Supermarket Juice Wine How To guide and Recipes.

[Chippy_Tea]

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.

I moved over to red grape juice a while ago (we struggle to get white here) and have not really experimented with it, i tend to make a bucket of red grape juice and apple and then make a WinBuddy 30 bottle sav blanc kit so we have a choice, i will have to try something new when my next DJ is empty.

How low did the tropical one get?

 

[Hitman]

From memory it was about a month until racking. I initially had it on a demijohn heating tray as the house gets cold so it should have gone as far as it war going to go. I did find there was a lot of pulp between the surface of the water and the lid which i havn't come across before. The Mrs likes it a lot so happy days....

We currently have been drinking the 30 bottle winebuddy merlot which i like a lot but the mrs prefers the tropical WoW. LIDL do two varities but the one with the passion fruit seems to hit the spot.

What do you think about a chilli WoW. I have seen a few wine varieties which use chilli's, sultanas and all the usual additions. They recommend removing the seeds but i love spicey so heres what i was thinking;
4 oz of chilli's
3 Litres of red grape (think that should bypass the sultanas)
Then everything as per the normal recipes....

Any feedback appreciated before i commence...

 

[Chippy_Tea]

I am sure someone made a chilli wine in the forum (not this thread) and it turned out well.

 

[pookiehair]

Just found this online. Interesting, especially the part called Juices For Winemaking http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/ptop/plain/A21776781
Quote from article......... However, it's important to use at least 50% grape or apple juice, as these fruits will give your wine a nice full flavour.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Great link pookiehair :thumb:

I use Red Grape Juice and apple in the same DJ so i guess by accident i found one of the best combinations.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

From memory it was about a month until racking. I initially had it on a demijohn heating tray as the house gets cold so it should have gone as far as it war going to go. I did find there was a lot of pulp between the surface of the water and the lid which i havn't come across before. The Mrs likes it a lot so happy days....

We currently have been drinking the 30 bottle winebuddy merlot which i like a lot but the mrs prefers the tropical WoW. LIDL do two varities but the one with the passion fruit seems to hit the spot.

What do you think about a chilli WoW. I have seen a few wine varieties which use chilli's, sultanas and all the usual additions. They recommend removing the seeds but i love spicey so heres what i was thinking;
4 oz of chilli's
3 Litres of red grape (think that should bypass the sultanas)
Then everything as per the normal recipes....

Any feedback appreciated before i commence...

Chilli wine thread here - http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=28084&highlight=chilli+wine

 

[Chippy_Tea]

As mentioned in the "how many gallons have you made" thread i have just bottled 5 gallons (22.5 litres) of red grape and apple juice wine.

This was the first time we have used Asda bottled red grape juice and i can honestly say its the best tasting juice wine i have made to date.

I noticed when i poured it it is much darker than other brands i have used and it is still much darker after fermentation, this is kept in the chiller not on the shelves, if you can get hold of some give it a try. :thumb:

My recipe -

5 litres Red Grape Juice

5 litres Apple juice

4Kg sugar.

5 teaspoons tannin or some strong black tea - I used 1.5 litres in a bucket (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. (i use youngs super wine yeast compound)

5 teaspoons yeast nutrient

5 teaspoons pectolace

5 teaspoons Glycerine

5 teaspoons citric acid.

 

[the_kitchen_brewer]

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..

Yeah I read quite a few recipes before I dived in and they tend to make it look complicated, but if you can live with sediment then it can be reasonably straight fwd. One recipe told you to age your base wine for a year first!

Champagne/Sparkling wine is one of the commercial drinks I would still purchase for special occasions - after all it doesn't look great opening a plastic bottle full of sediment but I do like having a nice basic homemade sparkling wine for a treat.

Good thing with PET bottles with screwtops is that you can feel when the bottle is starting to swell and open the top a little to let some of the excess gas out if need be, but so far I've not needed to do that.

 

[andycole]

Just adding my 2p worth to the 'grape juice or not' debate, I see no reason why you should not be able to make a perfectly good wine that doesn't include any grape juice, after all i and I am sure many others on here have made lovely wine out of stuff you pick from the hedgerows, in the past. The problem with making from supermarket juice, as has been mentioned, is that nowadays, 100% juice is getting less common. You shouldn't have a problem with any combination within reason, so long as you like the flavours that are going in it. If you think about fruits that go together well in a juice drink or a jam, then they should work in a wine, but it is probably impossible to find, for example, 100% blackberry juice, should you want to make apple and blackberry.
Certainly the 100% juices that you should find in any supermarket are:
Orange
Apple
Pineapple
Tropical combination

That's is about all I can think of and that is a rather short list isn't it! So I am not surprised that people are looking at the more adventurous flavours of the 'juice drink' offerings, but I expect that they have all sorts of ingredients other than juice and water, so it must be a lot harder to get a wine right. But so long as you don't mind a bit of trial and error, it must be worth a try, you just have to make sure you know how much total juice and sugar there should be.

Cheers all
Andy

 

[Chippy_Tea]

That's is about all I can think of and that is a rather short list isn't it! So I am not surprised that people are looking at the more adventurous flavours of the 'juice drink' offerings, but I expect that they have all sorts of ingredients other than juice and water, so it must be a lot harder to get a wine right. But so long as you don't mind a bit of trial and error, it must be worth a try, you just have to make sure you know how much total juice and sugar there should be.

It is a very short list.

The problem (as i said earlier) with using the juice drinks is they only contain around 30% juice so you would have to use several cartons to get the same juice strength as a carton of grape juice and a carton of another 100% juice (as in the standard WOW recipe)

There is also the cost, the juice drink version will be 3 times more expensive than the standard WOW version because of the extra cartons needed, i am not saying members should not try it but if the only reason they may try it is because of a lack of white grape juice give Red grape juice a try, this seems much easier to get hold of compared to WGJ and makes excellent wine, and also means it will only cost around £2 to make. (don't be put off by the word Red, red grape juice does not make red wine it makes a Rosé type wine)

A warning to new members reading this, the finished wine tastes no where near as strong as the juice you put in the DJ so using just 2 cartons of juice drink is going to make an awful wine.

 

[ilikesabeer]

Wow has now been in second dj for just over 2 weeks and is clearing naturally.
question is how long can it stay in the dj before racking or is it ok to leave in dj?

 

[Featherhat]

Leave it 'til it's cleared then either bottle or rack to a clean dj. Once it's clear and not throwing sediment it's good for a while. Opinion varies on how much wows improve over time but on the whole they're a cheap brew for regular drinking and don't often get left that long,

 

[BruinTuns]

Another
Further back I mentioned the slow activity of my first two WOWs. I'm at this moment in the middle of preparing two more but I've just seen that the 'Best Before' on my tub of Young's wine yeast is 24/07/13!
I bought it from Tesco only a few months ago, there was no price reduction so I never thought to check.
Could it still be viable? Should I increase the amount? And is there any test that will tell me if it's worth using? I read somewhere about adding a spoonful to sugar water to see if it starts a reaction..

 

[Roddy]

As mentioned in the "how many gallons have you made" thread i have just bottled 5 gallons (22.5 litres) of red grape and apple juice wine.

This was the first time we have used Asda bottled red grape juice and i can honestly say its the best tasting juice wine i have made to date.

I noticed when i poured it it is much darker than other brands i have used and it is still much darker after fermentation, this is kept in the chiller not on the shelves, if you can get hold of some give it a try. :thumb:

My recipe -

5 litres Red Grape Juice

5 litres Apple juice

4Kg sugar.

5 teaspoons tannin or some strong black tea - I used 1.5 litres in a bucket (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. (i use youngs super wine yeast compound)

5 teaspoons yeast nutrient

5 teaspoons pectolace

5 teaspoons Glycerine

5 teaspoons citric acid.

What does the Citric acid do chippy ?

 

[engineer]

Another
Further back I mentioned the slow activity of my first two WOWs. I'm at this moment in the middle of preparing two more but I've just seen that the 'Best Before' on my tub of Young's wine yeast is 24/07/13!
I bought it from Tesco only a few months ago, there was no price reduction so I never thought to check.
Could it still be viable? Should I increase the amount? And is there any test that will tell me if it's worth using? I read somewhere about adding a spoonful to sugar water to see if it starts a reaction..

i suspect it will be fine but if in doubt i would get a mug and put an inch of warm water in the bottom then add a spoonful of yeast with a spoonful of sugar if it starts to froth readily after a while put the lot in the brew, not forgetting to sterilise the mug beforehand of course. I use bread yeast to make fruit fly traps in the same way to keep the beasties of my kit in the summer, works quire well.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

What does the Citric acid do chippy ?

A long read but worth it if you want to experiment.

Wine-making Acid

Acid is one of those wonderful areas of home-brew wine-making that permits large amounts of mucking about. Your only contribution to the topic of acid may be to simply waft a bottle of Jif lemon at each demijohn. However, if you are prepared to expend the time and effort, whole afternoons can be frittered away in the kitchen mixing together at least four differant types of acid and performing laboratory tests to convince yourself that you are not wasting time
If you are new to the esoteric world of homebrew winemaking you may be puzzled as to what this acid business is all about. Acid is one of the attributes of wine that conspires with many other factors to produce the all encompassing concept of quality. We are all familiar with the concept of acidity. A drop of lemon juice on the tongue will remind you. Those of you with some knowledge of chemistry will be familiar with the phrases acid and alkali. Acid equals lemon juice, alkali means bicarbonate of soda. Mix the two together and the resultant cocktail will fizz in a satisfying manner. Wine, be it home-made home-brew or 'real' will be acidic. This is good. It adds to the flavour. A perfect wine will be acidically well balanced. An under acid (alkali) wine will taste bland, and a wine which is overly acid will taste sharp, like orange juice. The art of attaining the correct acidity is all part of the fun of home-brew wine-making.

There exists a number of scales by which we measure acidity. The one used by most winemakers is somewhat literary. The scale consists of three stages.

Gosh thats sharp.

Thats about right.

How uninteresting.

These statements describe the finished wine. There is no inclination to make adjustments, all that is generated is a mental note to mix things up in a different order next time.

The winemaker who has time on his hands will broadcast this fact by taking things a stage further. The universal wine-making measure of acidity is parts per thousand sulphuric acid (ppt). Sulphuric acid never gets near wine, and is thus logically (?) chosen as the scale. Wine ranges from 3.0 ppt for a dry light wine, to 4.5ppt for a sweet full bodied wine. The afore mentioned winemaker will go to considerable pains to measure the acidity until it lies within 0.1ppt of where he wants it. The judicious adding of acid and calcium carbonate will be employed to achieve this end.

You may also remember from your school days the use of pH to measure acidity. pH counts the number of bits of acid in the wine and can be measured by indicator paper, but this does not work very well. Either you guess, or you do things properly.

You may feel justified in thinking this is all a bit unnecessary. It is. Very much so. When you start home-brew wine-making it is only necessary to add a couple of teaspoons of acid and forget about it. Only the more adventurous go on to buy the toys required to measure and adjust acidity.

So far in this lesson I have lightly tossed about the phrase 'add acid'. How does one achieve this? The ingredients that we make home-made wine from do not, as a rule, contain enough acid to produce a well balanced bottle of wine. We must add some. 'Some' means squeeze the juice of a couple of lemons into the must. Alternatively buy a tub of citric acid and chuck some of that in. This will allow you to make fairly consistent wines.

But, (why is there always a 'but'?) the story does not end here. The winemaker can get hold of malic, lactic, citric, tartaric and succinct acids. This is before you consider the mysteries of tannic acid, but that topic alone will fill a page.

Essentially, each acid imparts different qualities. Many winemakers use a mix of citric, malic and tartaric, but most of us just rely solely on citric. One can also obtain precipitated chalk, this is calcium carbonate, and is added to the wine to reduce the acidity.

Citric Acid. The is the most popular acid, it has a characteristic fruity taste. It is found in things like lemons and oranges, which is why these fruits are often included in older recipes. Citric acid also imparts brilliance to wine.

Malic Acid. Found in things like apples. This acid is said to help speed fermentation. There also exists stuff called malolactic bacteria, this can be persuaded to start a small fermentation in bottled wine, where the malic acid is converted to less acid lactic acid in a process called malolactic fermentation. This is generally considered a good thing.

Tartaric Acid. The predominate acid in grapes. Imparts a vinoius character to the wine, but is apt to crystalise out of the wine some time after bottling because it is rather unstable in solution. This can lead to a deposit in the bottom of a bottle of previously clear wine. This in turn gives an excellent excuse to muck about decanting the wine.

Succinic Acid. Never used it myself, but is said to improve bouquet and maturation processes.

As you can see the topic of acids can be as involved as you want to make it. Have fun!


http://www.thewinepages.org.uk/acid.htm

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Another
Further back I mentioned the slow activity of my first two WOWs. I'm at this moment in the middle of preparing two more but I've just seen that the 'Best Before' on my tub of Young's wine yeast is 24/07/13!
I bought it from Tesco only a few months ago, there was no price reduction so I never thought to check.
Could it still be viable? Should I increase the amount? And is there any test that will tell me if it's worth using? I read somewhere about adding a spoonful to sugar water to see if it starts a reaction..

I did a quick search and found this in a forum - "I have pitched ancient yeast like this into a starter and it worked out fine. I would say it depends on how the yeast was stored" so as engineer says try a starter. :thumb:

 

[Featherhat]

Another
Further back I mentioned the slow activity of my first two WOWs. I'm at this moment in the middle of preparing two more but I've just seen that the 'Best Before' on my tub of Young's wine yeast is 24/07/13!
I bought it from Tesco only a few months ago, there was no price reduction so I never thought to check.
Could it still be viable? Should I increase the amount? And is there any test that will tell me if it's worth using? I read somewhere about adding a spoonful to sugar water to see if it starts a reaction..

When I started brewing again,earlier this ýear, I had a tub of Youngs super that was over a year out of date. To be on the safe side and get it used up I just used two teaspoons instead of one. It worked fine.

 

[andycole]

Just thought I would add an update on the hunt for grape juice.
Someone mentioned a week or so Avon, I am sure, that lidl had white grape juice. I went in yesterday and my local store had not white, but premium red grape juice for 99p. It's not chilled either so you can buy loads and keep it for when you need it :)
I bought a couple, so that I can make some more rose if my first gallon turns out ok! which I am sure it will. I am still on the lookout for white grape juice, though, so I can make some white variety of wow.

Andy.

 

[BruinTuns]

engineer, Chippy, Featherhat, thanks for your replies. But boy I'm confused now..
I found a sachet of recently purchased champagne yeast so I hydrated per instructions and pitched it into one of this afternoon's WOWs (RGJ & apple). The other WOW got a spoonful of the Young's.
I then added another spoonful of the Young's yeast to a dish of sugared water. Wasn't sure how to do it but seems I got it nearly right, I just used a bit more sugar and not as warm as engineer suggests (just over room temp).
Got home 4 hours later and the champagne yeast WOW had really taken off, way more enthusiastically than my previous two. But there's absolutely no sign of froth from the yeast in the sugared water at all, and the Young's yeast WOW hasn't even started. Should I add a second spoonful of yeast?
Yet the Young's yeast must be working because I used it in my 'rickthebrew's' ginger beer, which is now down from OG 1050 to just over 0.990 after 13 days and it's still bubbling.
Sorry to take up more space with this but I really want to understand. Is it that old yeast works as thoroughly in the end but just not as fast? I'll leave the sugar water yeast overnight, see if there's any sign of life tomorrow.