Hello! I have never made wine before, so basically assume complete gnorance...
My grandpa wanted to show me how to make wine. He used to do it years ago, but he's now 90. He was going off of memory, and I'm not totally confident we did it correctly...
So this is watermelon wine. No recipe, just did what he said. Took about 20 lbs watermelon. Cubed and smashed, put it in a bucket, added water and sugar until hydrometer read at 1.3, then let it sit 2 days. Today we squeezed through nylon bag to get just the juice, added yeast and yeast nutrient and put into carboys. Put airlocks on, and apparently now going to wait about 30 days to first rack off.
Reading up online, I'm reading that there is primary and secondary fermentation stages and it seems like maybe the yeast should have been in there days ago and left open to air. I'm wondering if grandpa forgot a step...
Any input is appreciated. I'm thinking this may be time sensitive. At the moment I took the airlocks off just in case, figuring they've only been on like an hour so far anyway and u can out back on if needed.
Thanks!
My grandpa wanted to show me how to make wine. He used to do it years ago, but he's now 90. He was going off of memory, and I'm not totally confident we did it correctly...
So this is watermelon wine. No recipe, just did what he said. Took about 20 lbs watermelon. Cubed and smashed, put it in a bucket, added water and sugar until hydrometer read at 1.3, then let it sit 2 days. Today we squeezed through nylon bag to get just the juice, added yeast and yeast nutrient and put into carboys. Put airlocks on, and apparently now going to wait about 30 days to first rack off.
Reading up online, I'm reading that there is primary and secondary fermentation stages and it seems like maybe the yeast should have been in there days ago and left open to air. I'm wondering if grandpa forgot a step...
Any input is appreciated. I'm thinking this may be time sensitive. At the moment I took the airlocks off just in case, figuring they've only been on like an hour so far anyway and u can out back on if needed.
Thanks!