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Ok in the last two weeks I frealized we have members on here from Northeast Arkansas, South Central Arkansas, and I'm in Northwest Arkansas so what area of Arkansas are you all in? Think we just need SE and SW Arkansas to have the stated covered.
 
Sugar + water + yeast + 2% flavoring = wine. Making drinkable wine is easy, making good wine is hard, making something better than a good $10 commercial wine is difficult.
 
Well I just pulled a muscadine wine that I started 3 days ago, it quit bubbling and I racked it and took a sample to test. The hydrometer sank all the way to the bottom!!! I thought, "impossible!" So I tasted the sample .... "HOLY SH!T!" It was like drinking straight muscadine flavored vodka!!! What the heck did I do wrong??? I used honey to sweeten it before adding the yeast. I'm guessing the yeast either really liked the honey or absolutely hated it? My husband said it was the best "wine" he's ever tasted! I told him that is FAR from "wine". That's straight rubbing alcohol with a slight muscadine essence! [emoji23] but seriously, what happened?!?!??
 
I started this on the same day I started the welch's. This was from a bottle of muscadine grape juice i had bought and mistaken for wine ...
 
What yeast did you use? I bought some EC-1118 a couple years ago by mistake, and my jaw dropped when I saw it would tolerate up to 18% alcohol.
 
Bakers yeast!!! [emoji23] it was the first batch I ever made, part of my "practice batch". I just used what I bought at the store. Fleischmanns I think.
 
Yup, that will make a bag of sugar go dry. Wine is about balance; more isn't always better. In your case the alcohol is overpowering your flavor/ residual sugar.
 
Well I just pulled a muscadine wine that I started 3 days ago, it quit bubbling and I racked it and took a sample to test. The hydrometer sank all the way to the bottom!!! I thought, "impossible!" So I tasted the sample .... "HOLY SH!T!" It was like drinking straight muscadine flavored vodka!!! What the heck did I do wrong??? I used honey to sweeten it before adding the yeast. I'm guessing the yeast either really liked the honey or absolutely hated it? My husband said it was the best "wine" he's ever tasted! I told him that is FAR from "wine". That's straight rubbing alcohol with a slight muscadine essence! [emoji23] but seriously, what happened?!?!??

I think I need your recipe. Just how much honey did you use and what was your hydrometer reading pre-ferment?
 
Idk lol! I didn't get the hydrometer until AFTER I started fermenting! But I did an entire 750ml bottle of post muscadine grape juice, 1.5 cups honey, and 1tsp activated Brewers yeast. I added some nutrient from boiling raisins in a little juice when I added the sugar. That was it!
 
Yes indeed that yeast will handle up to 18%. You can recover some of the wine flavor perhaps with some backsweetening after the fermentation is completed (Apparently so !!!) Just remember that before you backsweeten you have to stablize the wine you have with K-Meta (Campden Tabs) and Potassium Sorbate. That will prevent a restart of the fermentation. Then to backsweeten you can use a simply syrup (2 parts sugar dissolved into 1 part water (Hot)) or Honey, or More of your original Juice, or White Grape Juice concentrate. The idea is to add just enough sugar to bring back the hiding flavor of the grapes. Don't have any experience with grape wines but that's the way I do it with fruit/berry wines. Easiest way is to start with about a 8 ozs of wine and about 1/8 oz or 1/4 oz of the sweetener. For semi-sweet wines I often find 1/4 oz is all it takes to bring out the flavor and not over sweeten the wine. If you get it too sweet you can dilute it down with more unsweetened wine. I'm sure others will have some other ways to get there as well.
 
I added .5 cup honey and put it back under ferment after racking. Should I just pull it and be done?
 
Are you saying "pull it" as in stopping the fermentation? You can do that but not sure if you need to.

Also there is also the possibility that the harshness of the wine could be from the acidity and newness of the wine. While made from straight juice it may just be a combination of a relatively high alcohol content and a relatively high acid level in the wine. Question is do you taste something more than just a lot of alcohol - is there a strong bite, or 'burn' after you taste it? That bite, or burn is normally an indication of a high acid level.

(Don't taste your wine for a least a day after you add a campden tab to the wine - the same chemicals in that tab that kill off the yeast and bacteria will affect your wines taste for a day or two until the chemicals dissipate and the gas created leaves the wine.)

Some acidity will mellow out with time, not all but sometimes it surprises folks how 6-12 months time (or more) mellows out and takes the edge of a very sharp tasting new wine. So that means one more test - the pH or TA test. The test give you readings on the acid level in the wine but in slightly different ways. Rather than repeat what others have written you can google the articles others have written. Again the wine makers on here use both tests successfully - some do both, some do just one.

A pH test is best done with a meter. Use can use inexpensive pH test strips a lot like what you would have used in chemistry class but the darker wines make reading a pH test strip very difficult to impossible.
The TA test is done with a Titration kit. The TA test is fairly simple but it does destroy the 10 to 15 ml sample used as the chemicals make that sample toxic.

A pH meter can be purchased on Amazon for $20.00 to $100.00 (Or more) but a decent one for hobby us can be under $50.00. (Mine was $20.00 and has done well for over a year now.) You will have to re-calibrate the meter periodically using 2 different buffer solutions that run about $4.00 each. You can save that solution for a 2-3 months if you store it carefully.

The TA kit runs about $10.00 - $15.00 and is easy to use with a little patience. You have to replace the two chemicals from time to time if you do a lot of wine making and testing.

Now have I muddied the water again?

There is a lot you CAN do to test and check your wine in process or you can simply use your taste buds once you get the hang of the tastes that you can expect to find. Some folks do a little testing and a lot of tasting.

Don't let the differences of opinion on here confuse you. Each method has it's reasoning and perhaps weaknesses. After a while you will develop your own methods and reasoning for what you do. But in the end If you like the taste of your wine - that's what matters.
 
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Yes that was definitely confusing!!! Lol. I think I'll just stick to taste testing. [emoji57] I'll test with the hydrometer and just leave it at that! Haha!!! The more complicated I make the process, the more I will screw it up!
 
Hey there!! Totally new hobby, was really winging it until I found this forum. Ok question:
1 gallon vessel1 can Welch's grape concentrate
2 cups cane sugar
Lalvin 118 yeast-sachet
Lukewarm water
Airlocked


Taking this to girls night. Started this Sunday and taking it on Friday.
Will there be ANY alcohol in it??
I am going to siphon on day 4..(?)
Thank you!!!
��Think I posted twice.. Sorry :(
 
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