Supermarket Juice Wine How To guide and Recipes.

[Chippy_Tea]

I think 1 teaspoon = 5g and the youngs yeast i use says to put 1 heaped teaspoon in the DJ.

The orange WOW always looks like a lava lamp most red type juice like pomegranate, raspberry are fairly steady as is apple, i don't make orange based WOW any more as we prefer the red type juice wines.

You need to get a hydrometer if you don't you will not know if it has finished or is stuck, i think they are around £3 at Wilko, well worth the money.

 

[BruinTuns]

1 tsp = 5g? Oh dear.. (again).
I got the '1 tsp weighs 3g' from some conversion website.
I only started my first brew five days ago and already lost count of my mistakes. Still, learning all the time. And I've finally found a source of wgj.
I'd heard Waitrose sell it but I could never find it find it there because I've always looked in the chilled departments where most of the other juices are. But, surprisingly, they actually keep it on the aisle shelves with the 'long life' cartons. So I bought two.
I have a hydrometer and it seems accurate when tested in water so when all signs of activity have ceased I'll take readings on three consecutive days. If no change I'll reckon it's done.
I won't toss these first two brews, They're in 5l plastic Tesco water bottles which don't take up much space so I'll let them run their course and see what happens.
Tomorrow I'll start two more: WGJ and 2 l Asda cherry juice drink, (doubling up as you suggest) and WGJ + pure (Everyday Value) apple juice, 1l of each with a full 5g of wine yeast.
Thanks again Chippy. I'll get there eventually...

 

[Chippy_Tea]

It won't be the lack of yeast that's causing the problem if there is one as we only use 3 teaspoons in a five gallon FV, i think it'll be fine.

Could it be that your balloon is not working properly?

I was wondering the same, a combination of plastic water bottles and balloons is probably not the best combination.

 

[BruinTuns]

No, not exactly professional but there are quite a few blogs around where people have made surprisingly successful wines with this exact set up (where I got the idea from).
I just wanted to get a couple on, hopefully in time for Christmas so I used what I had.
As and when I have the funds I'll invest in proper equipment but for now it will be interesting to see how these first two pan out.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

I have just re-read my last post and apologise as i didn't mean it to sound as arsy as it does.

I have made many gallons of wine in plastic 5 litre water bottles with a 28mm hole drilled in the top for a standard bung and airlock, i have never used a balloon and was wondering if that could be a bit hit and miss as an indication of fermentation, having searched i can see that they would do the job perfectly.

wine making fermentation in bottle use balloon (w/pinhole) as airlock

The song is spot on :lol:

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIDFfBIBwqA[/ame]

 

[BruinTuns]

Chippy, I appreciate you taking the time. Love the YouTube clip, says it all really!
One thing I've been wondering is whether a sparkling wine could be made by simply not de-gassing? Or just adding priming suagar? I'm happy to give it a go myself but not sure the best method.
Someone asked a similar question around post 305 but I haven't seen any follow up. Your thoughts?

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Chippy, I appreciate you taking the time. Love the YouTube clip, says it all really!
One thing I've been wondering is whether a sparkling wine could be made by simply not de-gassing? Or just adding priming suagar? I'm happy to give it a go myself but not sure the best method.
Someone asked a similar question around post 305 but I haven't seen any follow up. Your thoughts?

I cannot remember anyone discussing sparkling wine in the thread and i have never made it, i have found this which would suggest not degassing is not the same as sparkling wine.

I would like to point out the CO2 gas does not negatively affect the wine in any way. Upon decanting the wine you will see some bubbles, but nothing near to the degree of a sparking wine. A sparkling wine has a lot more CO2 gas in it. It is kept in the wine under pressure. This wine will not be under pressure in any way. The wine will only be holding the CO2 gas it can without pressure, which is not very much. Wines like this are known as crackling or petillant wines.

If you want to make (proper) sparkling wine you are going to have to be real patient, this may put you right off - http://www.letsdowine.com/howtomaspwi.html

 

[Cobra427v8]

Ive been wondering what a WOW would be like without any grape juice too Darren. Be very interesting to hear the results.
Ive just mixed my 4th & 5th WOWs and they are bubbling away in the airing cupboard along with an Elderflower kit wine.

right I said I'd let you know how it turned out so here goes, I will definitely not worry about not being able to get hold of white grape juice again. As you know I recently did a trial with a litre of pineapple juice and a litre of grapefruit juice. I still added 800g of sugar and starting gravity was 1.110, it has since finished fermenting with a gravity reading of 0.99 confirmed over a period of 2 days. I let it ferment out as my wife prefers dry wine. I don't bother stabilising, currently in the process of clearing but we have had a sample. Honestly, we can't tell the difference between wine with wgj and without it. So in my opinion if anyone is struggling to get hold of wgj then it's not the end of the world, you can use rgj if you want but as I said, personally I don't think it's required as it tastes just as we expected. Also very strong as well.

hope this helps those that are struggling to get hold of wgj.

Darren

 

[Chippy_Tea]

This is interesting, every WOW variant thread i have read uses red or white grape juice, the question "why do we use grape juice in a WOW" has been asked many times in the forums and the answer is always "it add body to the wine", are you saying your mixed juice drink wine (with no grape juice) has the same body as a wine made with grape juice or are you just comparing the taste?

 

[pookiehair]

Sounds like a brilliant and successful experiment. Can't wait to give it a go myself. Will you be doing another one?

right I said I'd let you know how it turned out so here goes, I will definitely not worry about not being able to get hold of white grape juice again. As you know I recently did a trial with a litre of pineapple juice and a litre of grapefruit juice. I still added 800g of sugar and starting gravity was 1.110, it has since finished fermenting with a gravity reading of 0.99 confirmed over a period of 2 days. I let it ferment out as my wife prefers dry wine. I don't bother stabilising, currently in the process of clearing but we have had a sample. Honestly, we can't tell the difference between wine with wgj and without it. So in my opinion if anyone is struggling to get hold of wgj then it's not the end of the world, you can use rgj if you want but as I said, personally I don't think it's required as it tastes just as we expected. Also very strong as well.

hope this helps those that are struggling to get hold of wgj.

Darren

 

[Hitman]

Sorry Guys. I know ive seen it somewhere but cant find the measures for a 30 bottle batch (looking at red grape and apple). Does anyone have to hand?

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Sorry Guys. I know ive seen it somewhere but cant find the measures for a 30 bottle batch (looking at red grape and apple). Does anyone have to hand?

5 litres Red Grape Juice

5 litres Apple juice

4Kg sugar.

5 teaspoons tannin or some strong black tea. (i use 5 teabags in a litre jug and 3 tea bags in a half litre jug)

Add water to 22.5 litres (5 gallons) aim for a temperature between 20c to 30c.

3 teaspoon yeast.

5 teaspoons yeast nutrient

5 teaspoons pectolace

5 teaspoons Glycerine

5 teaspoons citric acid (optional) I use 2.5 teaspoons.

 

[Cobra427v8]

This is interesting, every WOW variant thread i have read uses red or white grape juice, the question "why do we use grape juice in a WOW" has been asked many times in the forums and the answer is always "it add body to the wine", are you saying your mixed juice drink wine (with no grape juice) has the same body as a wine made with grape juice or are you just comparing the taste?

I'm not a lover of wine as I normally drink lager but I do taste it, my wife however drinks wine on a regular basis but is far from a connoisseur (hope I spelt that right) she has said that she cannot tell the difference at all, obviously the taste is different but regards the body of the wine, she says it's a really nice wine, in fact out of all the variations I have made with both wgj and rgj, this is in her top 3 of favourites. Obviously it's our opinion but I do recommend others give it a try and make your own decision whether you prefer it or not. The reason I tried it without was due to the fact I can no longer source wgj. Now I don't need to worry too much about it as I feel it isn't necessary in producing a good wine.

cheers

Darren

 

[Chippy_Tea]

The only problem i can see with leaving the grape juice out is your choice of supermarket juices will be severely limited unless you are going to double or treble the amount of cartons you use, most juices drinks are around 70% water whereas grape juice is always 100% juice, if you use two cartons of juice drink to a DJ you are then going to water down the small amount of juice further when you add the 2.5 litres to top up, i don't see how it can have any body and surely its as watery as over watered cordial pop.

Call me an old cynic but there are 81 recipes in the "Wurzels orange wine and supermarket recipe only" thread HERE non recommend using anything other than a mixture of grape juice with another juice, i am sure if making a good wine with body was as easy as throwing a couple of cartons of juice drink into a DJ there would be hundreds of posts about it and no one would bother looking for grape juice.

I hope members reading this try the grape juice version first before trying one without so they have something to compare the latter to. :thumb:

 

[Cobra427v8]

The only problem i can see with leaving the grape juice out is your choice of supermarket juices will be severely limited unless you are going to double or treble the amount of cartons you use, most juices drinks are around 70% water whereas grape juice is always 100% juice, if you use two cartons of juice drink to a DJ you are then going to water down the small amount of juice further when you add the 2.5 litres to top up, i don't see how it can have any body and surely its as watery as over watered cordial pop.

Call me an old cynic but there are 81 recipes in the "Wurzels orange wine and supermarket recipe only" thread HERE non recommend using anything other than a mixture of grape juice with another juice, i am sure if making a good wine with body was as easy as throwing a couple of cartons of juice drink into a DJ there would be hundreds of posts about it and no one would bother looking for grape juice.

I hope members reading this try the grape juice version first before trying one without so they have something to compare the latter to. :thumb:

I have read your reply several times and pondered over what reply I can give you. You are right about ONE thing and one thing only. There is not a great variety of 100% juices.
I'm a little disappointed in your reply if I'm honest, firstly I thought this forum was about sharing information and trying new things. As you say there are 81 recipes on here which contain either wgj or rgj, so I take it because nobody has ever tried it before, it can't possibly be any good and turn out like cordial.
Rest assured it certainly hasn't turned out like cordial and definitely not like water.
As i said on my original thread, I tried this due to having difficulty in purchasing wgj and rgj. There has been a lot of questions asked in the past about why grape juice is added, I have just highlighted that it doesn't have to be the case if the juices you use are 100% concentrate.
You say call me an old cynic so I will, you clearly don't like the fact that someone has deviates from the norm and have tried something different with great success, we are making home brew at the end of the day and if you are looking for the perfect bodied wine, why do you even bother making it in the beginning, just go and buy a high quality bottle for £20 or £30.
At the end of the days it's all about experimenting and I do encourage others whom are having difficulty in obtaining the grape juice to try what I have done.
I am sorry if this comes across harsh but your reply clearly doubted what I have achieved. I have been on many forums over the years and was hoping that this forum wouldn't turn out to be the same with some strong opinionated people. I suggest you read your messages before you hit send in the future, as my post isn't the only one you have rubbished in a short period of time.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

You are right about ONE thing and one thing only. There is not a great variety of 100% juices.

That's why i said you would need to use several cartons of juice otherwise it would end up like watery pop with no body and that is correct, this was a warning to new members thinking of trying your recipe it was not meant as a dig at you.

I don't buy expensive wine because I am happy with the wines I make and making them.

I have posted 3150 times in the forum and this is the first time I have been accused of being opinionated, if having a different view to you makes me opinionated in your view there isn't a lot I can do about it.

 

[Hitman]

Hi Penguin Army. Was tempted to make variant of WoW chilli wine and have seen you have some bottled. Any recommendations?

 

[Hitman]

Chippy - Thanks for recipe. Have 4 demijohns at drinking stage. Apple/Red grape was my favourite but the Mrs loves Tropical juice/Red grape. I found the tropical did not drop down to 0.990 unlike the apple which would explain it being slightly sweeter. Real passion fruit aroma which was a nice touch.

 

[the_kitchen_brewer]

Chippy, I appreciate you taking the time. Love the YouTube clip, says it all really!
One thing I've been wondering is whether a sparkling wine could be made by simply not de-gassing? Or just adding priming suagar? I'm happy to give it a go myself but not sure the best method.
Someone asked a similar question around post 305 but I haven't seen any follow up. Your thoughts?

Degassing is done to help clear the wine, the levels of CO2 present after primary fermentation isn't enough to create a sparkling wine.

However, if you leave stabilisers out and add priming sugar you can create a sparkling wine through secondary fermentation - but make sure you either use sparkline wine/champagne bottles, or as I do, plastic PET bottles. Normal wine bottles will explode as they are not designed to hold pressure.

I've never tried disgorging, I just live with the sediment which packs down nicely, however the fizzyness does stir it up and after the first couple of glasses it does end up very cloudy. Nevertheless one I did in the summer went down really well at a BBQ!

If you have a CO2 setup, the other way is force carbonating using something like this: [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lZM3O6r4bc[/ame]

The benefit of this method is that there is no sediment and you can choose whether to drink your wine as straight wine or sparkle it up.

Apparently you can achieve finer bubbles by using a Corny Keg and sparkling over time, but I haven't got around to trying this yet!

 

[BruinTuns]

Thanks kitchen brewer. Reading through Chippy's linked page http://www.letsdowine.com/howtomaspwi.html sparkling wines certainly are more complicated and that carbonator would make things a lot easier. But I'll try it tthe old fashioned way first and see how it turns out before I invest.
The 'letsdowine' article says to add a sachet of champagne yeast with the priming sugar but I'm sure I've seen another recipe somewhere that doesn't call for this. I'll see if I can find it again.
Their instructions also stipulate that only champagne bottles can be used as the pressure might explode any other type! But I'll be using plastic bottles so this won't be an issue, though I might keep them outside just in case..