Welche's Niagara White Wine (Not From Concentrate)

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Wade E

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6 Gallon recipe
5.5 Gallons - Welch’s White Grape Juice
11 Tsps - Acid Blend
5 lbs - Sugar
3 tsp - Pectic Enzyme
6 tsp - Yeast Nutrient
3 tsp – Yeast Energizer
1 ½ tsp - Tannin
0 - Sulfite as Welch’s juice already contains some
1 Sachet – Red Star Pasteur Red Yeast
½ Gallon - Water
Add all juice to 7.9 gallon primary bucket or bigger. Add Tannin, Yeast Energizer, Yeast Nutrient, and Acid blend and stir well. Pour the ½ gallon of boiling water with all dissolved sugar in primary. Check SG, it should have a SG of around 1.085 give or take a little, if more then add a little more water, if less then add a little more dissolved sugar in small amount of water as sugars from fruit can vary a little. Let sit for 12 hours with lid loose or with a cloth covering bucket with elastic band or string tied around so as that not to sag in must. After those 12 hours add your Pectic Enzyme and wait another 12 hours while also adjusting your must temp to around 75 degrees. After those twelve hours, pitch your yeast either by sprinkling yeast, dehydrating yeast per instructions on back of yeast Sachet, or by making a yeast starter a few hours prior to the 12 hour mark. At this point either leave primary lid off with the cloth again, place lid on loose or snap the lid shut with airlock. When SG reaches 1.015, rack to 6 gallon carboy and let finish fermenting with bung and airlock attached. When wine is done fermenting, (check a few days in a row to make sure SG does not change and SG should be around .998 or less) you can stabilize by adding another ¼ tsp of k-meta and 3 tsps of Potassium Sorbate and degas your wine thoroughly. You can now sweeten your wine if you like by using simple syrup which consists of 2 cups of sugar and 1 cup of boiling water or by using a juice or frozen concentrate. I typically take 2 quarts of an alike juice and simmer on stove at medium heat with lid off until its 1/3 its original size and let it cool to room temp and then add slowly to taste. Be careful not to over sweeten. At this point you can use a fining agent or let it clear naturally. Once clear, rack into clean vessel and bulk age more adding another ¼ tsp of k-meta at 3 month intervals or add ¼ tsp k-meta and bottle age for at least 3 months and enjoy. Longer aging will give you a better wine so save a few bottles till at least 1 year mark so you can truly see what this wine can aspire to.
 
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question

This recipe sounds great! I might try it I think, Im currently making a improvised wine from welches white grape juice peach flavored with that I added some welches raspberry concentrate. I used 4 64oz bottles of grape juice and like 4 cans of raspberry concentrate. My question about your recipe is is that would this recipe not benefit more from adding sugar and getting a starting SG of 1100 ? Someone may correct me if Im wrong in what I have learned but I read that a starting SG of about 1100 is needed to get the higher alcohol levels out of your home made wine? Thoughts anyone ?
 
I just drank my last bottle of white grape peach. I wouldn't mix that delicate flavor with anything else... just my opinion. If you're going to mix in all the other stuff, you might as well just use the plain white grape as your base.
When I sweetened it... I used more of the concentrate to bring that peach back up... it's still pretty delicate, though.

Debbie
 
I have followed wade's recipe here except that I mixed 100 % white grape juice with a few jugs of 100% Blueberry juice. It is done, I have stabilized and added my clearing agents and its pretty clear already. It smells pretty good , I took a taste sample and its pretty strong right now. I know this can tame down a little with some time but im thinking I should try to back sweeten a little bit. I would like to back sweeten with some more 100% blueberry as that's the taste im going for here. It has a hint of the blueberry right now so It should turn out good but My question is what does boiling it really do ? Thanks for the advice.
 
This recipe sounds great! I might try it I think, Im currently making a improvised wine from welches white grape juice peach flavored with that I added some welches raspberry concentrate. I used 4 64oz bottles of grape juice and like 4 cans of raspberry concentrate. My question about your recipe is is that would this recipe not benefit more from adding sugar and getting a starting SG of 1100 ? Someone may correct me if Im wrong in what I have learned but I read that a starting SG of about 1100 is needed to get the higher alcohol levels out of your home made wine? Thoughts anyone ?

Starting SG/final ABV is a personal choice. Not all, but a large number of home winemakers actually prefer a lower SG.

They have developed this preference b/c a lower SG/ABV better allows flavor and aroma to come through in the final product.

There are excetions, of course. It all depends on the strength of flavor of the fruit you're using. A very general guideline is around 1085 for the starting SG for most fruit.

YMMV
 
Is this a super sweet wine? What would the recipe be for 6 gallons?


Thanks!
 
... is 11 table spoons of Acid Blend correct? Seems like a lot...

Thanks

I'd like to second this question. 11 tablespoons does seem a bit much in comparison to other recipes. Is this correct & if so, why so much in comparison?

Thanks,
Brian
 
Wade, seeing as this is your recipe that was posted, I'll direct these questions to you. I noticed that for the 6 gallon recipe, you used 5 1/2 gallons of the juice and a 1/2 gallon of water. Is there any particular reason you used the water, other than to dissolve your sugar in, say to possibly lower either you ph level or starting sg? If not, couldn't you have heated up one of the 1/s gallons of juice to dissolve your sugar in, and gone with a full 6 gallons of pure juice instead of using water to do so? And as for adjusting the ph, if it was too high, could you have either added less acid blend, or have uses calcium carbonate? Also, seeing as how you used juice, from grapes, is there any particular reason both yeast nutrient and energizer? I am getting ready to start a batch myself, and was planning on doing an all juice version as I have 6 gallons of the Welch's White Grape. Thanks in advance for your input!!!
 
Pretty much right about just using juice to dissolve the sugar in. I usually make a lot of inverted sugar because I use it a lot to sweeten my other wines so I always have it on hand and that is why almost every recipe I have includes it. As for energizer and nutrient, I always use both unless Im making it from fresh grapes and in that situation I use much more specific nutrients. For generic wines like this I dont go all out with high end yeast and the such. Ive always ended up short on the acid here so its always been needed to add acid.
 
Pretty much right about just using juice to dissolve the sugar in. I usually make a lot of inverted sugar because I use it a lot to sweeten my other wines so I always have it on hand and that is why almost every recipe I have includes it. As for energizer and nutrient, I always use both unless Im making it from fresh grapes and in that situation I use much more specific nutrients. For generic wines like this I dont go all out with high end yeast and the such. Ive always ended up short on the acid here so its always been needed to add acid.

ok....well thank you very much for the info, wade....i definitely appreciate it...now i will confidently be able to proceed with mixing my batch up on wednesday, since tomorrow is bowling night after work, and make my batch as a pure juice batch....hopefully it will really give it that niagara punch in the face and perhaps the body, albeit being a white, that i am desiring....i will probably take a sample of the juice and test the ph, as well as the sg, then punch all the info into wine calc, and get ready to do the rest of my additions in order to get it balanced, and bring up the sg to my desired level....once again, thank you very much....
 
I made this recipe a few months ago and had the first "public" tasting yesterday with another couple over for dinner. It was a big hit! In fact, such a big hit that my wife had to drive the other couple home. I sent them home with some more of the wine too. I also made a 1 gallon batch from the same recipe, but using Welch's White Grape Peach juice. It turned out really well too. I back sweetened both of them up to about the 1.020 range, which created a nice medium-sweet, refreshing drink.

And of course, at a total cost of something like $50 for a 6 gallon batch, can't beat it.

Thanks for the recipe!
 
Found this recipe while thinking about diluting some juice that I can't get to ferment. I'm thinking if I 1/5 this recipe, it might be worth trying, to get a good starter going for my 5 gallons (see my other recent threads).

Is this JUST grocery store bought Welch's white grape juice? I have all of the other stuff already.
 

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