israelj
Active Member
- Joined
- Dec 9, 2013
- Messages
- 28
- Reaction score
- 1
Started a 5 gal of Welch's Peach Wine.
I'm including some of the things I went through before I got to this forum, so be merciful. I'm sure I'll be racked a bit, but maybe 1st timers can learn from my mistakes. I cook and usually hit some very difficult recipes right out of the gate, but this one was more complex, mostly because the videos on this or explanations seem to vary so much.
I found this recipe as a step-by-step guide for newbies which I am currently using, hopefully it's ok to post it here: http://www.winepress.us/forums/index.php?showtopic=5941&st=0&p=69805&#entry69805. Thank you WineThief.
I'm on day 6 of fermentation and the airlock is still bubbling-too much sugar was used, so don't just put in 13 cans of concentrate and 5lbs of sugar... make sure to start at around 3lbs (put the sugar in the right amount of boiling water first to make a syrup) and check your hydrometer after this before adding more.
My first batch turned into rocket fuel. In this case a drone flew by and sensed the high alcohol content from the massive amount of sugar I used and NASA offered me a good price to buy it, so it's going to the space effort now.
It smelled great to start but then smelled like something I’ve never ran into before in life, so I tossed it. I only had 3 cans of Welch's white in it so I figured it wasn't going to taste good anyway, I also used a half gallon of Dragon Fruit Mango juice.
I did not start out with a hydrometer, and watched a Mixcat Youtube video that they didn't finish on how to do the wine at home. They used a bucket and basically threw it all together. The last video must be in the ether somewhere, I probably missed it, they have lot's of videos. Fortunately it led me to this forum where they have been very helpful. The things I am mentioning are only to give perspective so others that are new can learn from my experiences.
I see where Yoopers and Arpolis (both a great help in this) have their own recipes for whites. I needed to see it all at once, but Arpolis has a non-sugar recipe that I used part of in this batch. Some of us need the "pick up the bucket, put it down over here" military training style approach to this.
IT PAYS TO START WITH THE BARE MINIMUM PIECES. You can make prison brew, but I don't know how good that comes out (using whatever is lying around).
Some use 1-gallon glass bottles (mini-carboys?) for this and put the recipe in 1-gallon format, you just multiply everything except the yeast by 5. Yeast can make from 1 to 6 gallons, and if you don't use it all make sure to seal it up real good to keep it from getting contaminated (there is natural yeast all around us) or moist. Also, always keep it refrigerated or it will die.
Remember-you’ve got to have wine bottles to bottle wine. I keep our old bottles and wash and sanitize them. I figure wine bottles are 750 milliliters so I gathered 24 of them; hopefully I did the math right. You can place them in the wine cardboard boxes until needed, but clean them after use so they aren't more difficult in the future to clean. After washing them out (use a bottle brush $3) I dunked them into the Star San bucket with a kabob rod and left for a few minutes then took them out and inverted them, and let them dry.
You can get corks off of amazon they definitely were cheaper than the brew store in this case. I got 30; you can get up to 100 easily.
I paid $27 for a corking machine-imagine what they used before they had the machines... Amazon as well. Portuguese Double Lever Corker Just look it up if the link doesn't work anymore, there are plenty to choose from.
You can get clear 1/2 inch tubing for when you have to rack the wine (put it into the carboy, the 5 gal bottle-necked glass or blue plastic container)-I found it at Home Depot but a hardware store would have it. I sanitized it well, some will say to use food-grade plastic instead.
Try to use a 5-gallon glass carboy if possible; I had 4 blue plastic food grade water carboys so I used them instead of reinvesting in glass. The plastic are really difficult to seal and the rubber inserts don't seal well in them-this will frustrate you and add to the time to do all of this. I used a special tape for sealing around the blue lid. (Remember to get the rubber grommets from the hydro store that allows an airtight seal to your airlock).
Two main types of airlocks: one curvy looking thing, one that looks like two upside down cups-either one works fine, but I like the upside down cup version. (that's newbiezze) $2.50 ea. IMPORTANT, don't skip it.
Long stir spoon. You have to sanitize this so make sure it's either the metal stainless spoon they sell at the brew store or the plastic/Teflon. There is also a stirring rod that is fantastic, you can find it on amazon as well: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EKKOEOE/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20 or just look up "wine Stirrer" I would definitely get one of these, they hook to your drill and make life so much easier. This also helps when degassing (getting the CO2 out of your must).
Try to get something to measure the temperature; I have a turkey oil fryer that came with a long end that I put into good use.
Tips to know before starting:
Try to keep all temperatures consistent as possible. However, I saw one article that stated you could start the yeast at a higher temperature, then put it around 60 degrees or so to keep the fermenting slower... that would only take a day at the higher temperature to start the yeast, and mine started well at 74 degrees, but didn't start well at 70 degrees (I used two different types of yeast and they both took a day to start, have patience).
By the way-have patience.
http://www.winepress.us/forums/index.php?showtopic=5941&st=0&p=69805&#entry69805
Refer to the recipe listed above for step-by-step guidelines.
Keep the yeast pitching (read the directions on the yeast packet for this) close to the temperature of the must ("must" is what you are making before it becomes wine)
It's fairly cheap to get the chemicals for this (well, they are chemicals). I went to the brew store, which usually handles beer, but many things seem to be similar, they keep the yeasts there in the frig as well.
Lavlin 71b-1122 yeast 1 packet, but buy 2 just in case $2 each
pectic enzyme 1 small packet (1oz)
Yeast Superfood (came in 2oz packet) $3
Potassium Metabisulfite (2oz foil packet) under $3
Sparkolloid 2oz packet-may not be necessary but pick it up anyway and save a trip
Explanations (brief) here for these:
Lavlin 71b-1122 yeast-you can look it up here: http://www.lalvinyeast.com/71B.asp It is good for White Wine fermenting and several people recommended it for this project.
pectic enzyme Here's a quote from lockwood1956:
"Pectolase helps to extract colour and flavour as well as getting rid of pectin hazes. Generally one would add 1 tsp per gallon, but if using it in wines with ingredients high in pectin content or if there was warm or hot water used in processing, then double the dosage"
Yeast Superfood (feeds the yeast)
Potassium Metabisulfite (camdon tablets, or so they tell me) Here is the Wiki explanation for why it's used: "Potassium metabisulfite is a common wine or must additive, in which it forms sulfur dioxide gas (SO2). This both prevents most wild microorganisms from growing, and it acts as a potent antioxidant, protecting both the color and delicate flavors of wine." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_metabisulfite
"Potassium Sorbate" or just called Sorbate for short some times. That is added along with potassium metabisulfate after fermentation ends and the wine is clear so you can safely add sugar to a wine without fermentation picking back up. It is usually good to wait 12 hours after adding the chemicals before adding any sugar or additional fruits/juices. (thank you Arpolis)
and I picked up some Sparkolloid in case it needed it for clearing (literally, making the wine clear) You add this at a very specific time in the step-by-step
Using:
5 gal bucket, I drilled a hole in the top to accommodate a grommet I found at the local hydroponics shop. The plastic top is rated a "2" but I looked at the tops at the brew store and they were rated the same.
Sanitized the daylights out of everything possible using Star San. I picked up the Star San from the local Brew store, amazon has it as well, but by the time you add shipping it was the same and I could pick up several items I needed for the brew locally-they would not come from the same place and I would have been charged shipping for all of it-why not give it locally and support small business? I keep a 5 gal mostly full of the Star San to re-use as I need it in the process. I've seen tests on Youtube that say it's ok to keep it for a while (waiting for my amazon purchased ph meter to verify it keeps it's ph $10 on amazon http://www.amazon.com) or look up "ph meter". I don't think the expensive ones work any different than the $15 one, but it's your money. I think the accuracy is in the ballpark for what's needed here to start at least.
I used something I found on Youtube-someone took an aquarium airpump (I had one for another clean project I did for hydroponics, and I made sure to Star San everything really well) and I have two "stones" at the end-I only had to oxygenate with this twice and the yeast started without having to repitch (phew). Such a relief to see it working. I usually do good on projects for cooking that are harder, right off, but this has been more of a challenge. It's not going super hard, but it's good to see it going.
Making plenty of mistakes along the way-freaked out more than once by things like yeast not working right off (it started the next day after aerating). The acid on everything freaks you out as well, but that's not a problem because Star San is non-rinse right? I made sure to sanitize my stirring stick-which, by the way, turned out to be harder to find than I realized. I did not want a stainless long-spoon, I wanted a Teflon or plastic restaurant spoon, but have not been able to locate one either here or on amazon.
I'm including some of the things I went through before I got to this forum, so be merciful. I'm sure I'll be racked a bit, but maybe 1st timers can learn from my mistakes. I cook and usually hit some very difficult recipes right out of the gate, but this one was more complex, mostly because the videos on this or explanations seem to vary so much.
I found this recipe as a step-by-step guide for newbies which I am currently using, hopefully it's ok to post it here: http://www.winepress.us/forums/index.php?showtopic=5941&st=0&p=69805&#entry69805. Thank you WineThief.
I'm on day 6 of fermentation and the airlock is still bubbling-too much sugar was used, so don't just put in 13 cans of concentrate and 5lbs of sugar... make sure to start at around 3lbs (put the sugar in the right amount of boiling water first to make a syrup) and check your hydrometer after this before adding more.
My first batch turned into rocket fuel. In this case a drone flew by and sensed the high alcohol content from the massive amount of sugar I used and NASA offered me a good price to buy it, so it's going to the space effort now.
It smelled great to start but then smelled like something I’ve never ran into before in life, so I tossed it. I only had 3 cans of Welch's white in it so I figured it wasn't going to taste good anyway, I also used a half gallon of Dragon Fruit Mango juice.
I did not start out with a hydrometer, and watched a Mixcat Youtube video that they didn't finish on how to do the wine at home. They used a bucket and basically threw it all together. The last video must be in the ether somewhere, I probably missed it, they have lot's of videos. Fortunately it led me to this forum where they have been very helpful. The things I am mentioning are only to give perspective so others that are new can learn from my experiences.
I see where Yoopers and Arpolis (both a great help in this) have their own recipes for whites. I needed to see it all at once, but Arpolis has a non-sugar recipe that I used part of in this batch. Some of us need the "pick up the bucket, put it down over here" military training style approach to this.
IT PAYS TO START WITH THE BARE MINIMUM PIECES. You can make prison brew, but I don't know how good that comes out (using whatever is lying around).
Some use 1-gallon glass bottles (mini-carboys?) for this and put the recipe in 1-gallon format, you just multiply everything except the yeast by 5. Yeast can make from 1 to 6 gallons, and if you don't use it all make sure to seal it up real good to keep it from getting contaminated (there is natural yeast all around us) or moist. Also, always keep it refrigerated or it will die.
Remember-you’ve got to have wine bottles to bottle wine. I keep our old bottles and wash and sanitize them. I figure wine bottles are 750 milliliters so I gathered 24 of them; hopefully I did the math right. You can place them in the wine cardboard boxes until needed, but clean them after use so they aren't more difficult in the future to clean. After washing them out (use a bottle brush $3) I dunked them into the Star San bucket with a kabob rod and left for a few minutes then took them out and inverted them, and let them dry.
You can get corks off of amazon they definitely were cheaper than the brew store in this case. I got 30; you can get up to 100 easily.
I paid $27 for a corking machine-imagine what they used before they had the machines... Amazon as well. Portuguese Double Lever Corker Just look it up if the link doesn't work anymore, there are plenty to choose from.
You can get clear 1/2 inch tubing for when you have to rack the wine (put it into the carboy, the 5 gal bottle-necked glass or blue plastic container)-I found it at Home Depot but a hardware store would have it. I sanitized it well, some will say to use food-grade plastic instead.
Try to use a 5-gallon glass carboy if possible; I had 4 blue plastic food grade water carboys so I used them instead of reinvesting in glass. The plastic are really difficult to seal and the rubber inserts don't seal well in them-this will frustrate you and add to the time to do all of this. I used a special tape for sealing around the blue lid. (Remember to get the rubber grommets from the hydro store that allows an airtight seal to your airlock).
Two main types of airlocks: one curvy looking thing, one that looks like two upside down cups-either one works fine, but I like the upside down cup version. (that's newbiezze) $2.50 ea. IMPORTANT, don't skip it.
Long stir spoon. You have to sanitize this so make sure it's either the metal stainless spoon they sell at the brew store or the plastic/Teflon. There is also a stirring rod that is fantastic, you can find it on amazon as well: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EKKOEOE/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20 or just look up "wine Stirrer" I would definitely get one of these, they hook to your drill and make life so much easier. This also helps when degassing (getting the CO2 out of your must).
Try to get something to measure the temperature; I have a turkey oil fryer that came with a long end that I put into good use.
Tips to know before starting:
Try to keep all temperatures consistent as possible. However, I saw one article that stated you could start the yeast at a higher temperature, then put it around 60 degrees or so to keep the fermenting slower... that would only take a day at the higher temperature to start the yeast, and mine started well at 74 degrees, but didn't start well at 70 degrees (I used two different types of yeast and they both took a day to start, have patience).
By the way-have patience.
http://www.winepress.us/forums/index.php?showtopic=5941&st=0&p=69805&#entry69805
Refer to the recipe listed above for step-by-step guidelines.
Keep the yeast pitching (read the directions on the yeast packet for this) close to the temperature of the must ("must" is what you are making before it becomes wine)
It's fairly cheap to get the chemicals for this (well, they are chemicals). I went to the brew store, which usually handles beer, but many things seem to be similar, they keep the yeasts there in the frig as well.
Lavlin 71b-1122 yeast 1 packet, but buy 2 just in case $2 each
pectic enzyme 1 small packet (1oz)
Yeast Superfood (came in 2oz packet) $3
Potassium Metabisulfite (2oz foil packet) under $3
Sparkolloid 2oz packet-may not be necessary but pick it up anyway and save a trip
Explanations (brief) here for these:
Lavlin 71b-1122 yeast-you can look it up here: http://www.lalvinyeast.com/71B.asp It is good for White Wine fermenting and several people recommended it for this project.
pectic enzyme Here's a quote from lockwood1956:
"Pectolase helps to extract colour and flavour as well as getting rid of pectin hazes. Generally one would add 1 tsp per gallon, but if using it in wines with ingredients high in pectin content or if there was warm or hot water used in processing, then double the dosage"
Yeast Superfood (feeds the yeast)
Potassium Metabisulfite (camdon tablets, or so they tell me) Here is the Wiki explanation for why it's used: "Potassium metabisulfite is a common wine or must additive, in which it forms sulfur dioxide gas (SO2). This both prevents most wild microorganisms from growing, and it acts as a potent antioxidant, protecting both the color and delicate flavors of wine." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_metabisulfite
"Potassium Sorbate" or just called Sorbate for short some times. That is added along with potassium metabisulfate after fermentation ends and the wine is clear so you can safely add sugar to a wine without fermentation picking back up. It is usually good to wait 12 hours after adding the chemicals before adding any sugar or additional fruits/juices. (thank you Arpolis)
and I picked up some Sparkolloid in case it needed it for clearing (literally, making the wine clear) You add this at a very specific time in the step-by-step
Using:
5 gal bucket, I drilled a hole in the top to accommodate a grommet I found at the local hydroponics shop. The plastic top is rated a "2" but I looked at the tops at the brew store and they were rated the same.
Sanitized the daylights out of everything possible using Star San. I picked up the Star San from the local Brew store, amazon has it as well, but by the time you add shipping it was the same and I could pick up several items I needed for the brew locally-they would not come from the same place and I would have been charged shipping for all of it-why not give it locally and support small business? I keep a 5 gal mostly full of the Star San to re-use as I need it in the process. I've seen tests on Youtube that say it's ok to keep it for a while (waiting for my amazon purchased ph meter to verify it keeps it's ph $10 on amazon http://www.amazon.com) or look up "ph meter". I don't think the expensive ones work any different than the $15 one, but it's your money. I think the accuracy is in the ballpark for what's needed here to start at least.
I used something I found on Youtube-someone took an aquarium airpump (I had one for another clean project I did for hydroponics, and I made sure to Star San everything really well) and I have two "stones" at the end-I only had to oxygenate with this twice and the yeast started without having to repitch (phew). Such a relief to see it working. I usually do good on projects for cooking that are harder, right off, but this has been more of a challenge. It's not going super hard, but it's good to see it going.
Making plenty of mistakes along the way-freaked out more than once by things like yeast not working right off (it started the next day after aerating). The acid on everything freaks you out as well, but that's not a problem because Star San is non-rinse right? I made sure to sanitize my stirring stick-which, by the way, turned out to be harder to find than I realized. I did not want a stainless long-spoon, I wanted a Teflon or plastic restaurant spoon, but have not been able to locate one either here or on amazon.
Last edited by a moderator:
)
