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Derrald

Junior
Joined
Sep 25, 2022
Messages
21
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Location
Genesee, michigan
Hello, my name is derrald.
After much coaxing and pushing by family and friends, i have decided to restart my wine making. It is fast approaching 15 yrs since i have done this so i am basically starting from scratch. Any and all advice is appreciated.
 
Thank you. I am hoping with all the knowledge out here i can go from wild irish rose wine to something that is more appealing to the masses.
 
Welcome to the forum derrald. Glad that you've decided to give winemaking another chance.
 
I just started a mustang/fox grape wine 2 weeks ago. Did it once before with fair results. I am now trying to find a recipe for green apple wine. Was given a bunch so thought "what the heck".
 
Hiya Derrald and welcome, pilgrim. Green apple wine. Don't know that I know what that is. Is the color an attribute of the wine or of the apples themselves? Can you press the apples? If I wanted to make apple cider from any color of apples, I would find a way to expel the juice: about 15 lbs of apples will express about 1 gallon of juice. With apples, you really don't want to use water for anything other than cleaning equipment. How much apples do you have?
Typically, apples have a enough sugar that when you press out a gallon there's more than a pound of sugar in that volume of juice: so the gravity will be about 1.050 (plus or minus) so to make a wine , you might want to add about a pound of sugar to every gallon of juice. Green apples? Is that a Granny Smith? It might not have enough tannin.. so you may want to either add some tannin or add some crab apples. I wouldn't add any acids until after fermentation was over, but apples contain malic acid, and that would be my go to acid if the TA was too low (less than about 6 g/L ) .
In my opinion, cider (or apple wine) generally asks for a little back sweetening but cider (not so much the wine) might also ask for carbonation. Hard to both back sweeten and carbonate unless a) you want to use an artificial sweetener to back sweeten - one that yeast cannot ferment - usually taste like crap - and you add just enough sugar to carbonate each bottle, or b) you use a fermentable sugar, but force carb the cider with CO2.
 
Eww! I guess i really messed this one up. Took 8lbs granny Smith apples (cored and diced) and put in a gallon of water with pectic enzyme to prevent browning. Added about 6oz of chopped raisins to the apple bag. Campden tablet (fine crushed) and a bit of yeast energizer. Every couple of hours i have hand smashed fruit in bag. Waiting approx 24 hrs then going to add enough sugar to get a 1.00 ish reading then add yeast and hope for the best.
 
Update: acid level at approximately 4.0, 4 cups of sugar brought starting sg to 1.10, using lalvin 1118 yeast which was started with 2 cups water; 1/2 tsp sugar and 1/2 tsp energizer. Crossing fingers.
 
Mr smith, this is where i am at after 2 weeks. If you look close you can see some swimmers. Not sure but i believe it is apple pulp that got smashed through straining bag.
20221013_082636_HDR.jpg
 

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