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rubbermonkey

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I am new to wine making. I saw a video of it on ebay.

I have a redneck batch going right now. After reading over this forum i realize it will probably be terrible as I have no idea what I am doing.


I am wanting to get a "Good" batch started.
I want to use Welches Concentrate as it will be easy.

All i currently have is 2 5 gallon water jugs. I figure one to ferment with and one to rack into?



I want to use one of these 2 recipes

Jack Kellers
* 2 cans (11.5 oz) Welch's 100% frozen grape concentrate
* 1-1/4 lbs granulated sugar
* 2 tsp acid blend
* 1 tsp pectic enzyme
* 1 tsp yeast nutrient
* water to make 1 gallon
* wine yeast

Wade E (from recipe section)
3 1/2 cans of frozen concentrate
7 pints of water
3/4 tsp. acid blend
1 tsp yeast nutrient
1 tsp of pectic enzyme
1/4 tsp of sorbate
1/8 tsp of k-meta or 1 campden tablet
1 sachet of Red Star Cotes Des Black yeast or equivalent


I have no idea what I am doing and the instructions are not real clear to me.



For example.
Jack Keller's instructions

1.) Bring 1 quart water to boil and dissolve the sugar in the water.
*ok
2.) Remove from heat and add frozen concentrate.
*ok
3.) Add additional water to make one gallon and pour into secondary.
What does it mean secondary?
4.) Add remaining ingredients except yeast.
*ok
5.) Cover with napkin fastened with rubber band and set aside 12 hours.
*ok
6.) Add activated wine yeast and recover with napkin.
This part confused me. I thought during ferminatation it needed to be air locked? I guess its not important during the first few days?

7.) When active fermentation slows down (about 5 days), fit airlock.
*ok

8.) When clear, rack, top up and refit airlock.
I guess the time frame of this varies? What does "Top up" mean?

9.) After additional 30 days, stabilize, sweeten if desired and rack into bottles.
Stabilize?




thanks in advance :)
 
i'm a newbie, too, rubbermonkey, but i can answer a couple of questions...
u don't want it airlocked during the initial fermentation. it needs to breathe in the beginning. "top up" means to fill your jug up to the neck. once you've airlocked it, you don't want air in the top of your jug/carboy. i highly recommend you get a hydrometer. the finevinewines people, midwest supplies and eckraus all sell them and all seem to be less than 13 dollars.
checking the specific gravity will help you when you add your sugar. if you add too much, it will make too much alcohol and instead of a fruity wine, you will have rocket fuel:sh
checking the specific gravity will help to tell you when fermentation is complete, also.
i hope this gets you started and the more experienced on here will get you going even further! good luck!
 
not to disagree, but i airlock during primary, i just use a larger bucket so there is room for everything to get jiggy..... ive got dogs and fur flys no matter how much i brush them, i just dont trust the whole cheese cloth thing with their nosey buts poking around!! LOL! i agree with everything else LOL!
 
are these plastic or glass, if they are plastic you need to pay attention to whether or not they are food safe. USE 3 CANS PER GALLON. Sorry don't mean to shout but anything less than that will give you a weak tasting wine. Believe me, I have made numerous concentrate wines.

Get a hydrometer and use this to follow your process. Use this to measure how much suger you need to add, bring it up to 1.080 or around that. And take a reading before adding your sugar so you have an idea of how much. Yes you need to heat up your water and add the sugar to dissolve it.

Does this help, if you need anything else come on back and ask some more.
 
not to disagree, but i airlock during primary, i just use a larger bucket so there is room for everything to get jiggy..... ive got dogs and fur flys no matter how much i brush them, i just dont trust the whole cheese cloth thing with their nosey buts poking around!! LOL! i agree with everything else LOL!
ur so funny nikki, lol
if u go to my albumn, see the little beagle dog, he loooves wine...sticks his nose in my glass every dang time, lol
usually close my utility room door and use big towel to cover for same fur flying reasons, lol (btw, i bought two big purple towels just for this purpose...all our towels are color coded. if it's not ur color, don't use it, if ur out of ur color, wash 'em lol)
rubbermonkey, stabilize is when u add ur kmeta and sorbate. this way, when u backsweeten u won't get refermentation.
keep us updated!
 
i'm a newbie, too, rubbermonkey, but i can answer a couple of questions...
u don't want it airlocked during the initial fermentation. it needs to breathe in the beginning. "top up" means to fill your jug up to the neck. once you've airlocked it, you don't want air in the top of your jug/carboy. i highly recommend you get a hydrometer. the finevinewines people, midwest supplies and eckraus all sell them and all seem to be less than 13 dollars.
checking the specific gravity will help you when you add your sugar. if you add too much, it will make too much alcohol and instead of a fruity wine, you will have rocket fuel:sh
checking the specific gravity will help to tell you when fermentation is complete, also.
i hope this gets you started and the more experienced on here will get you going even further! good luck!



I dont understand why I would need to top it off if i started with 1 gallon. Does a lot evaporate or something during the initial fermentation?

With the hyrdrometer, when do I check it? I am not clear about this.
 
1st If you want a "good batch" I 1st suggest to get a wine making equipment kit. Check out the banners of Midwest and Fine Vine Wines.

2nd "jacks" recipes are light in body and overpowering in alcohol. Wades recipes are better.

3rd get a wine kit. You may be dissappointed by the concentrates for your 1st wine.

4th Do not make wine unless you have the proper equipment. Like Hydrometer, Wine chemicals, Wine YEAST, carboys, airlocks just to name a few.

WELCOME to a great "hobby" (OBSESSION)
 
I would make something you like. What do you like?
White Zin, Fruity wine, etc..
 
ur so funny nikki, lol
if u go to my albumn, see the little beagle dog, he loooves wine...sticks his nose in my glass every dang time, lol
usually close my utility room door and use big towel to cover for same fur flying reasons, lol (btw, i bought two big purple towels just for this purpose...all our towels are color coded. if it's not ur color, don't use it, if ur out of ur color, wash 'em lol)
rubbermonkey, stabilize is when u add ur kmeta and sorbate. this way, when u backsweeten u won't get refermentation.
keep us updated!

I ferment covered but not airlocked in the primary initially. At 1.03, I airlock in the primary until 1.01 when I rack to secondary. My dogs get into everything too. I made a complete mess slicing up mangoes earlier in the week and the beagle in my pic sucked up atleast a pound of slimey mango during the whole process. I just accept the fact that my wine may contain a little fermented hound in every batch! :)
 
I ferment covered but not airlocked in the primary initially. At 1.03, I airlock in the primary until 1.01 when I rack to secondary. My dogs get into everything too. I made a complete mess slicing up mangoes earlier in the week and the beagle in my pic sucked up atleast a pound of slimey mango during the whole process. I just accept the fact that my wine may contain a little fermented hound in every batch! :)

ok, so it's official...it's a beagle thing, lol lol
no beagles for u rubbermonkey...
 
Welcome rubbermonkey, I believe others here have most likely answered your questions here but Ill put in my $.02 anyway. 1st, you can ferment in those water bottle but there is one problem I see and that is that you have 2 of the same size vessels. The problem there is that you always want to start off with more volume then you need as youll be leaving lots of sediment behind from solids in the wine and dead yeast falling out of suspension. So starting off with a 5 gallon vessel and leaving some room in there for fermentation because it will foam up when fermenting you are basically going to be having about 3 1/2 gallon or so after transferring from there and thats way too much air space once fermentation is done as 02 and totally fermented wine lead to oxidation. Thats why we start our wines in 7.9 gallon buckets and then rack down to 5-6 gallon vessels which have only like 1-2" of room and thats even at the very neck where the vessel is thin. Im not even going to get into the water bottle subject because it really is a do / do not use subject with no real proof and many use them while others dont.
 
Welcome to the forum and yeah,,,, be prepared to become addicted quickly.
If you have one nearby, try finding you either 2 food grade plastic buckets from a lowes or homedepot, then split up your primary mix between the two. That would solve the problem of you fermenting 5 gallons only to end up with 4 1/2 gallons when you sphion it into the water bottle, leaving any sediment in the bottom. You would have to "top it off" with something and it's best not to use plain water and make the wine weak.
Even a rubber maid trash can can work for the primary as long as you look for it being food safe.
I've done one batch of Welch's concentrate, and at first didn't like it. But after it sat 8 months, it's better.
 
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