Hello fellow home brewers. I have been working on some wine for 2 months now. At the end of month 1 I tasted it and it was very weak, but not sweet at all, like most the sugar had been eaten up, but there wasn't much in there to begin with. So I racked, added a few more cups and let it sit another month. Well I just finished checking the OG, I noticed bubbles every 50-60 seconds so I knew it still had a little bit to go, and racked and tasted it once again. Both times now it has tasted gross. Not like vinegar or sulfur gross just I chose a bad juice to ferment. And it's still pretty weak. It actually almost felt a little fizzy. This was my first wine but ironically I've already finished and bottled others. I've put 2 months into it though so I don't wanna throw it out. I figured I'd just add some concentrate from juices that would go good with this one and backsweeten with those. (Again, most of the sugar was eaten). Any ideas you guys might suggest to save this? I've already determined it's screwed, this will be for my consumption only, and I'm willing to put up with a few gallons of OK wine.
What to do with a nasty brew
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PatrickSweetman
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If you live in a country where it is legal to distil, then you can distil it and use the alcohol to make a fortified wine or fruit schnapps.
Otherwise, just bottle it up in something like half gallon bottles, without much of an air gap, and let it mature for as long as it takes. You never know, it might come right, but even if it doesn't there may probably be occasions when a flagon of crappy wine will come in handy.
Otherwise, just bottle it up in something like half gallon bottles, without much of an air gap, and let it mature for as long as it takes. You never know, it might come right, but even if it doesn't there may probably be occasions when a flagon of crappy wine will come in handy.
Some more ideas for anyone that has the same problem:
Use it to cook with
Use it for flammability
Divide it into bottles or 1 gal jugs and shoot them (for any gun owners out there)
Turn into jelly
Turn into vinegar
Fruit fly trap
For some of these I googled "wine uses". There are a lot more options but these were some favorites of mine. I like to use what I have and be resourceful.
Use it to cook with
Use it for flammability
Divide it into bottles or 1 gal jugs and shoot them (for any gun owners out there)
Turn into jelly
Turn into vinegar
Fruit fly trap
For some of these I googled "wine uses". There are a lot more options but these were some favorites of mine. I like to use what I have and be resourceful.
bernardsmith
Well-Known Member
I guess I really don't understand the OP. You say that you are making wine and dammit! the yeast you added ate up all the sugar. That is what yeast does with fermentable sugars. Fruit ain't grain and you are not "brewing" wine you are fermenting fruit (or fruit juice). You might want to reveal your recipe and your method and we can then advise you what results we would expect from your process, but from what you write it sounds like you have asked the yeast to ferment the sugar you gave it and - no surprise - it did.
That said, the ONLY way that you can tell that wine has finished fermenting is by measuring the gravity. Counting the number of times that the airlock "burps" tells a wine maker not a thing. If you measured the specific gravity (not just the starting gravity) at each critical stage in your process and you can provide this WITH the recipe then perhaps some one can offer some useful advice to help you salvage this batch of wine or to prevent you from making the same or similar mistakes the next time you pitch yeast onto fruit juice... (for example, if you diluted fruit juice you may want to consider why. Fruit ain't grain and there is enough juice in fruit without you diluting the flavor by adding water).
That said, the ONLY way that you can tell that wine has finished fermenting is by measuring the gravity. Counting the number of times that the airlock "burps" tells a wine maker not a thing. If you measured the specific gravity (not just the starting gravity) at each critical stage in your process and you can provide this WITH the recipe then perhaps some one can offer some useful advice to help you salvage this batch of wine or to prevent you from making the same or similar mistakes the next time you pitch yeast onto fruit juice... (for example, if you diluted fruit juice you may want to consider why. Fruit ain't grain and there is enough juice in fruit without you diluting the flavor by adding water).
bernardsmith
Well-Known Member
I guess I really don't understand the OP. You say that you are making wine and dammit! the yeast you added ate up all the sugar. That is what yeast does with fermentable sugars. Fruit ain't grain and you are not "brewing" wine you are fermenting fruit (or fruit juice). You might want to reveal your recipe and your method and we can then advise you what results we would expect from your process, but from what you write it sounds like you have asked the yeast to ferment the sugar you gave it and - no surprise - it did.
That said, the ONLY way that you can tell that wine has finished fermenting is by measuring the gravity. Counting the number of times that the airlock "burps" tells a wine maker not a thing. If you measured the specific gravity (not just the starting gravity) at each critical stage in your process and you can provide this WITH the recipe then perhaps some one can offer some useful advice to help you salvage this batch of wine or to prevent you from making the same or similar mistakes the next time you pitch yeast onto fruit juice... (for example, if you diluted fruit juice you may want to consider why. Fruit ain't grain and there is enough juice in fruit without you diluting the flavor by adding water).
That said, the ONLY way that you can tell that wine has finished fermenting is by measuring the gravity. Counting the number of times that the airlock "burps" tells a wine maker not a thing. If you measured the specific gravity (not just the starting gravity) at each critical stage in your process and you can provide this WITH the recipe then perhaps some one can offer some useful advice to help you salvage this batch of wine or to prevent you from making the same or similar mistakes the next time you pitch yeast onto fruit juice... (for example, if you diluted fruit juice you may want to consider why. Fruit ain't grain and there is enough juice in fruit without you diluting the flavor by adding water).
I would have posted the recipe had i written it down. But I just followed some guy on YouTube's recipe. One mistake I made was dissolving the sugar in too much water. But also the fact that it just wasn't a good juice to ferment with. The wine did it's thing and it just didn't turn out the way I wanted. I took readings at each step except for the first. I realize that relying on the airlock to tell you if it's fermenting or not is not a good way to do it, which is why I'll continue to take readings one week apart until they remain constant.
Aside from dissolving the sugar in too much water and not taking a first reading, this was made right. The problem is that I chose a cheap juice that just didn't ferment out to be very tasty. no one would want to drink it unless it was some high school kid that really wanted to get drunk.
Hope that made this a little less confusing
Aside from dissolving the sugar in too much water and not taking a first reading, this was made right. The problem is that I chose a cheap juice that just didn't ferment out to be very tasty. no one would want to drink it unless it was some high school kid that really wanted to get drunk.
Hope that made this a little less confusing
First of all, it would serve you well to read a book on beer or winemaking so that you can at least become familiar with how yeast operates.
Secondly, wine is not "brew" because it's not cooked.
Thirdly, if you've got a bad wine then you can either cook with it, give it to your mother-in-law, or put it somewhere and just forget about it for a long time.
Secondly, wine is not "brew" because it's not cooked.
Thirdly, if you've got a bad wine then you can either cook with it, give it to your mother-in-law, or put it somewhere and just forget about it for a long time.
gratus fermentatio
Well-Known Member
Your wine is 2 months old & tastes bad? Of course it tastes bad, it's only 2 months old! You may or may not have a bad wine, it depends on many things; but without knowing the recipe/process, we really can't help much. What type of fruit/juice? How much? How much water? How much sugar? What yeast strain? We'd like to help, but you gotta give us something to work with.
Regards, GF.
Regards, GF.
bernardsmith
Well-Known Member
Yeah, Don't feel that everyone here is coming down on you. I don't think anyone is. You are telling us that you have a problem but you are not in fact giving us enough information to perhaps find a real solution to your problem. It may be relatively easy to fix - but we would need to know much more about what you fermented , how much sugar you added, how much water, what processes you used from preparing the juice to tasting the juice to know that it is unpleasant. The solution MAY be as simple as adding a concentrated version of the juice you used to increase the flavor (it will increase the sugar too) but it is also possible that your wine cannot be salvaged - although in my (albeit limited) experience total disasters are almost as rare as hen's teeth.
