jkpq45

Recipes 

I was wandering about Sam's Club this afternoon, and spied a new flavor of Welch's juice: Black Cherry-Concord. 5 gallons of preservative-free juice (at $6.50 a gallon) and two packets of Lalvin K1V-1116 (properly hydrated) later, I pose the following questions:

1. What have I built? Does this sound appetizing to anyone?

2. The SG was 1065. Assuming the 1116 will ferment to dryness and leave some fruit flavor, should I add some table sugar?

3. Are nutrients/energizer necessary? I'm not sure how well/quickly the wine yeast will work given acidity/gravity conditions. Any advice would be appreciated.

3. Does anyone recommend a daily/bi-daily de-gassing of the must? It's sitting in a 6.5 gallon glass carboy, so shoe-horning a racking cane chucked into a drill for de-gassing shouldn't be a problem.

Thanks for the help!
jkpq45

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Lcasanova

Recipes 

1. It does sound good, have you ever made http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f79/welchs-grape-juice-wine-21093/ to get an idea of the concord grape flavor?

2. The OG sounds a little weak for a wine, doesn't it?

3. I've always added yeast nutrient to mine just out of habit, I dont' know if it would hurt.

3. I haven't the slightest, I've left mine covered in a towel/napkin for the first 5-7 days before I fit an airlock...fruit wines I stirred 2 times daily.

Let us know how it turns out though.

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Lucky 13 Brewing Company
Est. 2009

Kauai_Kahuna

Recipes 

Not much to add but I would bump up that SG to 1.090 or so. Please let us know how it comes out.

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In Primary: Belgium Chimay clones.
In Secondary: Braggot, pale ale, end of the world white.
Conditioning: Mead, Cider, braggot, Belgium Wheat.
On Tap: Clones, Chimay Blue, Red, Porter, malted cider.
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summersolstice

Recipes 

I tried a similar experiment a couple of years ago with apple juice. I wanted to see what I'd get with juice, yeast and nothing else. It turned out very thin and very flat. I would bump the OG with some sugar and add some acid blend. If you're happy with the alcohol content, at least ad some acid blend.

HandsomeRyan

Recipes 

You might add some raisins or something for body.

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jkpq45

Recipes 

Black raisins and white cane sugar to 1090 to follow.

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jkpq45

Recipes 

Added 24oz rough-chopped black raisins. Foamed so bad I didn't get around to the sugar.

Clogged up the airlock this morning with raisin paste, had a nice purple plume coming out of the airlock and a fine purple mist sprayed all over the basement. Nice. Oh well, it's all cleaned up and bubbling away again (or it was all cleaned up this morning... maybe it's bubbling over again... dang....)

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Lcasanova

Recipes 

I learned from my mistake with red wine, it got all over my counter and some got onto my white carpet - now, I never fill up to the very top. Just recently I used a sanitized theif to take some out before I pitched the yeast and put that into a sanitized beer bottle which I capped and put in the fridge. When I top-up I'll use this instead of water.

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Lucky 13 Brewing Company
Est. 2009

jkpq45

Recipes 

I had my 5 gallons of juice in the 6.5 gallon carboy. I should have put it in a bucket for primary like the rest of my wines. I went home over lunch and the airlock was full of must again. Fitted a blowoff tube--we'll see if it works any better.

Give that sample a good sniff before you decide to top up with it--I've had even capped bottles of unfermented must/wort sour in the fridge.

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Lcasanova

Recipes 

Thanks for the advice, will do.

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Lucky 13 Brewing Company
Est. 2009