Any luck with 100% fruit juice wine?

[gratus fermentatio]

Most grape juice, especially white grape juice, has added sulfites, check the label. By adding more sulfites, you may have created an environment the yeast simply couldn't take hold & grow/reproduce. Sulfites will dissipate over time, but you can speed up the process by aerating the must. Also, what strain of yeast? Was it pitched dry or rehydrated? Any idea what the PH is? Try stirring the hell out of it for a few minutes, often that's all it takes & a day or 2 later the yeast are fermenting away.
Regards, GF.

 

[Tactical-Brewer]

An update on this,

The 2 gallon of white grape juice is fermenting along nicely. Just took a while for it to start.

The 5 gallons of cranberry/dark cherry... well, that's another story. I rehydrated some wine yeast, poured it in and stirred it up a couple days ago. No noticeable signs of fermentation so I pulled the bung to smell it... bad idea... It was putrid. I guess it's rotten.

 

[homebruguru]

just started a 5 gallon batch yesterday from welchs juice in the bottles, basically the same price as the frozen cans. yeast nutrient is the key to starting the ferment with these, 1 tsp per gallon of juice and this thing is blooping like crazy through the airlock 24 hrs later.

 

[Tactical-Brewer]

Nice! She pitched the 5 gallon batch. It never did end up doing anything and smelled putrid. Who knows, maybe not enough nutrient and too much acid blend?

 

[z-bob]

Fruit juice you buy for drinking is usually *very* acid, to balance all the sugar. I don't know why beginner wine recipes call for acid blend; if anything you need to add a little bit of chalk.

It does need yeast nutrient.

 

[Tactical-Brewer]

Gotchya. Thank you all for your help. I'll tell her to give it another try but without the acid blend for sure

 

[homebruguru]

the first batch I made with straight juice and sugar didn't ferment well. I did not use yeast nutrient. this 5 gallon batch I did use the yeast nutrient and its doing fantastic. maybe the nutrient helps to over ride the preservatives like the sulfites. either way it did help tremendously also I didn't add any acid blend but did add a little lemon juice

 

[Tactical-Brewer]

Sweet! I'll let her know for sure. Maybe she can try ur again tomorrow.

 

[quiltingkim]

My Juice/wine fermented for three days then stopped. I used champagne yeast since I wanted a dryer wine. I also only added 1/2 amount of sugar called for. Was that my problem, not enough food for the yeast?

 

[homebruguru]

yeast eats sugar to make alcohol, maybe a bad packet (old) of yeast. if it hasn't completely stopped give it a bit to multiply it may take off again. also was it %100 juice no sugar added? try some yeast nutrient and add another packet of yeast if it doesn't take off again (it wont hurt it). I use 1 tsp of nutrient to 1 gallon of juice to kinda over ride the preservatives. you should add the required amount of sugar though, it should be dry even with all the sugar added. to make it sweeter youd have to backsweeten. the champagne yeast may be starving for sugar.

 

[z-bob]

My Juice/wine fermented for three days then stopped. I used champagne yeast since I wanted a dryer wine. I also only added 1/2 amount of sugar called for. Was that my problem, not enough food for the yeast?

It might be finished with the visible part of the fermentation. Give it a full week; 2 weeks at the longest, then rack it to another carboy to get it off the sediment (and don't forget to taste a sample)

 

[homebruguru]

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

 

[Tactical-Brewer]

Very awesome!

 

[user 211287]

White grape juice concentrate is a PITA to find around here too. Actually any white grape juice without sorbate.

I just used this black mullberry for a test. Its rather expensive but its 100% pressed juice. Not from concentrate. My father wanted a STRONG mullberry wine so i used EC1118. Its bubbling away like mad ATM.

http://smartjuice.us/our-juices/

This juice turned out insanely good. Very very good black mulberry flavor remains and sweet. I need to check my notes on amount of sugar added. It is still nicely sweet.