First batch of wine from fresh juice, a couple questions...

[MacBruver]

File me under the "yet another homebrewer trying out winemaking" category. I got an email forward about a local winery selling red zin juice for $5 a gallon and I figured- that's a price I can handle!

I picked up 10 gallons of juice, which according to the specs they told me was at 23 brix, 3.4pH. I got it all home and ran some tests and got some really wacky numbers- only 18.5 brix, and about 0.40% TA. Then I realized- the juice is already fermenting. Duh.

I racked it onto some crushed campden tablets and left it til the next day, expecting the campden to have killed off all the wild yeast... no such luck. It was all going crazy. After talking to the people at the winery again, they said the wild yeast from their zin grapes will produce quality wine, so I'm not so worried about that.

All that out of the way though, a couple of questions:

- Since the color from red wine comes from the skins- how is this wine going to differ from one that was fermented with all the skins and pulp in there?

- I picked up all this stuff on saturday, so it's been fermenting for 3 days. I haven't added any yeast nutrient, but I'm reading that I probably should have.. should I throw it in there now?

I have a bunch more questions but that's a good start.

 

[MacBruver]

ONE view? Sheesh...

 

[ScottConklin]

Yeah don't worry about the yeast nutrient, folks have made wine for thousands of years without any of that fancy ****....wild yeast is the best! Its peculiar, not like the predictable storebought varieties, but it is still natural.

 

[Justibone]

I'll have to keep that in mind if I ever buy juice.

Were they selling it that cheap b/c it was already fermenting with the wild yeast?

Crazy crazy.