Another Welch's Recipe

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

ill_fate

Member
Joined
Nov 10, 2010
Messages
6
Reaction score
2
Location
Washington
(for five gallon batch)
5 gallons grape juice from concentrate
5 tsp. lemon juice
7 tsp. honey
3 packs wine yeast
3.75 cups sugar

The last thread had an interesting Welch's recipe, so I thought I'd post this one which worked great the last time I tried it, using less sugar than previously.
Begin by dumping nearly 5 gallons of grape juice from concentrate into your Primary. Just leave some room for the sugar. Dissolve 3.75 cups of sugar in warm water and add this. (The honey will replace the extra sugar usually used in these recipes.) Add the honey. Add the lemon juice. (I'm not positive, but I believe this acts like an acid, extracting sugar from the grape juice. Anyone know for sure?) Shake vigorously, allow to stand for a few hours. Sprinkle wine yeast on top of bucket. Cover. (My bucket lid has an airlock, though this isn't necessary.) Allow to sit for at least 20 days. Rack into secondary. Airlock. Allow to stand for 10 days, rack back into primary, wash secondary, and rerack into secondary. Fill Carboy to an in inch from the bottom of airlock with water. After 10 more days, bottle. Try it. Sweeten if desired. It doesn't really need to age. This is cheap wine!
The neat thing about this recipe is that everything can be purchased at the grocery store, besides the wine yeast and wine making supplies. If you don't have a wine supply store use dry highly active yeast. If you don't have a carboy simply make it one gallon at a time, fermenting the grape juice in the Welch's bottles you bought it in and use a balloon with a hole poked in the top of it as an airlock. When the balloon sinks, rerack and replace the balloon with the cap. Age it like this for 2 weeks. This is how I did it as a broke college student, however it will be cloudy. I got mine pretty clear with the wine equipment. It probably wouldn't hurt to use pectin or yeast activator. I'm drinking it now. Not amazing, not bad. Really cheap. (30 dollars for 5 gallons.) 11% abv. Cheers!
 
I am making a variation on this recipe, I used bottled juice instead of frozen concentrate:

3-96 ounce bottles of welchs (concord) grape juice
2-96 ounce bottles of welchs (Niagara) white grape juice
1-96 ounce bottle of motts 100%apple juice
5 cups of sugar
5 tsp of lemon juice
5 tsp of yeast nutrient
1 packet of red star cuvee wine yeast

dissolve sugar in 1/2 gallon of water and let cool to room temp.
dump all juice, yeast nutrient and sugar water into primary and stir.
pitch yeast, seal primary and add airlock, within 24 hrs this thing will be fermenting like crazy.:mug:
 
13 days in the primary and fermentation has basically come to a stop, racked into secondary this morning and the aeration kicked it back to a decent bloop.
a sample tasting revealed a light reunite lambrusco taste. color is awesome. definitely drinkable but another week in the secondary should help. doesn't seem to need anymore sweetness for me at the moment as its come out as a semi sweet right now and that's perfect for me. could change in a week though. will update in a week but so far so good:)
 
bottled this yesterday, opened a bottle today with some pulled pork and its perfect for me. very drinkable and the girlfriend loves it too, will definitely make again. super easy :ban:
 
Back
Top