Well, I am on my 4th wine making. I did skeeterpee, red grape concentrate, and some peach brandy that tasted like yuck. Also did Aphelwein that was terrible. I am about to believe that I am cursed on making wine. I have had a white grape concentrate going for 2.5 months. I have read where u can use a vacume pump to deggass. I said heck yea to that!!!!! I have a harbor freight one that I bought 2 years ago. I hooked it all up and sure nough it was bubbling like crazy!!!!!! After 10 minutes, it was slowing down and I turned the pump off and went to my shop to retrieve a beer. When I got back there was something dripping into the wine. DAMN oil from the pump. CUSS CUSS CUSS. It is floating on top of the wine. Is it ruint or can I siphon it off the bottom and be ok? Like I said, I believe that I am CURSED!!!
If it wernt for bad luck I'd have no luck at all
- Thread starter Tinbeers
- Start date
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First, love the heehaw reference. You must be an old one.
Stick with one thing, get it right. This world was built by people who laughed at failure, learned from their "bad luck", questioned their process and repeated till they got it right.
I expect to hear a success story soon.
Stick with one thing, get it right. This world was built by people who laughed at failure, learned from their "bad luck", questioned their process and repeated till they got it right.
I expect to hear a success story soon.
madscientist451
Well-Known Member
Just siphon most of it out from under the oil, you'll be fine.
I've done all kinds of experimental wines with different ingredients and for my taste, any added sugar produces an undrinkable wine.
So start with some decent ingredients. Do you have a LHBS that brings in wine grapes/juice from the West Coast? A $60 bucket of wine grape juice comes out to about $3 a bottle. With white wine its so simple: Re-hydrate your yeast, put a funnel in a sanitized carboy, dump in half of the wine grape juice, add the yeast dump in the rest and put an airlock/stopper in the carboy. When its done fermenting, rack to another carboy and keep in a cool place for 4-6 months. It won't last long and you'll wish you'd made more. Cost is about $3 a 750 ML bottle. Red wine is a little more complicated but its not really difficult.
Most supermarkets carry an apple juice called "simply apple":
http://www.simplyorangejuice.com/product/apple
If your local stores have it, just keep an eye out for when it goes on sale. Around here it goes on sale about every 4-5 weeks.
Get 2 containers of it and ferment in a 1 gallon jug. Use Brewer's best cider house select yeast.
http://www.homebrewing.org/Cider-House-Select-Cider-Yeast-Sachet_p_5043.html
Just two ingredients: Juice and yeast.
Note you can re-pitch the yeast cake into the next batch of cider with no issues.
If you have a basement, wait till the fall and ferment down there in the low 60's.
When its done, rack it to some wine bottles and let it sit for a month or two or drink it right away depending on your taste. Its not wine strength, but you can make a decent cider beverage for less than $2 a 750 ML bottle.
Once you make that, you can branch out into fruit wines and mead. There's lots of mead, wine and cider making podcasts available to help you.
I've done all kinds of experimental wines with different ingredients and for my taste, any added sugar produces an undrinkable wine.
So start with some decent ingredients. Do you have a LHBS that brings in wine grapes/juice from the West Coast? A $60 bucket of wine grape juice comes out to about $3 a bottle. With white wine its so simple: Re-hydrate your yeast, put a funnel in a sanitized carboy, dump in half of the wine grape juice, add the yeast dump in the rest and put an airlock/stopper in the carboy. When its done fermenting, rack to another carboy and keep in a cool place for 4-6 months. It won't last long and you'll wish you'd made more. Cost is about $3 a 750 ML bottle. Red wine is a little more complicated but its not really difficult.
Most supermarkets carry an apple juice called "simply apple":
http://www.simplyorangejuice.com/product/apple
If your local stores have it, just keep an eye out for when it goes on sale. Around here it goes on sale about every 4-5 weeks.
Get 2 containers of it and ferment in a 1 gallon jug. Use Brewer's best cider house select yeast.
http://www.homebrewing.org/Cider-House-Select-Cider-Yeast-Sachet_p_5043.html
Just two ingredients: Juice and yeast.
Note you can re-pitch the yeast cake into the next batch of cider with no issues.
If you have a basement, wait till the fall and ferment down there in the low 60's.
When its done, rack it to some wine bottles and let it sit for a month or two or drink it right away depending on your taste. Its not wine strength, but you can make a decent cider beverage for less than $2 a 750 ML bottle.
Once you make that, you can branch out into fruit wines and mead. There's lots of mead, wine and cider making podcasts available to help you.
bernardsmith
Well-Known Member
Hi Tinbeers, If you perhaps listed your ingredients (don't include the oil from the vacuum pump) and recipe and you included your protocol or technique we might be able to see why your wines don't taste so good.
I am sure that your supermarket sells all kinds of fruit juices from pomegranate to cherry that have no added sugar and that have enough natural sugars from the fruit to ferment to about 6 or 7% ABV . If you practice your technique with a gallon of those juices I think that you will find that the curse will be lifted...
I am sure that your supermarket sells all kinds of fruit juices from pomegranate to cherry that have no added sugar and that have enough natural sugars from the fruit to ferment to about 6 or 7% ABV . If you practice your technique with a gallon of those juices I think that you will find that the curse will be lifted...
I do not know how this batch will turn out. I do not know what happened to the aphelwein. The peach brandy happened years ago. My recipe for the wine is from a 75 year old man. I wonder if he is holding information from me? I accused him of it!! His wine is dang good.
12 cans off welsh 100% concentrate grape juice.
10-lb sugar 2 pk. off wine yeast.
spring or well water no city water.
dissolve sugar in warm water. add to juice.
dissolve yeast in 1/2 glass of warm water.
add to wine.do not fill jug full.
put airlock in jug let set about 2 weeks.
rack it. fill jug let set 3-4 weeks.
12 cans off welsh 100% concentrate grape juice.
10-lb sugar 2 pk. off wine yeast.
spring or well water no city water.
dissolve sugar in warm water. add to juice.
dissolve yeast in 1/2 glass of warm water.
add to wine.do not fill jug full.
put airlock in jug let set about 2 weeks.
rack it. fill jug let set 3-4 weeks.
bernardsmith
Well-Known Member
Do you have (did you have) an hydrometer? Do you know what the starting gravity of the wine was? What was the gravity when you bottled the wine? I have never used Welch's concentrates so I have no idea how much water you need to dilute them with... BUT if the wine finished bone dry (no residual sugar) the first thing I would think about if you did not like how it turned out would be whether the wine needed some back sweetening to offset the acidity and alcohol. The second thing I would think about would be if the wine tasted "flabby" whether there was in fact enough acidity in the wine to give it the kick it needs. There could be other problems - especially if the finishing gravity was higher than 1.000.
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Lefou
Danged rascally furt
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My first experiments started with cider and wine.
They were some godawful sweet fusel bombs, but after a couple tries we got something drinkable. Being one of those less patient brewers who didn't want to wait for properly aged wine, I switched to ale.
If you're getting juice or concentrate from the store make sure it doesn't have sorbate preservative as an ingredient. Sorbate will interfere with your yeast's activity. If not using bottled water, boil it first and add yeast nutrient for good measure.
They were some godawful sweet fusel bombs, but after a couple tries we got something drinkable. Being one of those less patient brewers who didn't want to wait for properly aged wine, I switched to ale.
If you're getting juice or concentrate from the store make sure it doesn't have sorbate preservative as an ingredient. Sorbate will interfere with your yeast's activity. If not using bottled water, boil it first and add yeast nutrient for good measure.
I do have a hydrometer. The grape concentrate wine was not all that bad. I had it written down and took several readings till it was finished. Cant find it anywhere. Don't remember what they were.... maybe I did not let it age enough. The skeeterpee and aphelwein were bad. I have my oiley wine to siphon off and maybe it will turn out ok this time. We picked 15pounds of scuppernong and it is fermenting. I have not given up yet.
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