First apple wine

Hi,

I got some champagne yeast and was thinking about doing a strong apple wine. I was thinking an OG around 1.1 would be a good target for getting wine-like strength out of it (assuming it ferments out to around 1.0 give or take a few points - that should give me around 12-13% ABV).

I notice a lot of people use dextrose to bump up the OG of the apple juice. Is there a specific reason for dextrose rather than apple juice concentrate? I was thinking of just using maybe 2.5 gallons worth of concentrate per gallon of water to get a very concentrated apple juice around 1.1 OG. Will that taste like crap when it ferments out? I am going for something pretty dry; I am going to age it for a bit on french oak after a few months in the primary and hope to end up with something a bit like sparkling wine.

Never done any kind of wine before; only beer.

Thoughts?

It should finish at about .990. I'm not sure about sparkling, as I've never done it, but if you start at 1.100 or so it'll be a bit "boozy" for a while.

Thanks for the reply -

0.99 would put it at about 14.5%, which is great although getting closer to the limits of my yeast. Maybe I will shoot for closer to 1.090 OG.

By "for a while", do you mean that the booziness will age out after a while in the bottle? Or should I age it in the carboy until it's no longer boozy? I've no problem being patient (but I don't have a huge problem with booziness, either!)

When it's done aging on the oak I was going to prime it for about 3 volumes and then bottle in some extra Groslch-style bottles I have. Was thinking about maybe even disgorging the lees from a couple of them just to see how that goes.

chocotaco said:

Thanks for the reply -

0.99 would put it at about 14.5%, which is great although getting closer to the limits of my yeast. Maybe I will shoot for closer to 1.090 OG.

By "for a while", do you mean that the booziness will age out after a while in the bottle? Or should I age it in the carboy until it's no longer boozy? I've no problem being patient (but I don't have a huge problem with booziness, either!)

When it's done aging on the oak I was going to prime it for about 3 volumes and then bottle in some extra Groslch-style bottles I have. Was thinking about maybe even disgorging the lees from a couple of them just to see how that goes.

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The "hot" boozy flavor does age out a bit. But if you start at 1.090 or so, it won't be as hot and need as much aging. Also, the yeast won't be as pooped out when you try to bottle carb.