Supermarket Juice Wine How To guide and Recipes.

[Chippy_Tea]

You are trying to mimic wine if you used 100% juice the taste would be overpowering and more like an alcopop.

 

[pgk]

I'll bow to your greater expertise but struggle with the logic of that since (grape) wine is made form 100% juice?

 

[Mr_S_Jerusalem]

I'll bow to your greater expertise but struggle with the logic of that since (grape) wine is made form 100% juice?

You should try one that's completely made of juice.

And sugar of course.

 

[pgk]

You should try one that's completely made of juice.

And sugar of course.

I have 4DJ's on the go just about finished bubbling and starting to clear: one basic WOW -grape/AJ/Water plus the usual sugar, nutrients, tea etc, one pure AJ with sugar and the other bits and one pure grape with sugar plus. The last one is 6oz of ginger root macerated in a kitchen whizzy + sugar water plus. The last one is to replace my prevous ginger wine attempt that I added a little AJ to towards the end and it totally ruined the taste (one learns). I'll be doing a racking and tasting in the next few days. We'll see.. not that my palate is exactly refined, more acse of 'That was a jalfrezi was it?' sort of sophistication..:hat:

 

[Mr_S_Jerusalem]

I am planning one with 1 litre apple juice and 1.5 litres passion fruit, mango and apple, and one with 1 litre apple juice and 1.5 litres of pomegranate, blueberry and I think its acai or something. Found these tesco juice things that sounded good lol.

A good job for this weekend because it is going to P!$$ it down lol

Ginger is always a good bet, the flavour is always really warming.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

I'll bow to your greater expertise but struggle with the logic of that since (grape) wine is made form 100% juice?

Its not just my expertise this thread has more than 3 thousand posts/recipes in it if the final product of making wine from 2.5 litres of juice in a 4.5 litre DJ ended with thin wine with little taste or mouth feel people would have gone for 4.5 litres of 100% juice years ago. (the thread is 7 years old) as you can see people are still sticking to the original recipes as they produce a decent wine but by all means give a 100% wine a go and compare.

 

[Nidger]

Its not just my expertise this thread has more than 3 thousand posts/recipes in it if the final product of making wine from 2.5 litres of juice in a 4.5 litre DJ ended with thin wine with little taste or mouth feel people would have gone for 4.5 litres of 100% juice years ago. (the thread is 7 years old) as you can see people are still sticking to the original recipes as they produce a decent wine but by all means give a 100% wine a go and compare.

Reading the first few recipes there seems a lot of sugar to a gallon.
700 to 900g.
Compared to a kit 450g.
(Well the kit i put on yesterday.)
So would that be around 4.5 bags of sugar to 23ltr ?
Sorry if I'm missing something and asking stupid questions.
I suppose what I'm asking is the reasons behind different amounts of sugar and the outcome,
Is it more than just alcohol content ?

Anyway, definitely going to give these a go.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Sorry if I'm missing something and asking stupid questions.

No such thing as a stupid question.

The general rule of thumb with supermarket juice wines is a total of 1100g of sugar in a 4.5 litres DJ is 13% ABV (including the sugar in the cartons) so multiply this by 5 for 22.5 litres = 5500g.

The early white wine recipe in the long thread suggested 800g per DJ as the sugar content of the cartons was always roughly the same so 10 cartons of juice and 4000g sugar for 22.5 litres.

I started using an extra half litre of apple juice in my wines as it gave a bit more flavour so i subtracted 50g of sugar from the total for every half litre i added.

 

[Nidger]

No such thing as a stupid question.

The general rule of thumb with supermarket juice wines is a total of 1100g of sugar in a 4.5 litres DJ is 13% ABV (including the sugar in the cartons) so multiply this by 5 for 22.5 litres = 5500g.

The early white wine recipe in the long thread suggested 800g per DJ as the sugar content of the cartons was always roughly the same so 10 cartons of juice and 4000g sugar for 22.5 litres.

I started using an extra half litre of apple juice in my wines as it gave a bit more flavour so i subtracted 50g of sugar from the total for every half litre i added.

Cheers.
I get that bit thanks.
So do kit wines contain more sugar than supermarket juice since you seem to add less ?
Or was that kit i started yesterday with 450g the exception and most gallon wine kits take more ?

 

[Chippy_Tea]

We stopped making supermarket juice wines a while ago as we found the Range store Make Your Own kits are brilliant and at £20 they are great value, due to corona its difficult to find any in store so we now order them online and pay the £3:95 postage.

MYO review - The Range store make your own rosé wine. (rebranded 20/8/2019)

https://www.therange.co.uk/cooking-and-dining/drinks/home-brew/?q=make your own#sort=relevance&page=1&lpp=24

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Cheers.
I get that bit thanks.
So do kit wines contain more sugar than supermarket juice since you seem to add less ?
Or was that kit i started yesterday with 450g the exception and most gallon wine kits take more ?

I am not sure but if the kit says the finished ABV will be 12% (ish) then there must be more sugar in the juice or it wouldn't get there with 450g, the MYO 30 bottle Rose wine i mentioned above instructs you to add 3.5Kg of sugar.

 

[Nidger]

I am not sure but if the kit says the finished ABV will be 12% (ish) then there must be more sugar in the juice or it wouldn't get there with 450g, the MYO 30 bottle Rose wine i mentioned above instructs you to add 3.5Kg of sugar.

Thanks,
Sorry for all the questions.
I have a myo strawberry and lime cider kit from the range.
I'll give that rosé a go after I've made it

Just reading the hand crown capper reviews.
Looks like it's going to have to be a bench capper lol

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Sorry for all the questions.

No worries glad i can help.

If you make the Rose kit give some thought to the part where they advise adding extra sugar to sweeten we are not keen on dry wines and we found the Rose fine without the extra sugar.

Looks like it's going to have to be a bench capper

More expensive but money well spent.

 

[IanG]

Range store Make Your Own kits are brilliant and at £20 they are great value

Even with postage they are value compared to say wilko's own brand which need the extra brewing sugar that drives up the cost especially if you buy the sugar from wilko. I think I'll try but they are still pricey compared to a supermarket wine but at least you'll get consistency

 

[Nidger]

No worries glad i can help.

If you make the Rose kit give some thought to the part where they advise adding extra sugar to sweeten we are not keen on dry wines and we found the Rose fine without the extra sugar.



More expensive but money well spent.

Cheers,
Not a fan of dry wine either.
I'm a two sugar tea man
Was interesting reading the reviews on red wines and body on here earlier.
The last ones i made a few years ago from kits i found very acceptable.
I drank them too early having brought them in the house out of a warm shed (popping)
A strawberry one i think it was, wasn't too good but left till last the extra weeks improved it immensely.

Anyway, still interested in getting the supermarket juice ones going so as to utilise my demijohns and ease of space with small batches, bottling etc.
Thanks.

 

[kelper]

My tart cherry turned out nice! Darker than a Zinfandel. A surprising tart finish!

 

[gar]

Hi Chippy, have you tried the white wine kit from the range?

 

[lupinehorror]

rather inspired by this thread. thanks all.
going for a purple grape/apple/elderflower/pineapple combo.
have only made a certain Finnish brew up until now (and flavoured it with vimto).
this should hopefully tickle the taste buds a little more.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Hi Chippy, have you tried the white wine kit from the range?

Yes - The Range "make your own" White Wine
Note both posts mention not adding the sugar to back sweeten.

 

[lupinehorror]

for my first try i went with morrisons 2L of100% fruit juice. 1L of pineapple and 1L of apple (cloudy...probably a mistake) and 1L of welch's 100% purple grape juice. 600g of sugar and up to the gallon mark. took my (first ever) OG reading of 1082 which with hindsight seems a little low. should i bung in some more sugar once it gets going?