Red Wine - No Kit & No Grapes

[walkerstone]

Hi Folks,

I want to make a nice red wine batch and I know there are a tonne & a half of kits available.

I just wonder if there are any good alternatives to forking out for a high quality kit wine, I've seen things on the YouTube of people using Welch's would anyone reconmend it?

I wouldnt mind buying a tonne of grapes and doing the job properly.
But for now I want something;

• simpler
• less expensive
• less upsetting if I ruin all my hard work

 

[robie]

Lots of folks make wine from Welche's Grape juice. There are lots of threads on our forum about this, so you should be able to get several recipes form which to choose.

Good luck.

 

[bzac]

IMO the cheapest 4 week wine kit makes better wine than welches.
and its easier

 

[jswordy]

Not everyone wants to paint by numbers with a kit. Welch's can make a very good table and general use wine if you know what you are doing. But here's the beauty part: It makes a drinkable wine even if you don't know what you are doing!

Even people who make a lot of high-end wine make Welch's as a table wine, and it'll likely be popular even with your high-end friends if you just don't tell them it is Welch's.

I use Jack Keller's basic recipe, reprinted below, though I have made it my own by now. For one thing, I would recommend 3 cans minimum of concentrate per gallon. 4 even better. That means you may have to adjust your sugar to get a decent SSG.

I have also found that a box of unsulfited raisins per 5 gallons helps body quite a bit. Lastly, I start mine in the bucket and not the carboy, as this recipe says. That way I can leave behind a lot of lees on first racking.

Try it out and then paint your own picture in subsequent batches.

Welch's Frozen Grape Juice Wine​

• 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

Bring 1 quart water to boil and dissolve the sugar in the water. Remove from heat and add frozen concentrate. Add additional water to make one gallon and pour into secondary. Add remaining ingredients except yeast. Cover with napkin fastened with rubber band and set aside 12 hours. Add activated wine yeast and recover with napkin. When active fermentation slows down (about 5 days), fit airlock. When clear, rack, top up and refit airlock. After additional 30 days, stabilize, sweeten if desired and rack into bottles.

 

[DoctorCAD]

...I want to make a nice red wine batch...

Making Welches wine IS a viable way to get a wine, but it will not be a "nice red". It will be a fairly drinkable alternative wine, but it will never be classified as a "nice red".

Kits are easy, kits are fairly cheap, kits can make a "nice red" and most importantly they will teach you the correct steps so that when you buy that pallet of Cab grapes you will know how to make wine.

Then you can look back and fondly remember pouring out the Welches wine or cooking with it or using it as a top-off wine, but not drinking it.

 

[shoebiedoo]

Juice buckets are another way to go, depending on where you live. They tend to be more seasonal but you might be able to still get some Chilean Juice if there's a supplier near you. They normally come in 6 gallon buckets. Where are you located? chances are, there's someone on this board who can help out with that

 

[George_A]

Hi Folks,

I wouldnt mind buying a tonne of grapes and doing the job properly.
But for now I want something;

• less expensive

Wine raisins are less expensive than the frozen grape, premium wine kits and grape concentrates. http://www.domainegeorgia.com/compare prices.html