the bottom of your fermenter), Add the sparkaloid, mix it with a bit of warm water or some of your wine before adding. Stir it in, it should clear in a few days or less. When clear, rack off the lees again, add your k-meta and sorbate and you are ready to sweeten. As soon as it is clear, you can draw a glass and add sugar to taste. It should be pretty good, but if you leave it sit for a month or two it should get better. You can sweeten it after you sorbate it, but I would let it sit for at least a couple of weeks to make sure it doesn't referment before you bottle. Arne.