My first wine attempt (other than Ed's apfelwein)

I decided to venture into the wine making arena, so I'm gonna try out these two recipes, and I'd appreciate any thoughts:

WELCH'S WHITE GRAPE AND RASPBERRY WINE
• 2 cans (11.5 oz) Welch's White Grape and Raspberry frozen
• 1-1/4 lbs granulated sugar
• 2 tsp acid blend
• 1 tsp pectic enzyme
• 1 tsp yeast nutrient
• water to make 1 gallon
• Sauterne wine yeast

Bring 1 quart water to boil and dissolve the sugar in the water. Remove from heat and add frozen concentrate. Add additional water to make one gallon and pour into secondary. Add remaining ingredients except yeast. Cover with napkin fastened with rubber band and set aside 12 hours. Add activated wine yeast and recover with napkin. When active fermentation slows down (about 5 days), fit airlock. When clear, rack, top up and refit airlock. Wait 30 days and rack, top up and refit airlock. After additional 30 days, stabilize, sweeten if desired and rack into bottles. [JK's recipe]

BLACKBERRY WINE
• 4 lb. blackberries
• 3 lb. granulated sugar
• 1 gallon water
• wine yeast and nutrient
Pick fully ripe, best quality berries. Wash thoroughly in colander, then crush in bowl, transfer to primary fermentation vessel, and add gallon of boiling water, mixing thoroughly. When lukewarn (70 degrees F.), add yeast, cover, and set in warm (70-75 degrees F.) place 4-5 days, stirring daily. Strain through very fine nylon sieve or double thickness of muslin onto sugar and nutrient. Stir well to dissolve sugar and pour into secondary fermentation vessel of dark glass (or wrap clear glass with brown paper) to shoulder, and fit airlock. Ferment excess liquor in small bottle fitted with airlock or covered with plastic wrap held by rubber band. After all foaming has ceased (6-7 days), top up with excess liquor and place in cool (60-65 degrees F.) dark place for three months. Rack, allow another two months to finish, then rack again and bottle in dark glass. Allow 6 months to age, a year to mature. [Adapted by JK from C.J.J. Berry's 130 New Winemaking Recipes]

Both recipes sound great! Let us know how it turns out!

Thanks Yoop. One more question. Yeast?

here's what I have:

Montrachet
D-47
EC-118
K1-V1116
Pasteur Champagne

Which would you use for each?

I'd use the EC118 on the blackberry and D47 on the other.

etp777 said:

I'd use the EC118 on the blackberry and D47 on the other.

Click to expand...

good call (after do some reading, I concur).

I started both of these yesterday...I'll try to remember to update.

Heh, yeah, memory is really rusty, so I just based my opinion on some quick research of the strains from a trusted source. Just getting started again myself, so don't have my own experienced based opinions on the yeasts again yet.

The blackberry wine almost blew up on me. I figured it would be vigorous, so I only topped off to the shoulder of the 1 gallon jug - but it didn't matter. This evening there was almost blackberries everywhere. So, I racked ~1/3 gallon to a Phantom Canyon brewery growler and put a napkin on that as well. In a few days when I rack the must off of the berries, I'll proceed as the recipe says. Any problems that you see?

I filtered the blackberry goo onto the sugar and nutrient, mixed well, and put back in the jug (with the extra in the growler to account for needing to top off once the foaming stops).

What a PITA! I need a bigger bowl! ~1 gallon of drark purple, sticky, stainy stuff everywhere. But it smells incredible!

finally got around to racking the white grape & raspberry wine.

Wow, it's incredibly clear and the gravity dropped to 0.996 Another month or so and I'll bottle it, as the lees was extremely compacted and I didn't get much during the racking. I'm gonna hold off for another couple weeks on the blackberry wine.

The hydro sample has a great color, great smell, but is obviously somewhat "hot" still - but when aged this should taste nice.

I racked the blackberry wine off the lees tonight; and wow, this is going to taste good once it ages!!

The gravity is at 1.010 -- I thought it might get a little lower using EC-1118, but I messed up and didn't take an OG (although I guess I could calculate it).

Anyways, really nice color - deep redish-purple and tasted really good for such a young wine. I was thinking about New Year's or maybe next spring soltice this will taste really good.

pics to follow eventually...

here's what they look like now....

cracked a bottle of the blackberry wine for Thanksgiving dinner....

It was awesome! It's only been in the bottle for a little over five months, I imagine by next summer it will be even better!

This recipe is a winner - time to step it up to at least a 3 gallon batch!