Advice for my first go at this

Hello everyone. I just posted in the introduction thread, so here I am asking for advice from the pros on my first winemaking adventure. Six weeks is a long time to wait for an experiment and I want success.

I didn't want to go all out and spend loads of money on equipment if this interest doesn't fit into my life. So I found this recipe here and will be making my first wine mostly like this.

Except I want to use table grapes. I'll be here when you're done laughing.

I have a 4 Liter demijohn and some balloons to poke holes in. I'm really excited! I guess I just wanted to check that I'm going about this correctly for my first time.

I've cleaned the jar with hot water and one campden tablet. I plan to mash the stemless grapes up really well (maybe a full bunch of them? Two pounds?) and add them to the jar, along with five cups of sugar, a packet of yeast, and enough water to stop just below the neck. I'll tie it off with the holey balloon (praise be unto it) and let the "wine" sit for about six weeks in my dark pantry. After that I have some cheesecloth that I'll strain the mixture through, then add it to cleaned wine bottles.

I realize this is extremely simple. I'm a tentative hobbyist, I buy the minimal amount first and get a feel for something before I take it on fully. I have a few questions about my process.

The neck of the demijohn is decidedly small. Would it affect the finished product in any way if I put the grapes in a food processor for easy transfer? Should I add more sugar at any point in the 6 week period? Are you still laughing? And do any of you have any wisdom to impart upon me in this quest?

If this is a successful adventure, then I will probably end up investing in all of the proper tools to do this and begin trying new recipes. Perhaps finding somewhere to order real wine grapes until I can plant my own.

Thank you for any advice offered. Being a long time wine lover, this is one hobby that just makes sense, and I can't wait to try it!

Cheers!

-Zin

grapes in the food processor could crush the seeds which will impart a very bitter taste to the wine. also the original recipe is for juice. as you will have grape skins and seeds in the jug, having them there for six weeks will definitely give you a stinky wine. the yeast will consume the sugar and then stat to consume the skins and in some cases the skins will also get moldy. I would stick to the original juice recipe.

salcoco said:

grapes in the food processor could crush the seeds which will impart a very bitter taste to the wine. also the original recipe is for juice. as you will have grape skins and seeds in the jug, having them there for six weeks will definitely give you a stinky wine. the yeast will consume the sugar and then stat to consume the skins and in some cases the skins will also get moldy. I would stick to the original juice recipe.

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Oh goodness, I'm really glad I asked.

Thankfully, table grapes are seedless. But I do not want a rotten, stinky wine. Would removing the grapes after a certain number of days and letting the juice ferment further be a valid option?

I really want to try my hand at actual grapes, which admittedly might be very ambitious for my first attempt.

Thank you for your advice!

-Zin

Just to make you even more nervous...six weeks won't even begin to tell you if your experiment was a success.

Table grapes are not wine grapes, so your results will probably not make you happy, and don't use bread yeast. You can actually use it, but you really need to know what you are doing so that your wine doesn't come out tasting like a jelly sandwich.

At this point, I'd suggest Welches wine, there are about 100,000 threads and recipes on this and other sites. Its easy, cheap and you can actually make a gallon very easily, even with your balloon, and it will taste much more like traditional wine.

I'd just hate to see you get bummed out when your table grape with bread yeast wine turns you away from a very good hobby.

I would agree with following the recipe, meaning fermenting juice rather than grapes. Table grapes are sweet and not very tannic, because they are designed to be eaten raw, whereas wine grapes are less sweet and designed to be tannic for making wine.

If you worked with grapes, you'd need to "press" after about a week. This means you'll need to squeeze the grapes, get them out of the demijohn, and throw them away. Without any racking equipment, I don't think you can pull that off. That's why the recipe you have would work with juice in a demijohn, it's designed to just ferment in one container.

Bread yeast will do the trick. If you can get it on Amazon, a better yeast would be EC-1118.

I would strongly suggest making your recipe as written.

Okay, you guys have talked me into it, Welches wine, here I come. I suppose I can tell my husband that if he calls it "Pruno" one more time, he doesn't get any. ::

I'll look up the Welches threads. I wouldn't have even known to search for such a thing. Thank you all so much, you've been such a great wealth of information.

-Zin

I actually just bottled a batch of Welches wine, I used the Welches farmers pick 100% concord, turned out pretty good.
Did a batch of R.W Knudsen concord at the same time, sort of a taste test of the two brands, it was good also.
I have not yet decided which is best, I want to let it sit in the bottle for about a month and then do a blind test.
Good luck with your batch and I hope you hang around and enjoy a great hobby.

go on the web to winemaking.jackkeeller.net. scroll down to " requested recipes" on left side of page. scroll down to bottom of list to Welch's recipes. this is a good site to read for beginners and advanced winemakers. lots of information.

Zin, I'd also recommend looking into dragons blood and skeeter pee. Both simple to execute and pretty darn tastey given the cost and time.

Thank you for the information, everyone.

Menerdari - I'll be opting for the concord for my first go at this. I'm glad to hear it's tasty.

Salcoco - Oh wow, that website is huge. I've bookmarked it. The recipes for the Welches Wine require a few things I don't have - acid blend, pectic enzyme, yeast nutrient, and wine yeast. I hope I can still get good results with my simple ingredients for the first time around. Thank you for the resource, I'll be checking it frequently.

NorCal - I think I found the dragon's blood recipe. http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=41825

And the Skeeter Pee sticky.
http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=44283

I'll have to give those a go in spring.

Where does everyone store all of this wine?

-Zin

Don't have high expectations and you won't be disappointed. Hopefully you can make something you can consume, but you may just catch the bug. (I tossed my first batch; it tasted like a cheap mix drink).

It really isn't that hard or expensive to make pretty decent <18% alcoholic drink. Stick to the fundamentals and follow vetted recipes/procedures and you will get good results.

Zintrigue said:

Thank you for the information, everyone.

Menerdari - I'll be opting for the concord for my first go at this. I'm glad to hear it's tasty.

....

Where does everyone store all of this wine?

-Zin

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Funny, I just happened to open a bottle of Concord/Niagara that I started on 1-24-15. It was made from Welches frozen concentrate. 12 Concord, 5 White (Niagara) and one White/Cranberry for 6 gallons. Added 2/3 of an American light spiral. Both my wife and I like it (for what it is). Very drinkable, not overly alcoholic. A Saturday afternoon fun wine, good with burgers and dogs. I'm working on a glass as I type this. Only change I would do is use 71B-1112 yeast to convert some of the malic acid and round out the flavor a bit more (was 3.25 pH with 7.8 g/L TA).

BTW, I store my wine in my tummy as often as possible. (A cool dark corner of your basement, if you have one, works well also).

Zintrigue said:

Thank you for the information, everyone.

Menerdari - I'll be opting for the concord for my first go at this. I'm glad to hear it's tasty.

The recipes for the Welches Wine require a few things I don't have - acid blend, pectic enzyme, yeast nutrient, and wine yeast. I hope I can still get good results with my simple ingredients for the first time around



Where does everyone store all of this wine?

-Zin

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I store mine in my basement, it stays in the low 60s year round.
Not having some of the ingredients, let me tell you a story
I was getting ready to make my welches wine and I realized I didn't have pectic enzyme, I did some research and found out that papaya peel, the green part just under the skin, is a substitute, the peel from 1/2 of a papaya = 1 tsp enzyme. I went out and bought a papaya at walmart and peeled and cut the peels into cubes and added right into my fermenter, worked like a charm. Yeast neutient, you can probably get by without,
Find a local home brew store, wine yeast is cheap, I paid $1 for a pack of redstar premier cuvee,

Wait, there's a such thing as a home brew store?

I just Googled this phenomenon, and it looks like my closest store is in Modesto, over an hour away. My Amazon account gets a lot of use.

I'll keep the papaya peel in mind. I've got the original recipe I posted bubbling away in my pantry right now. I'm expecting something entirely too fruity for my liking.

I have to talk the husband into this particular hobby, as the start up cost is considerably more than $10 for yarn and knitting needles, or $5 for a jar and some pickling cucumbers. Not that we're hurting for cash, but we try to be frugal and eliminate unneeded costs where possible. He can't justify spending over $100 on a winemaking kit when I don't even know where to get wine grapes from.

Speaking of: does everyone here grow their own grapes or is there an online grocer? Do local wineries usually sell grapes? I was looking at a few other subforums here and some of you guys have entire workshops and cellars dedicated to this! Complete with barrels and climate control! My mind is blown.

-Zin

You can go about this a bunch of ways, and spend a wide range of money on a batch. I suspect Craig's welch's batch was cost-effective for six gallons. You can make fruit wines very inexpensively, meaning from things like fresh peaches. Here are some options:

-Bucket of fresh juice from a vineyard; you're in California, so my suggestion would be to make a post asking where to get fresh grapes and juice in Cali, so that people can see it (they may not notice buried in the text of your question) - juice is $60 here
-Bucket of frozen crushed grapes from M&M juicegrape.com or other - price varies but would be in the $75-150 range for 6 gallons
-Bucket of frozen juice from M&M or other - price varies
-Make a batch from Alexander's varietal concentrate - $20-30
-Wine kit at the lower end - $40-80 for 6 gallons
-Wine kit at the higher end - $100-200
-Fresh grapes, again ask the Cali folks in a post
-Skeeter pee - cheap
-Dragon's blood - cheap
-Hard cider - $20-30 for 6 gallons

So there are lots of things to make, and some are more or less expensive. Once you buy the wine making equipment, you could make lots of stuff. Check out Jack Keller's website to see all the recipes for anything from hibiscus to dandelion to blackberry wine. You can make sake, mead, cider, melomel, champagne, etc, etc, etc. Once you have basic fermentation equipment, then your cost is ingredients, bottles, and corks.

The nice thing is that I have 300+ bottles of wine in my basement, so I don't have to buy more unless I want to. I give port as Christmas presents. I have given cider as a wedding present. So through making wine I am also avoiding the cost of buying commercial wine and presents.

At least that's the story I tell my hubby!

DoctorCAD said:

Just to make you even more nervous...six weeks won't even begin to tell you if your experiment was a success.

Table grapes are not wine grapes, so your results will probably not make you happy, and don't use bread yeast. You can actually use it, but you really need to know what you are doing so that your wine doesn't come out tasting like a jelly sandwich.

At this point, I'd suggest Welches wine, there are about 100,000 threads and recipes on this and other sites. Its easy, cheap and you can actually make a gallon very easily, even with your balloon, and it will taste much more like traditional wine.

I'd just hate to see you get bummed out when your table grape with bread yeast wine turns you away from a very good hobby.

Click to expand...

So I followed the original recipe on the site and it's done fermenting now (my balloon stayed deflated). I transferred it to some bottles to sit around, making sure to discard the mauve stuff on the bottom, and it smelled just like a jelly sandwich. I thought of you and laughed!

-Zintrigue