Keeping it really simple

I have been brewing some really simple recipes using shop bought grape juice, sugar, yeast & raisins. No chemicals, no expensive equipment and guess what...It tastes amazing. The eBook I picked up for free on an Amazon prime trial...Breaking Booze.

Hi Becclestim - and welcome. Truth is that making wine can be as simple as allowing fruit exposed to wild yeast floating in the air or on the skins of the fruit themselves... The better quality the ingredients and the more control you have over the yeast that you expose the fruit to and the more control you have over the fermentation process itself the more control you have over the wine you produce. The use of equipment (hydrometers and airlocks and bungs and the use of chemicals (nutrient for the yeast, sanitizers to remove wild yeasts and mold (mould) and to thoroughly clean your containers and stirrers and testers) the more predictable and consistent are the results and , in my opinion, the better the results are likely to be. But that said, I often simply ferment store bought fruit juices from mango to pomegranate and from apple to lemon. You don't need expensive equipment to make wine, but you do need to be able to control the process to produce a better wine...

Welcome to the forum!

I like simple but realize it is a mater of degree. For some buying their wine is keeping it simple [and I would agree].

I think we're on the same page here. It's just the ready use of finings, preservatives, sweeteners, acidity regulators, preservatives etc that I avoid, can't do without steriliser.

I also use shop bought juices, honey etc most of the time so avoid campden tablets. I have just started making rhubarb and elderflower. To attempt avoid campden tablets I have bought the must to a simmer for a few minutes. Do you think this will kill any natural yeast?

the problem with boiling your juice is the pectin in the fruit. You will have a very difficult time getting the wine to clear. There is nothing wrong with keeping it simple but there is some equipment that is just necessary if you want to make a particular wine consistently. Hydrometer is big on the list.

Welcome to winemakingtalk

The "keeping it simple" school of thought usually lasts until you have a couple of batches go south on you. These "hard knocks" are learning experiences and tend to modify your process with new knowledge. After a while, you will find that your process will get more complicated.

Many other changes occur when you heat the juices, especially to the sugars. I wouldn't really call kmeta a preservative, but more a temporary precaution. It eventually becomes bound, so using a small amount to keep bacteria at bay and prevent oxidation during a wine's infancy seems appropriate to me (I don understand other people have stronger opinions on both sides). I certainly wouldn't cook it though. I think you're doing more harm to your juice by cooking it, than the potential safety from microbes you're hoping for.

We have made many great wines from store bought apple juice, pineapple juice, and fresh mangoes. We've also made quite a few concoctions like root beer wine, cinnamon wine, roasted butternut squash, etc. It can be great fun to be creative with it.

I guess I think that the approach to wine making ought to be very similar to the approach that wine makers took in the middle ages or even before that in the times of the Greeks and Romans is not always very wise. Before the advent of a scientific approach to the art of wine making even the most experienced wine makers and brewers frequently found themselves with undrinkable disasters on their hands. Not just that, but they added all kinds of "chemicals" that today we would view as toxic (lead, for example, to sweeten wine). But , you don't need all kinds of add-ons if your raw materials are picked very purposively - so that they have the appropriate pH, TA and Brix for your wine making or you intend to drink the wine before it has aged for many months and so is unlikely to oxidize.

BernardSmith said:

... they have the appropriate pH, TA and Brix for your wine making or you intend to drink the wine before it has aged for many months and so is unlikely to oxidize.

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In order to know the above (PH, TA, Brix) requires testing which sort of works against the OP of keeping it simple.

As I said, the more you learn, and the more situations you find yourself in, then more complex your process will become.

Becclestim said:

I have been brewing some really simple recipes using shop bought grape juice, sugar, yeast & raisins. No chemicals, no expensive equipment and guess what...It tastes amazing. The eBook I picked up for free on an Amazon prime trial...Breaking Booze.

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I think you're close to the minimum, but you'll find that potassium metabisulfite is a must-have. You'll need potassium sorbate if you sweeten your wine, to prevent bottle bombs. And an inexpensive hydrometer.

Just noticed that the book I have been using has been reduced to $0.99 until 9th August.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01HKV6VDQ/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

Becclestim said:

Just noticed that the book I have been using has been reduced to $0.99 until 9th August.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01HKV6VDQ/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

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As someone who works in the academic community I am always very suspicious of self published books. We demand all our articles and books be peer reviewed before they can be published. Even then some work seeps in that should never have seen the light of day. When a work is not peer reviewed those without deep familiarity with the topic or the field are not usually aware enough of the gaps, weaknesses and errors to evaluate the work. But if the book serves your goals then so be it...

Many of the things that we use in our wine making are in fact natural - Acid Blend is combination of those acid commonly found in our fruit - we add it to increase the acidity of the wine so that we can store it longer and to add that little bit of sharp/tartness that finishes a wine. Tannin, again a natural product that we add to help preserve our wine naturally as well as to add flavor to our wine.
Very few of the additives we put in our wines are as artificial as some might claim and they are done to protect both our wine and our health.

Essentially you can create a fermented drink out of many things and it will indeed get you intoxicated and may even taste decent no problem there if that's what you want. But for many of us we like to preserve or bring out certain flavors from our fruit and really it's no different than a chef creating his signature dish - with one difference - our wine takes normally 90 to 360 days to be truly ready to enjoy.

Scooter68 said:

Very few of the additives we put in our wines are as artificial as some might claim and they are done to protect both our wine and our health
.

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But the issue for Becclestim is not about whether the additives are artificial or natural but whether their use adds complexity to what might be a natural process. And the fact is that for most wine makers the natural aspect of fermentation needs to be controlled and shaped by the wine-makers' skill and their understanding of the science of fermentation.
Fruit sugars exposed to yeast will ferment and have fermented since the dawn of time without anyone's intervention. The fact is that such fermentations may not have produced an excellent taste. Yeast make alcohol as a byproduct of their use of the sugar as their energy source. What human culture has done is to take this natural process and make it something that we can use with great pleasure. And that activity may need to make the process of fermentation more complex as we control acidity, temperature, nutrients, pH, TA, the presence of other bacteria competing for the same sugars, and oxygen. You can almost always make wine with no or little control over these factors. But you can often make a far better wine - because it tastes better or does not spoil as fast - through the appropriate control of the fermentation process. But whether you choose the simple way or the more complex way is a matter of choice and a matter of what you think is an acceptable drinking wine...and how much you value the cost of simplicity over the benefit of complexity.

There is the greater risk with the 'simple method' of it all turning out undrinkable or with foul smells and/or tastes. Duplication of your results with a 'simple method' is only going to work if you are using canned juices (Many of which are loaded with chemicals flavor additives and preservatives that will inhibit fermentation or completely stop it). With Fresh Fruit every batch is going to have different qualities (Sugar, Acid, Water vs Flavor) and types of yeast or bacteria present. Like Forrest said - You never no what you going to get.

Certainly personal choice leads the way, and if it's just for the "wine" maker that's certainly not a problem. That $.99 book may wind up being a guide to producing a bottle of "wine" worth $.99 if that's all you want - go for it. For many of us we are looking for some things you cannot get from cans or bottles or at the local ABV store/liquor store. We like the ability to harvest our own fruit, find wild berries and fruit and in general we love the challenges of walking (not running) through the process of fermenting aging and creating something that can either be complex or simple.