cheap good dry red wine recipe please

[keena]

I've made roughly 20 batches of wine and so have been sweet white wines and fruit wines. My dad drinks dry red wine all the time and I want to make a batch for him. Does anyone have a simple affordable recipe I could make? I'm looking for a 5-6 gal recipe. maybe a welches Concord recipe. Or if you have a good recipe with a certain type of juice from the lhbs, I'd be willing to buy it, just please provide a link so I can see what exact juice your talking about. I just don't want to pay $150.00 for a good kit. Trying to say in the $50ish area.

Thanks!

 

[olusteebus]

Here is a wine I am making from a recipe that Longtrain posted. It is not real cheap but not a bank breaker by any means. I cannot testify about this as I am a long way from bottling it.

Cabernet Sauvignon - Blackberry Wine

6 gallons

6 - 1 lb jars of Walmart Blackberry Seedless Jam
2 - 46oz cans Alexander's Cabernet Sauvignon Juice Concentrate (68 Brix)
1 tbl bentonite
1 ½ tbl yeast nutrient
2 ½ tsp pectic enzyme
1 ½ tsp tannin
10 ml K-Meta 10% solution
Powdered dextrose (SG to 1.090, approx 2 ½ lbs)
Spring water to bring volume to 6 gallons
1 packet Red Star Pasteur Champagne Yeast
1 packet of Oak chips, medium French Oak

For stabilizing after fermentation
25 ml K-Meta 10% solution (50 grams of K-Meta in 500 ml water)
2 ½ tsp potassium sorbate



Add 1/2 gallon of hot water to bottom of primary, stir in 1 tbl bentonite till completely mixed.
Add the contents of the jam to the PF, stir until dissolved.
Add 1 gallon of spring water, mix throughly.
Add Peptic Enzyme, mix.
Add Tannin powder, mix
Add Yeast Nutrient, mix
Add the contents of both cans of Alexander's Cabernet Sauvignon concentrate, mix throughly. Rinse cans with spring water and add to PF.
Add spring water to bring must to 6 gallon volume, mix very throughly.
Measure SG, add dextrose to bring SG to 1.090 ~ ABV 12%, mix well.
Cover PF and let it sit for ~ 24 hours
Pitch yeast
When SG drops to 1.010 rack to clean sanitized carboy, leaving settled solids.
When fermentation is FULLY complete < 1.000 and SG is stable, rack to a clean carboy
Add 25 ml 10% K-Meta solution.
Add 2.5 tsp potassium sorbate.
Stir vigorously to dissipate CO2.
Add SuperKleer
Top up carboy and reattach airlock.
Rack after 14 days to clean carboy
Add oak chips
Rack again in two months, further racking and bulk aging as deemed necessary.
Bottle

 

[keena]

10 ml K-Meta 10% solution
Powdered dextrose (SG to 1.090, approx 2 ½ lbs)
1 packet of Oak chips, medium French Oak

Sounds perfect. A couple questions on the above info though.

Is there an amount of kmeta I can just add? Like a tsp or something? If not how would you do this with standard Tbsp and tsp measuring spoons and a small liquid beaker?

Powdered dextrose... Beer sugar? Is that what that is? If not where do I get it?

1 packet of Oak chips, medium French Oak... I've never oaked yet but I think its time I try it, so my question is: how much for how long is usual? I think my lhbs has the spiral chips. Its abeer store more than a wine store so they don't have much. How long of a spiral should I use and what time frame should I leave it in? I know its to taste but what's usual? 1-3 months? I pretty much don't know anything about oaking.

 

[Rocky]

Keena, you might want to take a look at this thread (http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/f84/experiment-paklab-italiano-kit-33990/). I suggest reading through it and then PMing Kevinlfifer for more info. He has been experimenting with making red wines at attractive prices. I have had a bottle of his wine and I think you and your Father will be very pleased.

 

[olusteebus]

Use a quarter of a teaspoon of kmeta.

Oh, and I did not use dextrose, I used cane sugar. Take your sg reading before adding sugar and use winecalc to determine the amount of sugar you need. You may wish to have someone on this forum help you with winecalc. It is great but if you are not careful, you can get off on the wrong foot.

 

[pjd]

Keena, I agree with Rocky. Go to Amazon.com or Ebay and check out the Vino Italiano kits. I have made probably all of their reds and although you would never mistake it for a $25.00 bottle of wine, you certainly can make better wine than most $10 bottles.
I particuarly like the Chianti. add a little french oak, maybe a pound of rasins and have a bottle of it with a spaghetti meal, it really does not get much better than that!

 

[Boatboy24]

I'll second (or third) the Vino Italiano recommendation. 45 bucks, plus a few more for mods like raisins/banana and oak and you can produce a decent table wine. I've made the cab and the Barolo.

 

[deboard]

In the fall you can pick up the juice buckets from California, and in the spring you can get the Chilean juice. If you have a LHBS nearby that does these orders, they are usually pretty cheap compared to kits and make good wine. I've only made two buckets so far, but both of them are coming along nicely.

 

[keena]

Thanks for the suggestions everyone, I think I'm goin to do both, lol. I'm about to have 2 days free of work and school so I'm goin to do alot as wine stuff that I need to get done. Bottle a hundred or so bottles, sweeten a few batches, start a few batches.... I'm excited!