Vintner's Harvest fruit bases

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toularat

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Hi. Has anyone made a 5 gallon batch from a 96 oz. can of Vintners Harvest Fruit Base? I want to make plum. They give you a recipe for 3 gallon or 5 gallon using the 96 oz. can.

My fear is that the 5 gallon recipe will give me a "light sipping wine" - what I want is a table wine. I know I would like the 3 gallon recipe, but I would have to buy smaller carboys plus I'd really like to make more.

So, does anyone have experience with these fruit bases for the 5 gallon recipe?
Will I be happy with my 5 gallon batch?

thanks!
 
I've only ever made the 3g recipe. You won't get a full bodied wine with the 5g, I'd say. Maybe get 2 cans and make 6g.
 
i've only made the 5 gal. batch. made the cranberry and the blackberry. BOTH were very full bodied, and very good! i think (for me anyways) the 3 gal. would be too heavy. .02
 
I just bottled a 5gal. blackberry vintners harvest and I have to say that it is very delicious. It tastes great and mine ended up being 15.2% so that was nice. I took 2 bottles over to ny friends house the other night and they loved it and were mad that I didn't bring more. I have to say that the 5gal. was great but am still interested in the 3gal. only got 5gal. carboys now though so thats what I'll keep doing for now
 
I read on a winemaking site that additional cans do not double the wines consistency but slightly increases the body so two cans in a 5 gallon batch will not be twice as heavy as one can but just slightly heavier and twice as expensive. I'd go for the two cans in a 5 gallon myself, Ken
 
I read on a winemaking site that additional cans do not double the wines consistency but slightly increases the body so two cans in a 5 gallon batch will not be twice as heavy as one can but just slightly heavier and twice as expensive. I'd go for the two cans in a 5 gallon myself, Ken

Me, too. I made a 3 gallon batch of blackberry, and I think it's a bit thin and definitely not full bodied. I would hate to have made a 5 gallon batch out of that! Two cans in 5 gallons seems about right to me.
 
I thought I would ressurect this thread as I am going to be trying out a 5 gal batch using this base (blackberry). To those of you who have used it what yeast strains did you use? Try more than one batch? Use any additional sugars? Also did you just ferment, age, and bottle, or did you use any acid blends or anything like that?

I was thinking I would just go with 2 cans of the base, top water to 5 gals and pitch some Cotes des Blanc, unless any of you have found a tried and true method. Thanks.
 
I really liked the way that Lalvin's KIV - 1116 or, some numbers, worked. It finished really smooth after about 5 months and really left a lot of the fruit flavors. I've never tried the Cotes des Blancs just because people said it leaves like a slickness on your tongue, I don't know if it does but that just doesnt sound good to me. I think my OG was like 1.105-1.115. It finished at like 15.7% and was really good.
 
Vitner's has the recipe for both 3 gallon or 5 gallon right on the can. that is what I would use.

Let us know what you do and how it turns out.
 
Bump....

I'm looking into using this stuff....

toularat how did yours turn out? Can you give me the details here? from soup to nuts??? I'm reading most of these cans you need to use a mesh bag for the fruit pieces.
 
Well, I went with the one can (plum) for 5 gallons. I was trusting the advice of the local brew store. It is recently bottled. I brought a sample to the brew store and they thought I would be happy with it. I followed the recipe on the can. It didn't seem terribly thin - would coat a glass when you turned it, if you know what I mean. It had some body to it and it tasted good for young wine. I won't be trying it for quite a while.

I think either recipe (3 or 5 gallon) will be good. I used whatever yeast was recommended on the can.
 
Hey, just to jump on this bandwagon... (and to keep SWMBO happy)

I have in my posession a 96oz can of the Vint. Cherry fruit base. After talking to a guy who uses wild fruit that he finds to make wine, I came to the conclusion that I should go with the 3 gallon recipe off of the label. Bought a 3 gallon better bottle today.

He recommended using some Irish Moss to help clarify the wine. If anyone has any suggestions (or toularat, how did it turn out?!?!) I'd love to hear it. Mostly a beer guy that's interested in doing the wine gig.

--Toularat, you have tomato in secondary??? Tomato wine?
 
Well, I went with the one can (plum) for 5 gallons. I was trusting the advice of the local brew store. It is recently bottled. I brought a sample to the brew store and they thought I would be happy with it. I followed the recipe on the can. It didn't seem terribly thin - would coat a glass when you turned it, if you know what I mean. It had some body to it and it tasted good for young wine. I won't be trying it for quite a while.

I think either recipe (3 or 5 gallon) will be good. I used whatever yeast was recommended on the can.

The plum is what I'm going to use.
 
He recommended using some Irish Moss to help clarify the wine.

I have not seen Irish moss recommended for clearing wines before. There are other items that can do so, such as sparkalloid that appear to work well as clarifying agents.

At the end of the day if you rack every few months, 2-3 times or so in total, then your wine should be very clear. After that 3rd rack let it sit until crystal clear. Time will clear you wine for you for sure.
 
Necro-thread!!!!!

Am drinking my third batch of handmade grape wine and, feeling full of myself and abilities, picked up on a whim a can of the peach fruit wine base. I'm thinking I'll turn it into a dessert wine, perhaps, not thick and sweet but just a little fruity.

Any further suggestions on the best yeast to use for this?
 
I just started a black currant 1 can 3 gal batch yesterday. I used 71b-1122. Not sure how that would work with your peach. Post what ever you decide and how it turns out. I have a couple empty 3 gal carboys and was going to start making the different fruits they have available.
 
Necro-thread!!!!!

Am drinking my third batch of handmade grape wine and, feeling full of myself and abilities, picked up on a whim a can of the peach fruit wine base. I'm thinking I'll turn it into a dessert wine, perhaps, not thick and sweet but just a little fruity.

Any further suggestions on the best yeast to use for this?

What did you decide to use? I've been into 71B lately, and think that would work great for peach. I think D47 is probably best for aromatics, though.
 
Hello brewers, I'm so glad I found this thread, it seems to be the best one on the site for this Vintner's products. I'd like to backsweeten and keg some ciders with this product. If anyone has any experience using this for ciders please share. Thanks!
 
I must be wine impaired because I just tried this stuff and i didn't get good results at all.

I used the blueberry base, and attempted to use it in a scaled up version of a recipe I had made with great success using juice:

1 gal knudson blueberry juice.
1 tsp. yeast nutrient
1/2 cup brown sugar
Lalvin K1116 (pitched in carboy)
Fermented beginning 12/12/2013
Racked to Secondary 12/29/2013
Bottled 1/7/2014 with 1 tbsp sugar per bottle, 1 cup juice, 1/3tsp of k sorbate

However I just racked the larger batch made with the base, and it is amazingly weak. The wine itself is an odd pale pink, and the taste is kind of like one of those fruit-flavored waters. I'm seriously considering just pitching it.

Comparing my recipe to the stock one that appears on the can, theirs calls for way more sugar and the addition of tannins and acid- in other words, you're using additives to compensate for chemicals that real juice would provide for you. Having priced it out, making the wine their way is no cheaper than just buying the juice. So I'm not a fan, and will probably not use the base again.
 
What did you decide to use? I've been into 71B lately, and think that would work great for peach. I think D47 is probably best for aromatics, though.

I used the 71B, let it ferment a couple of months, and racked it this morning. I'm going to let it sit for a little bit more before the degassing/fining/stabilizing.

So far its fine - a slight sulfur smell is still present, but the wine itself is clean tasting, not much peach flavor but I didn't expect there would be.

Am mulling over how I want to backsweeten this, as I intend it to be a dessert wine. Won't be using peach extract, but think some peach juice maybe combined with a simple syrup.
 
My wife love Perry. I wanted to make some actual Perry and not Apple Cider with pear flavor. I used the 96oz can and made 3 gallons. To up the flavor, I made a gallon of pear cider with actual pears. When I put it all together and racked into the keg it was completely devoid of pear flavor. I ended up buying some 'essence of pear' to add for flavor. Pears are hard that way, but I would have hated to see what the 5g batch would have been like. I would say try the 3g first, then go form there. You can always thin it out later.
 
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