rookie winemaker

[rkfelpel]

Hello,

I am a rookie to wimemaking and had few questions before I get started, I have friend who makes his own wine without using any yeast for fermentation. he buys grape juice not concentrate about 5 gallons on a specfic grape variety put it in a 5 gallon glass carboy sealed for 2 months filters once and put it back in to the glass carboy all while using sterile techniques and after another 2 months bottles the wine and drinks it. The carboy is stored for the 4 months in an area 60 to 70 degress F

Questions?

1. Can you make wine without adding yeast?
2. Is it safe?
3.if it is safe, how come I can not find any info about non yeast wine making on the internet?
4. is the a good simple way to start making wine?
4. Will it ever tast like the bottles I buy @ the wine store?

thanks

 

[arcticsid]

Thats rather interesting, can't wait to see what some of the other members may say about this method.

 

[cpfan]

The important question is where does he get the juice. Some brands of juice are pre-inoculated with wine yeast.

Steve

 

[rkfelpel]

i am not to sure but i will find out and get back to you

thx

 

[Wade E]

using wild yeast which is on every fruit and evrything around you is risky. You never know what you will get. You can have off flavors from wild yeats, you can have wines that wont ferment down and end up very sweet from yeasts with a low tolerence to abv and worst of all you can end up with vinegar or a wine that has gone bad from not killing off any bacteria with k-meta before adding a true wine yeast. Its a lot of risk and Ive seen this a few times with my friend and his father. My friend lost 2 55 gallon batched=s 2 years in a row ot of 4 and will never risk it again. The first year was not that bad as the wine fermented but ended up too sweet for a Merlot. The 2nd year he ended up with a lot of salad dressing!!!!!!!! He now does it our way!If he is using a pre-inoculated must then that is fine and actually might be netter as wineries are sometimes able to get better yeast then we can.

 

[rkfelpel]

Thank you for the info! it is not pre inoculated grapes and his first batch was extremely sweet. I will be now doing it your way. so where do i learn the proper technique is there recipes on this forum or do i go to the library and take out a book.

 

[cpfan]

Thank you for the info! it is not pre inoculated grapes and his first batch was extremely sweet. I will be now doing it your way. so where do i learn the proper technique is there recipes on this forum or do i go to the library and take out a book.

My first step would be to ask the retailer about instructions. The bad news is that I have done this twice. The first time I got a photocopy of a hand written page that had the steps out of order and other things that didn't seem right to me. The second time, I got a one paragraph verbal description. Not what I would call encouraging to the rookie wine maker.

There are many many methods used for making wine from a juice pail, so find one description that you like and use that.

Steve