5 gallon primary bucket not big enough - Rocky? Arne? Richmke?

[homesteader26]

I crushed 24 lbs of concord grapes yesterday and put campden tabs in and pectin enzyme, 7 cups of water and 2 cups sugar and let sit overnight. Fruit is in a fruit bag. Today I am bringing SG up before I pitch the yeast and after adding a total of 12 cups water with 6 cups sugar dissolved I am at 1.072 and my bucket is pretty full.

My recipe says to leave fruit in for 1st 4-5 days - is this right or do I squeeze bag now and adjust SG and pitch yeast.

Think I need a bigger bucket or a way to split batch ..... Thoughts for this newb?? Trying to get this batch off right - Arne? Rocky? Richmke? Anybody? Thank you in advance!!

 

[vacuumpumpman]

Can you split the batch into 2 buckets? Atlesdt until the primary is finished

 

[homesteader26]

I think I will have to split but only have 2 fruit bags - both in use. The logical step is to divide - going to purchase 2 more fruit bags and split. I so wish the supply store wasn't 45 minutes away!

 

[Turock]

Go to the hardware store or big box store and buy a 20 gallon Brute trash can.

By the way--you should never add water to concord. It isn't necessary and it only dilutes the flavor.

 

[CARBOY]

Do you have big box store or other store that sell paint strainer bags that is closer to you? Lowes, Home Depot, ACE...I have used the paint strainer bags for a few years...they are cheaper and work well for me. I just wash and sterilize before use. Just a suggestion.

 

[homesteader26]

Problem solved - wine store had 7.5 gallon buckets.

Now I am worried about adding too much water as Turock said with Concords I shouldn't add water. All the recipes for fresh Concord grapes has some water but does not address the issue of raising SG. So for my next bucket I will add less water in my sugar/water slurry and can compare I guess when they are done. Too late for my first of these 2 buckets using fresh grapes and not making a prepared juice.

So much to learn!

 

[Rocky]

Homesteader, to raise the SG you need to make and add a simple syrup which is made up of 2 parts sugar to 1 part water dissolved over low heat. It seems you had the ratios essentially reversed, i.e. 2 parts water to 1 part sugar. If you still want to raise the SG, I would not add any more water. Rather, I would dissolve the sugar in the juice in the same simple syrup ratio, i.e. 2 parts sugar to 1 part juice. It will take some work to get it dissolved, but I would not water down the wine any more. If you feel you have diluted the wine too much with water (and it would seem you have), you could add concentrated grape juice (look for a brand with no additives). You may still need a larger fermenter and the suggestion to buy a "Brute" HDPE container from a big box store is a good one. They cost about $20, a much better buy than the fermenting buckets sold by wine supplies stores.

Good luck and keep us up to date on what you are doing.

 

[homesteader26]

Thank you Rocky - I think my early morning brain got the best of me as I have made simple syrup for years for mixed drinks and am not sure why I reversed the ratio - insert sad face and a lesson learned for sure (2 cups coffee on a Sun morning before adjusting SG!).

Thank you for the suggestions for my watered down batch.

I was not sure if the brute things were food quality so I am now the owner of 2 beautiful 7.5 G buckets with covers that will not go to waste!! (So many ideas already for this newb!

I have prepared juice I was going to use for a batch of jelly 5 cups - would you recommend getting to temp and adding in to this diluted bucket? Would it be enough to make a difference?

 

[Rocky]

Thank you Rocky - I think my early morning brain got the best of me as I have made simple syrup for years for mixed drinks and am not sure why I reversed the ratio - insert sad face and a lesson learned for sure (2 cups coffee on a Sun morning before adjusting SG!).

Thank you for the suggestions for my watered down batch.

I was not sure if the brute things were food quality so I am now the owner of 2 beautiful 7.5 G buckets with covers that will not go to waste!! (So many ideas already for this newb!

I have prepared juice I was going to use for a batch of jelly 5 cups - would you recommend getting to temp and adding in to this diluted bucket? Would it be enough to make a difference?

I was thinking more that the concentrate would offset some of the excess water. Juice would help some, but not as markedly. I would probably used the juice to mix with sugar to raise the SG. Right now, if you ferment to dry, i.e. SG 0.992 or so, you are looking at an ABV of about 10.5%. I think the concord concentrate comes in 11.5 ounce cans and takes 3 cans of water to reconstitute. You, of course, would not add the water (you already have done so) and just add the cans of concentrate. Just a suggestion and you may not feel comfortable doing it.

Here is the concentrate I am referencing: http://www.welchs.com/products/conc...s---frozen/100-grape-juice-frozen-concentrate

 

[homesteader26]

Rocky if I were to add the concentrate - how many cans would you recommend?

I did decide to add my juice (which is concentrated for making jelly but does not contain sugar).

Another option to keep this all from grapes we picked could be to combine the two buckets in the secondary. The downside obviously is having more wine that isn't quite right. Thoughts on combining?

 

[homesteader26]

I did bring the batch in question up to 1.094 with sugar and one more cup of water once I had the larger bucket.

 

[Arne]

If you are going to be making big batches or batches with lots of fruits in them, take Turocks advice and get a brute can. They make life much easier at least til it comes time to transfer to secondary. If you have a vac. pump, then transfering is a breeze also. Anyway, there is usually plenty of room for the fruits, water, sugar, and lots of headspace with no worries about fermenting over the top. Good luck with it, Arne.

 

[Rocky]

Rocky if I were to add the concentrate - how many cans would you recommend?

I did decide to add my juice (which is concentrated for making jelly but does not contain sugar).

Another option to keep this all from grapes we picked could be to combine the two buckets in the secondary. The downside obviously is having more wine that isn't quite right. Thoughts on combining?

It is hard to say at this point. I would taste the wine and see if you feel you have a strong enough Concord taste. I would then add a can at a time until I got the taste that I wanted. Frankly, there likely is a way to calculate this but I would not want to try, especially with someone else's wine.

Years ago, I worked in printing and we had a small job that required a particular color of ink. We could have purchased the ink but in such a small quantity the price was very high. Our production manager got the idea of mixing the color on site from inks that we had. When we finally gave up trying to match the color, we had about 3 gallons of a mixture that did not match the custom color and had to buy the ink in the end. I get the feeling we are repeating history here with your wine. Maybe a better path would be to go with what you have and learn from the experience. If you still want to try, I would guess that you need at least 3 or 4 cans.

 

[homesteader26]

Love your story - funny! I was planning on combining these two in the secondary until I messed up and now they will be different. Thinking these two will go in separate carboys and I will compare and contrast. It will be a good lesson learned!

They are both perking today!!

My first 4 buckets with cooked juice and rustic recipe are slowly chugging along - I started those without owning something to check SG and when I did they were 1.140 (after 2 wks they are just getting below 1.080).

 

[homesteader26]

Arne I wanted to say thank you for responding as well! I am figuring this out as I go along mostly because hubby came home with grapes and said you make jelly but can you make wine instead? Without thinking to much I thought I will find a recipe and give it a whirl!