Supermarket Juice Wine How To guide and Recipes.

[Ebob01]

Also the "red" grape juice wont make red wine.
It will come out like a pale "rose" colour.
Red wine is made by fermenting black grapes on the skins.
Or an industrial process in red wine kits

You are right they DONT need to be aged.
They can be drunk strait-away.

Waitrose do a red merlot grape juice which I'd like to try fermenting without any water to see what it's like. I suppose it won't be a proper merlot without being fermented on the skins but I'd still be interested to see what it turns out like....

 

[marshbrewer]

Drinking my Apple, Grape and Raspberry WOW tonight. It's a belter.

 

[johncrobinson]

Go ahead and do it Ebob01.
Thats the great thing about WOWs there are no hard rules.

You can use allmost any combination of juices to great effect

Forgot to mention when I first started making them ( 30yrs ago gasp.!! ) I used no water other than for disolving the sugar,
Just juice and nothing but the juice.
You dont want them to taste thin and watery,!!!!!

 

[Brewer_G]

Hello all,

Quite new to brewing, got an Apple Wine (Supermarket Apple Juice) on the go (1 gallon) but have found this thread fascinating. I have read quite a few recipes but wondered if anyone had any personally recommended recipes regarding Cranberry Wine or Blueberry Wine. I gather that I am going to need to use Red Grape Juice (ASDA) to mix in but the Cranberry and Blueberry Juices (also ASDA) are pretty low in sugar - how much sugar should I add for 1 gallon? The amount seems to vary quite a lot (500g to 900g). Is there a general rule to this?

Any advice would be much appreciated.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

I would use one litre of red grape juice and two litres of cranberry or blueberry if the juice content is below 50%.

For the sugar aim for 1100g total for 4.5 litres this is normally 800g of sugar (as you will have noticed from the recipes here) but the cranberry/blueberry juice will be lower in sugar so you will need to make the difference up, if you have any further questions fire away.

 

[Brewer_G]

Great, thanks very much Chippy_Tea

 

[Chippy_Tea]

For the sugar aim for 1100g total for 4.5 litres

I forgot to add 1100g sugar in 4.5 litres will give you roughly 13% ABV. thumb

 

[Brewer_G]

Wow 13% berry wine... sounds wonderful

 

[kelper]

My elderberry and blackcurrant blackberry is 18% ABV!

 

[Chippy_Tea]

My elderberry and blackcurrant is 18% ABV!

 

[kelper]

My next WOW will be a rosé; I could not get my usual Welch's 100% purple from Tesco, so I ordered some Stute 100% red grape juice. It was £2.19 a litre plus £2.59 postage.
(Welch's is £2.49 at Tesco)

 

[Brewer_G]

@kelper did you have to use blackcurrant juice or frozen blackcurrants? how did you get it to 18%?

 

[kelper]

@kelper did you have to use blackcurrant juice or frozen blackcurrants? how did you get it to 18%?

I used frozen blackberries and boiled them with the dried elderberries before staining. I used a super yeast and 1.8kg of dextrose! The yeast was "Coobra Turbo Yeast" It was definitely blackberries, not currants as I posted earlier.

It's good but I think it will improve a lot with time. It's drier than Cockburns and a similar depth of colour. Dried elderberries are great for colour and tannin.

 

[samale]

I am interested in giving wow a try. I have only ever brewed beer. Can I use my beer fermentor or would I be better buying some DJ.
The other question, what kind of bottles do you use. Can I use swing top beer bottles
Thanks

 

[Chippy_Tea]

You could use a five gallon FV but if only making 5 litres as a test I would buy 5 litres of spring water and use the water for making the wine in the bottle it comes in, you can drill a 9mm hole for an airlock or leave the screw cap loose to let the Co2 out, as its not sparkling wine your bottles will be fine.

 

[kelper]

You could also use the bottles the fruit juice comes in. Tesco apple juice comes in a wee plastic flagon. Start saving screw-top wine bottles.

 

[Brewer_G]

So things have been going well so far; got the original tester batch of Apple Wine, and the more ambitious Passionfruit Wine as well as a Cranberry/Raspberry Wine on the go.

Just wondered what recommendations are regarding cleaning after I have decanted into another DJ? I have a DJ brush and campden tablets but what should I be using to actually clean the DJ's? I've seen a couple mentions of very mild bleach and fairy liquid - but counter-points about bleach being an absolute no-go.

 

[kelper]

You can use bleach. But get the dilution right; it can be as much as 80:1. But you must use THIN bleach. Thick bleach has perfume added which can taint your equipment. I'd recommend some baby bottle sterilising tablets such as those sold by Tesco. Any equipment should be rinsed as soon as possible AFTER use so the 'soil' does not dry on.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

One of the best bits of kit i bought it makes cleaning dirty DJ's a 30 second job.

If you have a drill also have a look at this - How to degas wine with a home made degassing wand

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Cleaning...Bottle-Cleaner-for-Drill-CHOICE-/390841720010

 

[Mr_S_Jerusalem]

I just get a bent brush in there and swizzle it around after I’ve dumped the previous batch out. Sterilise it next time I use it and rinse the **** out of it. Bish bash bosh.
Degassing, I shake the **** of the demijohn with my hand over the end and let the gas out a few times when I’m adding stabiliser and finings. Then I shake the **** outta the bottles a couple times and let the gas out before I put the lid on.
You don’t need funny gadgets lol.
Mind you when I made that tomato wine the other day that had a hell of a lot of gas in. Had to shake that a few times lol. And it tasted like pizza when I bottled it lol.