First *REAL* try at making wine

[Jmonck1]

So, as the title reads this is my first official go at wine making. Ive previously made Mead with local honey and bakers yeast (trying to go for an old fashioned mead) which turned out pretty decent. But here is my experience so far and would love suggestions/advice.

My Setup:
1 4.6 Gallon Bakery Frosting Bucket (for those that dont know, go to your local bakery/grocery store and ask for empty frosting buckets, they're free!)

5 cans Frozen Peach flavored can juice

1 large bag of sugar

1 Packet EC-1118 Champagne Yeast

6 sliced oranges

1 one-piece airlock

1 carboy sized rubber bung

In total i spent around $11 for all of this


I pitched this batch on July 8th. So far, so good. Its bubbling, the time between bubbles is around 8 seconds so i know i need to wait a bit longer. I have high hopes for this batch but if it doesnt turn out like i want it, oh well ill just need to try again with a more refined method. Is there anything i should watch out for or be careful of? and i plan to bottle when the time between bubbles is around 40-50 seconds. then i plan to let the bottles sit for a few weeks before drinking. So advice? comments?

 

[francois_du_nord]

Can you get yourself a hydrometer? I'd be very leery of bottling anything if there is still active fermentation, and a bubble a minute still means there is sugar that is being digested by the yeast. Enough of that CO2 in a corked bottle will mean that you have a fountain of sticky wine all over.

The other thing I'd try to do would be to rack (move from one container to another) the wine (maybe at your every 40-50 seconds mark?) to a different bucket. If you let that sit for a couple of weeks, much of the yeast will drop out of suspension, and you will have a much clearer final product, without a lot of sediment in the bottom of your bottles. That yeast sediment won't hurt you, but it will be tough to pour without stirring it up, and it will impart a bit of a taste.

Welcome! Good luck and a great start. Keep on reading and asking questions.

Best, Fran

 

[BernardSmith]

I agree with Francois regarding a hydrometer but I would use that tool to measure the gravity (and so the amount of residual sugar still left in the must before I transfer (rack) to a second carboy. The frequency of bubbles in your airlock is not very informative for all kinds of reasons - including whether you have a good or a poor seal between the airlock and the bung and the bung and the glass walls of your carboy or the grommet and the bucket lid etc. Me? I would rack the wine when the gravity is about 1.005 and so the amount of CO2 being produced by the yeast is slowing down.

I would go to your local homebrew store and buy either a bag of Campden tablets or a pack of Potassium Meta-bisulfite (they are the same chemical). Peach wine may need to age a while and the K-meta (1 tab per gallon dissolved in a very small quantity of water - or about 1/8th of a teaspoon dissolved in water of the crystals per gallon of wine) will ensure that there is enough free SO2 (sulfur dioxide) to inhibit oxidation of the wine. If you add this to the clean and sanitized carboy you are going to rack into every two or three months you will help your wine age without the risks of oxidation (assuming that you keep no more headroom in the carboys between the top of the wine and the bottom of the bung than about an inch or so.