General Concentrate Wine

[jpm5171988]

Made this tonight. For a 6 gal batch I used 10 cans of old orchards apple-strawberry-kiwi concentrate and 2 cans of strawberry pie filling. That with 11.5 lbs of sugar gave me an OG of 1.105. Used white labs sweet mead/wine yeast. Will keep everyone posted on how it goes. Thanks for the recipe, I'm quite optimistic about this.

 

[brazedowl]

Oh I do a killer version of this with blueberry pie filling, cherry pie filling, blackberry pie filling, grape concentrate and a gallon of cran juice.

Sounds like you're off to a good start there.

 

[evancold]

I did this recipie and fermentation stopped at 1.022. I am new to wine making, does anyone know what my next steps here should be? Any help is appreciated.

 

[brazedowl]

I did this recipie and fermentation stopped at 1.022. I am new to wine making, does anyone know what my next steps here should be? Any help is appreciated.

Where did it start? It does stop on the sweet side. If your OG was up near 1.11 or so you'll be pushing 12% by this point and depending on the strain, your yeast may have petered out.

 

[evancold]

Where did it start? It does stop on the sweet side. If your OG was up near 1.11 or so you'll be pushing 12% by this point and depending on the strain, your yeast may have petered out.

It started at 1.120 so it's at 12.873% right now. So am I stuck with a very sweet wine now? Thank you for your reply.

also I used Lalvin EC-1118

 

[brazedowl]

12.873% eh? Five significant figures is pretty impressive with a home hydrometer. I think my high school chemistry teacher is turning over in his grave.

That yeast can go as high as 18% (or more) so you might be able to get it going again with some nutrient and energizer with a bit of a stir to get the old yeast on the bottom moving again. Or if you wanted you could add the nutrient/energizer to the wine and make a good foamy, frothy starter with the wine and some fresh yeast and pitch it in.

I am by no means the a model of sanitation when I do wine. So I'd say just use a turkey baster to get about a cup or two or wine out of your primary. Add a quarter teaspoon of energizer and nutrient. Add a packet of yeast, put in a smallish plastic container or jar and shake like crazy. The yeast will use up the oxygen you add at this point so don't worry about it messing up the wine. Let it sit in a warm place until the yeast has really frothed up. Could be as short as 30 min or as long as a couple hours. My method for mixing in the wine would be to suck it up in the turkey baster, and inject it into the wine without bubbling. If you keep it below the surface of the wine you can just keep squeezing and unsqueezing the bulb, without bubbling, and you'll mix and agitate the wine & yeast pretty well without adding a significant amount of oxygen.

or if you're happy with a sweet ~12%-13% wine let it be.

 

[evancold]

lol just gave the number from my abv calculator from my hyrdrometer readings for the abv I am going to take your advice and see if I can get it going again. Thank you for your advice, I appreciate it very much.

 

[mattsilf]

I was at 1.060 last week. Just took a sample and that was 1.051. Still slowly bubbling. Its probably in the low 60's where this is brewing. You think thats just making for a slow ferment? Yesterday was the two week mark.

 

[mattsilf]

I just pulled some wine out, added some nutrient and energizer, shook it up good and put it back in the carboy. It took off like a rocket. Burp every second now and real frothy on top!

 

[brazedowl]

I just pulled some wine out, added some nutrient and energizer, shook it up good and put it back in the carboy. It took off like a rocket. Burp every second now and real frothy on top!

Keep an eye on it. A lot of that was likely dissolved CO2 being degassed when you shook it juts like a shook soda.

 

[Meadrol]

Oh I do a killer version of this with blueberry pie filling, cherry pie filling, blackberry pie filling, grape concentrate and a gallon of cran juice.

Sounds like you're off to a good start there.

Ok, so how do you modify the recipe to account for the fillings? Sounds great!

 

[JonB5150]

Got the wine raked from primary to secondary, a carboy. S.G. Is down to 1.00. I added Campden tabs to kill fermentation and put it in a dark room. Today I checked it and fermentation has stopped and he wine is beginning to clear!!

 

[JonB5150]

I also waited 3 weeks before racking. Just in case anyone is wondering. Happy brewing!

 

[brazedowl]

Ok, so how do you modify the recipe to account for the fillings? Sounds great!

I swap out one can of concentrate for one can of pie filling. And then at some point I scoop out the floating fruit, freeze it, and make pie with it later to rave reviews.

 

[mattsilf]

3 days later and its still at 1.051. I dont have a one gallon jug at the moment to do the dilution trick without wasting wine. I pitched a pack of D47 and dumped it in. Im going to add some nutrient before bed also. Seems that the activity picked back up now. I hope this works or I will have 5 gallons of dessert wine.

 

[brazedowl]

1.051 is beyond just dessert wine. Hope it catches on for you!

 

[mattsilf]

Ill get another hydrometer reading and if it isnt better, ill have to get a jug to dilute the batch a little

 

[mattsilf]

Just tested again. 1.048. I sill have alot of tiny bubbles rising and airlock burping. Could it be that its just fermenting that slow?? I dont know what else to do. I guess ill have to siphon some off.

 

[mattsilf]

I made a small one gallon batch of this on 4/15. I used 2 cans of concentrate and 2.5 cups of sugar, along with nutrient and energizer. I used Montrachet. Today is 4/20 and its at 1.00. Tastes good and dry but im going to stabilize and backsweeten with a little more concentrate.

 

[brazedowl]

sounds good. I'm drinkin' some straight-grape concentrate wine from this recipe right now.

 

[lpsumo]

I can't get this to go...

I made 1 gallon, used 1 can mango and 1 can cranberry. KV-1116

Started it a month ago, OG was 1095. Got a few bubbles but not much

Checked it the other day, gravity was about the same (1090 maybe?) so I pulled off 500ml of it and added 500ml water. Gave it 2 more days and nothing happened. Poured off another 500ml and topped it up with water.

2 days later, still no action.

Any thoughts on this?

 

[mattsilf]

How much sugar did you use? 2 pounds?

 

[lpsumo]

yes, 2 pounds sugar, and 1/2t nutrients

 

[mattsilf]

Sometimes people have problems with that much sugar. I was one of them. I ended up pitching more yeast with nutrient and energizer to get mine going again. Its still going VERY slow....i made a small batch using this recipe but used half the sugar(1 lb per gallon) and it was down to 1.00 in less than a week.

 

[mattsilf]

I always use Montrachet btw.

 

[lpsumo]

Thanks for the tip, I'll give it another day and then maybe add some new yeast. I've got an EC-1118 starter going right now for a skeeter pee that never took off so maybe I'll just use some of that.

 

[mattsilf]

Just fyi, when i added more yeast and energizer/nutrient, it bubbled something fierce and almost came out the top of the carboy lol

 

[brazedowl]

Just fyi, when i added more yeast and energizer/nutrient, it bubbled something fierce and almost came out the top of the carboy lol

Haha the crystals just provided nucliation points for the dissolved gas to form bubbles most likely.

 

[mattsilf]

It looked like a science project volcano! Haha

 

[jpm5171988]

Status update: fermentation went well (used white labs sweet mead yeast) for the first week or so. SG was 1.105 and came down to 1.030 before getting stuck. I find this a little odd because the yeast I used can handle up to 15% abv, and I'm currently around 10%. Fermentation temps where kept in the optimum range throughout the entire process. Any ideas as to why this happened? In an attempt to get things moving again I removed some of the wine, added yeast nutrient and energizer and gently mixed it back in. This did absolutely nothing. After waiting almost a week, gravity had dropped only 2 points. Any ways, I just bought some more yeast and made a starter...just waiting for things to take off before I repitch. I will keep you guys updated.