beeper4878
Junior
- Joined
- Sep 4, 2009
- Messages
- 10
- Reaction score
- 0
Hi my name is Jim. And I love making wine! I've been making wine for about 3 yrs. My grandfather from what I was told made awesome wine. On my property I get about 300lbs of grapes (white, concord and some wild) a year. And it's always seemed pretty easy making wine from grapes. But this year I got a little over my head. 1st I've never used a hydromiter, 2nd I've never woried about Ph leves, and 3rd SG levels I learded the first year, there is such a thing as too much sugar.
So this year I decided to write my own way into wine. And I'll try to explain why I did certain things but keep in mind I'm just learning how to frive in making wine. So here are my notes:
Don't laugh all at once
picked 5 gal blue berry's
Juiced them to 1.5 gal
froze them melted off the pure juice
2 med size watermellons juiced
1/2 bushal fresh peaches
10 campton tabs crushed
wait 24 hrs Heat 2 lbs Frankenmuth MI honey 185 deg 5 min, skim top
6 hrs later 2.5 lbs beat sugar
Now this is my thought pattern, the Honey pluss the sugar would be the equivlent of 5 lbs of sugar under cutting the sugar needed for 10 Gallons of wine
But enough to make a good wine!
2 hrs later split into 2 5 gal carboys
It was a mistake! Should have let it sit into 2 5 gal buckets
6hrs later boild 2 cups of water and let it settle to 102 deg and added some yeast starter packer, guesing it was a dry malt type stuff and added two green red star yeast packes exceelent start
Yeist was like on fire in the carboys, left them uncapped to build yeist numbers with just paper towel taked over thier lids. Usually I use the big rubberband bouncing ballons with a couple pin holes in them. 2 days later my primary stopped. Racked wine 4 days in process added campden tab 1 per con
No luck so I went out after work and picked 30 grapes squized them and poured the juice in the carboys
bubbles formed 1 hr later
Finally bought a hydromiter and PH paper Hydrometer measured 1.000 each carboy PH little over 3.6 after adding the grapes. Squized 3 lemmons split juice to lower the PH looked between 3.4 and 3.6 added 2.5 lbs sugar to each carboy and balloned with pin holes and now it's bubbling ok for now.
This has been a nightmare for me, but please don't be afraid of hurting my feelings I need good answer and want to learn. Ty Jim
So this year I decided to write my own way into wine. And I'll try to explain why I did certain things but keep in mind I'm just learning how to frive in making wine. So here are my notes:
Don't laugh all at once
picked 5 gal blue berry's
Juiced them to 1.5 gal
froze them melted off the pure juice
2 med size watermellons juiced
1/2 bushal fresh peaches
10 campton tabs crushed
wait 24 hrs Heat 2 lbs Frankenmuth MI honey 185 deg 5 min, skim top
6 hrs later 2.5 lbs beat sugar
Now this is my thought pattern, the Honey pluss the sugar would be the equivlent of 5 lbs of sugar under cutting the sugar needed for 10 Gallons of wine
But enough to make a good wine!
2 hrs later split into 2 5 gal carboys
It was a mistake! Should have let it sit into 2 5 gal buckets
6hrs later boild 2 cups of water and let it settle to 102 deg and added some yeast starter packer, guesing it was a dry malt type stuff and added two green red star yeast packes exceelent start
Yeist was like on fire in the carboys, left them uncapped to build yeist numbers with just paper towel taked over thier lids. Usually I use the big rubberband bouncing ballons with a couple pin holes in them. 2 days later my primary stopped. Racked wine 4 days in process added campden tab 1 per con
No luck so I went out after work and picked 30 grapes squized them and poured the juice in the carboys
bubbles formed 1 hr later
Finally bought a hydromiter and PH paper Hydrometer measured 1.000 each carboy PH little over 3.6 after adding the grapes. Squized 3 lemmons split juice to lower the PH looked between 3.4 and 3.6 added 2.5 lbs sugar to each carboy and balloned with pin holes and now it's bubbling ok for now.
This has been a nightmare for me, but please don't be afraid of hurting my feelings I need good answer and want to learn. Ty Jim
