General Concentrate Wine

brazedowl said:

Oh I do a killer version of this with blueberry pie filling, cherry pie filling, blackberry pie filling, grape concentrate and a gallon of cran juice.

Sounds like you're off to a good start there.

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Ok, so how do you modify the recipe to account for the fillings? Sounds great!

Got the wine raked from primary to secondary, a carboy. S.G. Is down to 1.00. I added Campden tabs to kill fermentation and put it in a dark room. Today I checked it and fermentation has stopped and he wine is beginning to clear!!

I also waited 3 weeks before racking. Just in case anyone is wondering. Happy brewing!

Meadrol said:

Ok, so how do you modify the recipe to account for the fillings? Sounds great!

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I swap out one can of concentrate for one can of pie filling. And then at some point I scoop out the floating fruit, freeze it, and make pie with it later to rave reviews.

3 days later and its still at 1.051. I dont have a one gallon jug at the moment to do the dilution trick without wasting wine. I pitched a pack of D47 and dumped it in. Im going to add some nutrient before bed also. Seems that the activity picked back up now. I hope this works or I will have 5 gallons of dessert wine.

1.051 is beyond just dessert wine. Hope it catches on for you!

Ill get another hydrometer reading and if it isnt better, ill have to get a jug to dilute the batch a little

Just tested again. 1.048. I sill have alot of tiny bubbles rising and airlock burping. Could it be that its just fermenting that slow?? I dont know what else to do. I guess ill have to siphon some off.

I made a small one gallon batch of this on 4/15. I used 2 cans of concentrate and 2.5 cups of sugar, along with nutrient and energizer. I used Montrachet. Today is 4/20 and its at 1.00. Tastes good and dry but im going to stabilize and backsweeten with a little more concentrate.

sounds good. I'm drinkin' some straight-grape concentrate wine from this recipe right now.

I can't get this to go...

I made 1 gallon, used 1 can mango and 1 can cranberry. KV-1116

Started it a month ago, OG was 1095. Got a few bubbles but not much

Checked it the other day, gravity was about the same (1090 maybe?) so I pulled off 500ml of it and added 500ml water. Gave it 2 more days and nothing happened. Poured off another 500ml and topped it up with water.

2 days later, still no action.

Any thoughts on this?

How much sugar did you use? 2 pounds?

yes, 2 pounds sugar, and 1/2t nutrients

Sometimes people have problems with that much sugar. I was one of them. I ended up pitching more yeast with nutrient and energizer to get mine going again. Its still going VERY slow....i made a small batch using this recipe but used half the sugar(1 lb per gallon) and it was down to 1.00 in less than a week.

I always use Montrachet btw.

Thanks for the tip, I'll give it another day and then maybe add some new yeast. I've got an EC-1118 starter going right now for a skeeter pee that never took off so maybe I'll just use some of that.

Just fyi, when i added more yeast and energizer/nutrient, it bubbled something fierce and almost came out the top of the carboy lol

mattsilf said:

Just fyi, when i added more yeast and energizer/nutrient, it bubbled something fierce and almost came out the top of the carboy lol

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Haha the crystals just provided nucliation points for the dissolved gas to form bubbles most likely.

It looked like a science project volcano! Haha

Status update: fermentation went well (used white labs sweet mead yeast) for the first week or so. SG was 1.105 and came down to 1.030 before getting stuck. I find this a little odd because the yeast I used can handle up to 15% abv, and I'm currently around 10%. Fermentation temps where kept in the optimum range throughout the entire process. Any ideas as to why this happened? In an attempt to get things moving again I removed some of the wine, added yeast nutrient and energizer and gently mixed it back in. This did absolutely nothing. After waiting almost a week, gravity had dropped only 2 points. Any ways, I just bought some more yeast and made a starter...just waiting for things to take off before I repitch. I will keep you guys updated.

Youre gonna have to pull some out and dilute with water if energizer and nutrient didnt work.

So I did a gallon batch of this in January. I just added the sorbate and campden tablet. It has been sitting in a dark closet for 4 months, it tasted great and strong. I made a noob mistake and did not get the fg reading. Tomorrow I plan to bottle so I'll get the reading tomorrow. My question, how long should it sit in the bottle before drinking? It seems like its ready to drink now.

I drink a bottle of it as im bottling lol. Ive never let this stuff sit before drinking so i dont know the difference. But i can tell you it is fine to drink right away

mattsilf said:

I drink a bottle of it as im bottling lol. Ive never let this stuff sit before drinking so i dont know the difference. But i can tell you it is fine to drink right away

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Thanks, so did I...LOL

I always fill my cup from the spigot while I'm bottling. In a fit good state of mind by the end of the process.

Status update: After repitching yeast (starter) didn't work, I tried the dilution trick. Saw no changes after 24 hrs. I left town for 6 days and came home to find the airlock bubbling every 10 seconds or so. Seems to be going again, just slowly. I took a gravity reading and it's down to 1.021...almost there. I'm going to check it in a few days to see how it's doing.

Any ideas as to why adding new yeast to wine with a gravity of 1.030 didn't work? It shouldn't be an issue with high sugar content at this point and I don't think it's a viability issue either. I'm stumped.

From another thread:

Arpolis said:

Just getting a second fermentation started stresses out the new yeast strain you introduce which may cause fusel alcohols or other off flavors.

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I assume that yeast have a hard time starting out in an alcohol medium?

Hmm, not sure on that one. Only once did a new yeast not start it back up for me. And that time i did the dilution.

I have a quick question about the Welch's grape juice wine. I tried it the other day and it seems that it's very watery. I have fermented it and in the process of clearing, how do I add body to it?

I'm making this tomorrow and will use 5 cans of red grape concentrate and 5 cans of blueberry pie filling. other than the blueberry pie filling the rest will be per your recipe. Question: do I dump the pie filling in the bucket, then pour the rest in over it?should I stir it really well? Also I plan to rack into a carboy for the secondary...will there be pie filling on the bottom that I need to plop on over into the carboy? how does that work? This is my first time making wine so I'm unsure. And I cannot thank you enough for making this recipe that is easy for new people like me!

Yep stir really good. If I use pie filling I normally do it in a bucket so I can scoop it out easy before racking to secondary.

I noticed you said Daquari concentrate. I thought you could only use 100% juice concentrates. If not then a huge light bulb just went off for me to use many different mixes.

brazedowl said:

pom juice at food lion?? What state are you in? I've never seen this in NC.

And I'm sure someone around has done a pom wine if you look around. It'll work the same as these directions (substituting juice for concentrate).

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they have this in NC here in Wilmington

As long as there aren't any preservatives in the daiquiri mix than you can ferment it.

When you use pie filling, how many cans/size do you use?

replace the concentrates with pie fillings pretty much 1 to 1. I almost always use a mix of pie filling and juice. Mixed berry is one of the favorites that I whip up. Pie Filling (Cherry, Blueberry, Blackberry), cranberry and grape juice (concentrate or fresh).

Has anyone done a straight cranberry or white cranberry version of this? This looks like something I can handle as I am fairly new to this wine making hobby. Have done JAOM a few times now which has piqued my interest in wine making. Thanks for the instructions.

salli4102 said:

Has anyone done a straight cranberry or white cranberry version of this? This looks like something I can handle as I am fairly new to this wine making hobby. Have done JAOM a few times now which has piqued my interest in wine making. Thanks for the instructions.

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Yes I have. I've tried both all cranberry and half grape half cranberry and I preferred the all cranberry version. What I really like about this recipe is it's so simple to whip up a one gallon test batch.

Great! Thanks for the reply. I love cranberry wine, but I'm a cheapskate and don't like giving $12-15.00 a bottle. Would rather make my own.

I've never done a straight cranberry one! you do what... 2 concentrates? how much sugar?