Welch's Grape Juice Wine

Just started 5 gallons.

5lbs sugar
10 cans of welchs white
5 gallons of water
white labs champagne yeast

OG 1.082

after reading this thread I wish I added more sugar. I'm thinking the SG I wanted should have been 1.100. So much good info here.

Firstnten said:

Just started 5 gallons.

5lbs sugar
10 cans of welchs white
5 gallons of water
white labs champagne yeast

OG 1.082

after reading this thread I wish I added more sugar. I'm thinking the SG I wanted should have been 1.100. So much good info here.

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That OG is ok. It'll give you 12% ABV, so that's fine. It should finish fairly quickly.

YooperBrew said:

That OG is ok. It'll give you 12% ABV, so that's fine. It should finish fairly quickly.

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How quick?

Firstnten said:

How quick?

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When it's done? I don't know. It would depend on the temperature of the room, the health of the yeast, etc, for example. But a 12% ABV would generally finish quicker than a 15% ABV wine.

YooperBrew said:

When it's done? I don't know. It would depend on the temperature of the room, the health of the yeast, etc, for example. But a 12% ABV would generally finish quicker than a 15% ABV wine.

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Nice..That makes sense taking longer to produce more.

The room will stay at 60 but I have a space heater to keep it at a steady 70. I'm keeping it between 66-70 now but I will see after me first electric bill if I'm going to continue using it.

i am drinking my last glass of this as i am typing this, it is very good i really liked it. I just racked after thirty days and put it straight into the fridge since i can never wait a long time. I could only imagine how good this wood be after bottling and aging. Anyway i just started 2 more gallons slighty dif from original recipe. I used:

3 cans or grape concentrate
64 oz. of white grape peach juice
2 1/2 cups sugar
and topped up to 2 gallons with water

cant wait till its done might even bottle some this time if it lasts that long

Here's another way to do it. I have done a couple batches this way with honey. Since you use honey, they are considered meads which is a honey wine.

This uses the premade juice, not the frozen type. My last batch I used a D47 yeast and did not have to back sweeten.

What's nice is the alcohol content is high compared to regular wine and has a decent kick to it.

C & P from a mead site, below;

Ingredients
2 lbs Clover honey
1 oz buckwheat honey
64-oz Welch's Grape Juice with Vitamin C added- Make sure it has no preservatives in ingredients other than Vitamin C added (A.K.A. Absorbic Acid)
Balance water if you need it to make 1 gallon after adding honey mixed in water (don't use too much water in honey mix or you'll end up with more than you bargained for.
Lalvin EC-1118

at racking:
1/2 tsp. potassium sorbate
1/2 campden tablet

Methods/steps
Just finished bottling my first Grape Mead Melomel or Pyment whatever one wishes to call it and it was started on November 4th and is simply wonderful to drink already. It was ready in 5 weeks!
Thought I would share my recipe with you, as it is the youngest best tasting, quick mead I have had thus far. Too bad
It will ferment super fast to dry (about 13% alcohol) because of type of yeast and all the nutrients and natural sugars in Welch's grape juice. It should be to SG =1.000 or less in 14- 21 days max.
Rack to clean carboy over mixture of 6-oz honey, 6-oz Welch's grape juice, 1/2t of Sorbate and 1/2 crushed campden tablet.
It will stabilize and clear fast. Let it clear and set for another 2 weeks and it will be ready to bottle and drink.
It will be medium sweet but smooth and drinkable right away. If you want it semi sweet use 4-oz honey instead of 6-oz / gal.
The only reason I used the Campden (Sulphite) is because my understanding is that using both Potassium Sorbate and Sulphite together will definitely inhibit renewed fermentation and it did for me.
Color is deep red, has nice legs on sides of glass after swirling, good nose and great balanced taste) Just don't tell everybody you used Welch's. I won't. Because the juice is clear to start, clearing is naturally fast, fast, fast.

Yooper,

What purpose does letting the must stand for 12hrs before pitching the yeast accomplish?

It allows you to add the pectic enzyme, and then add the yeast 12 hours later. The pectic enzyme doesn't work well with yeast, it needs to go in first. It's really not necessary, if you don't have it, but it helps clear the wine so it doesn't form a pectin haze.

Thanks! I skipped the 12hr lag, so hopefully I pitched enough yeast that there's no detrimental effect. I had airlock activity @ 5hrs, so I think it's ok.

Another question. Is this wine usually a little sour? I tasted a hydrometer sample today (1.018), and it tastes good but almost like a lambic. I did a 3gal batch, so I added 6tsp of the acid blend. Does that sound right?

GNBrews said:

Another question. Is this wine usually a little sour? I tasted a hydrometer sample today (1.018), and it tastes good but almost like a lambic. I did a 3gal batch, so I added 6tsp of the acid blend. Does that sound right?

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I think 6 tsp of acid blend does sound like a lot, but the wine is a bit tart when finished. At 1.018, though, it shouldn't have been sour- it should be quite sweet at 1.018. That's sweet enough to hurt my teeth!

Was it "tart" or "sour"?

Tart would be a better description. It is still quite sweet, so it's definitely not finished, but I'm wondering how it's supposed to taste.

GNBrews said:

Tart would be a better description. It is still quite sweet, so it's definitely not finished, but I'm wondering how it's supposed to taste.

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It's very tart when it's finished. Once it's done, you can stabilize with campden tablets and sorbate, and sweeten it if you'd like.

I also have a 6 gallon batch going. Its my first attempt at fermantation, Ill keep everyone posted

Another question, sorry it's my first time attempting "wine", but how long does primary fermentation usually last? I used a Lalvin 71b-1122 yeast, and I'm only down to 1.013 from 1.103 after 21 days now. The temp of my fermentation area is ~67-70F.

GNBrews said:

Another question, sorry it's my first time attempting "wine", but how long does primary fermentation usually last? I used a Lalvin 71b-1122 yeast, and I'm only down to 1.013 from 1.103 after 21 days now. The temp of my fermentation area is ~67-70F.

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Usually it lasts about 5-7 days, but it can very greatly. 67 is rather cool for wine yeast, so that's why it's taking so long. It'll be fine, though. My house is cool and I find that I have to move my wine to the warmest place in the house, and sometimes even that isn't very warm!

Being that this wine was so tart unsweetened, I opened a bottle sweetened it up with some simple syrup and found I can make a very good sangria with it. The concord grape has very fruity taste which is perfect for a sangria. My wife loved it.

This recipe reminds me of my Dad's homemade wine, but i'm sure it taste more like wine than my Dads MD 20/20 version. He would use the bottled juice, add 5 lbs of sugar, and bread yeast. Five gallons at a time sure didn't last long, but I wouldn't call it fine wine. If you cut it with some sprite it was really tasty. My dad was also known to add an inch of gin to about five bottle just to boost the alcohol vol. Those special bottle were saved for holidays and football games. Although not especially great, I still find myself missing his old hooch. Thanks for the ideas and recipes guys. Happy Holidays!

If i wanted to keg this, but also backsweeten, could i just not use sorbate since the cold temps. in the keg. Plus, the fact that it really wouldn't matter if there was any renewed fermentation since it is in a keg?

kjones said:

If i wanted to keg this, but also backsweeten, could i just not use sorbate since the cold temps. in the keg. Plus, the fact that it really wouldn't matter if there was any renewed fermentation since it is in a keg?

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Sure, you could do that. Wine yeast should go dormant at fridge temperatures, but even if not it'll take a while to ferment out.

i found some different articles that say to use tannin before adding gelatin, i saw this after i added gelatin, is this a big deal or not?

kjones said:

i found some different articles that say to use tannin before adding gelatin, i saw this after i added gelatin, is this a big deal or not?

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Tannin is a flavor that provides "bite" to the wine- so you can add it whenever you want. I've never used gelatin, so I'm not sure about when/how/etc.

I just started a batch of this and wanted to ask a few questions.

I'm currently making a batch that will ultimately be 5 gallons of sweet wine. I'm using both liquid and frozen white and purple grape juice to get a light purple color. I'm using Montrachet yeast, which from what I understand, poops out around 13%, which means I should be able to get a medium strength wine. I'm kind of new to this stuff, and come from beer brewing, so please correct me if I'm doing something wrong.

What I plan to do is over a period of days, like with a really high gravity beer, I plan on adding, or staggering, my sugars (both table sugar and frozen concentrate). I will let the yeast catch up, convert most of the sugar, then add some more. I plan to continue this until the yeast die from alcohol poisoning, at which point I will add a little more sugar to finally sweeten the product.

Any issues with this?

ILurvTheWhiskey said:

I just started a batch of this and wanted to ask a few questions.

I'm currently making a batch that will ultimately be 5 gallons of sweet wine. I'm using both liquid and frozen white and purple grape juice to get a light purple color. I'm using Montrachet yeast, which from what I understand, poops out around 13%, which means I should be able to get a medium strength wine. I'm kind of new to this stuff, and come from beer brewing, so please correct me if I'm doing something wrong.

What I plan to do is over a period of days, like with a really high gravity beer, I plan on adding, or staggering, my sugars (both table sugar and frozen concentrate). I will let the yeast catch up, convert most of the sugar, then add some more. I plan to continue this until the yeast die from alcohol poisoning, at which point I will add a little more sugar to finally sweeten the product.

Any issues with this?

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No, you can do that. The issue might be the happy yeast, though- I wouldn't be surprised if you go over 15% with the staggered additions. You may have some sweetened rocket fuel that will take a while to age out.

You might want to consider simply doing the recipe as is, then stabilizing with sorbate and campden. Wait a couple of days, then sweeten as desired. That would give you more dependable results.

Ok. I went ahead and followed through with two batches, one three gallon carboy following the general idea posted by Yooper and one posted following the concept of what I thought up. I will say, boiling sugar water and then adding it to your already fermenting beverage is something that should be done slowly! I had this crazy azz explosion! Not sure what caused it, but the must started foaming and spoooooosh up it came pouring out like a volcano onto the floor. Good thing I had had a few, hahha. Can't wait for these to be done, thanks!

I have had this going since Monday and got a blazing fermentation going.
I was wondering if this should be at lower than room temp?
I have it sitting a closet, but i thought i heard before higher temps make wine bitter.

CATFISHER74 said:

I have had this going since Monday and got a blazing fermentation going.
I was wondering if this should be at lower than room temp?
I have it sitting a closet, but i thought i heard before higher temps make wine bitter.

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No, wine does fine at higher temperatures. Wine yeast actually prefer it warmer than most ale yeast strains. I like to make wine in the summer, beer in the fall through spring, just because the temperatures are more conducive. It's tough to get wine going when it's too cool.

After six days of fermenting no activity.
I just noticed when i went to grab yeast for something else i had used champagne for this by accident.
Does this yeast ferment out faster than the other yeast?

They all ferment out pretty quickly. I haven't noticed a real difference in yeast strains and fermentation times.

YooperBrew said:

They all ferment out pretty quickly. I haven't noticed a real difference in yeast strains and fermentation times.

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Have you noticed any difference between white and red? I started 2 batches about a week ago using Yoopers original recipe... one red and one white. Fermentation was going stong in both the first few days and when I attached my airlocks I noticed the white batch was bubbling WAY more than the red. Now the red has all but stopped and the white still bubbles about ever 9 or 10 seconds. The only thing I can think that would cause this is that I may have put just a little bit more sugar in the white.

How do I know when it is clear enough to rack for the first time?

My batches have been going about 30 days now and have been racked once after about seven days.
Now the air lock has gone back down should i rack again or fine and bottle?

If it's at a stable FG (it usually finished at .990 or so for me) and it's clear, it'd be ok to bottle it. You get some sediment with this wine, but usually after 60 days or so, it's stopped and you're pretty safe to bottle. If you have a ton of lees, you can rack again, but if you don't, then you can just wait it out.

YooperBrew said:

If it's at a stable FG (it usually finished at .990 or so for me) and it's clear, it'd be ok to bottle it. You get some sediment with this wine, but usually after 60 days or so, it's stopped and you're pretty safe to bottle. If you have a ton of lees, you can rack again, but if you don't, then you can just wait it out.

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So it will be ok sitting another 30 days even thou the air lock is not pushing up/

are there any more updates? cheap wine holds my interest!

I just added wine condiitioner to mine 3 days ago still seems to be fermenting thou.
I started on 2/20 racked after 7 days then again after about 2 weeks seems really clear and not much lees on the bottom.

I started a batch a couple of weeks ago and it hasn't cleared much. I am not worrying about it, had an extra carboy and the whole batch only cost me like 12 bucks. it's actually gonna cost more to get the bottles than it did to make it!

Been going since 2/20 been racked twice should i bottle now?
And how do you bottle in a 1 gallon bottle?

CATFISHER74 said:

Been going since 2/20 been racked twice should i bottle now?
And how do you bottle in a 1 gallon bottle?

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If it's finished, and clear, you can bottle it.

I never heard of bottling in a 1 gallon bottle- that's a lot of wine for me to drink in one sitting. I bottle mine in either regular wine bottles, or Grolsch flip top bottles (16 ounces is a nice one person serving).

Something to add, and I'm sure Yooper will have input on this as well, but I noticed that if you start with juice that already contains ascorbic acid (many do) you should *not* add the 2tsp of acid blend mentioned in the original recipe. If you do, the end result is extremely tart.

Taste the finished wine first, then add acid blend a little at a time until you find a good balance.