Well I would like some opinions. I was at Costco and found their newmans own 100% grape juice for dirt cheap, so I grabbed 6 gallons worth. Got home and dumped it in a carboy along with 6 cups of table sugar, tannin, nutrient, and energizer. Got her all mixed up then pitched a slurry of wlp720 from an apfelwein I just bottled a couple days ago. This morning it is fermenting furiously. Anyone ever try this?? Think it will be good? Sg was 1.074
Cheap A$$ red? Thoughts?
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EineProsit
Well-Known Member
I've heard that table grapes (grape juice) are different that wine grapes.
Expermentation is how we learn.
In the end It may be drinkable.
Keep us posted.
Expermentation is how we learn.
In the end It may be drinkable.
Keep us posted.
Dr. Francois
Well-Known Member
I believe Yooper makes something similar.
Dr. Francois
Well-Known Member
Yup looks similar. Although she mentions leaving the airlock off during primary....maybe I should so the same? My airlock is bubbling away happily right now with plenty of room in my carboy so I don't think it will plug up....
RachmaelBenApplebaum
Well-Known Member
It'll be what a lot of folks describe as "foxy" since it's probably concord grape juice. It won't taste awful. but when I did this much the same (joe's Grape Pyment) with welches it ended up tasting like welches grape juice with booze in it. Drinkable? yes. Though I labeled mine as "prison-hooch pyment" to give you a relative idea, when young it kinda tastes like something you'd whip up in county jail to pass the time.
Jacob_Marley
Well-Known Member
Though the wine with store bought table grape juice will generally make a very different tasting wine than more traditional winegrape varietals, it will still make a great mulled/spiced wine or sangria.
You might also like its taste, as is.
Hot spiced wine is great for the Fall/Winter Holidays. (google German Gluhwein)
Sangria (adding fruit etc for a more casual wine drink) works well with the distinct concord flavor you may get.
You might also like its taste, as is.
Hot spiced wine is great for the Fall/Winter Holidays. (google German Gluhwein)
Sangria (adding fruit etc for a more casual wine drink) works well with the distinct concord flavor you may get.
RachmaelBenApplebaum
Well-Known Member
I made a gallon of it and bottled it still. As a testament to it's flavor, even though it was kind of odd, it didn't last long. Kinda reminded me of when I was a kid and thought welches sometimes smelled wine-y after sitting out for a while. I would definitely follow up with how it comes out and hey, if anything, you'll have a lot of table wine. I've bought cheap kits that we're marked down because they were old and they still made an acceptable table wine for cooking, drinking a glass or two etc. and it was 6 gallons of wine for 30-40 bucks. Can't beat that.
Yes, Yooper seems to be the past Mistress of Welch's wines. I started one ala Y's recipe 2 weeks ago, and within a day it began to foam out of the bottle. It was 3qts juice, 426 grams sucrose, and a pack of Red Star Pasteur Red yeast. Did not dissolve the sugar in attempt to slow the foaming.
It may look well-behaved now, but I advise you(pl) to swirl often, or have more headspace, or put in a stir-bar and stir on stirplate. In a pan!
Now the fun part: Racked 1st batch, leaving nice, large yeast cake for 2nd batch. Put in 1/5 the sugar to slow foaming. Not bad. In 2 days added second 1/5 sugar, slooooowwwwww foaming, then SPLASH as 8-10 oz shot out the bottle. Coulda been worse, and I know better: can't add particulate matter to a saturated solution of CO2. Btw, the oxygenated sterilants will get rid of most of the grape stain.
Good luck.
It may look well-behaved now, but I advise you(pl) to swirl often, or have more headspace, or put in a stir-bar and stir on stirplate. In a pan!
Now the fun part: Racked 1st batch, leaving nice, large yeast cake for 2nd batch. Put in 1/5 the sugar to slow foaming. Not bad. In 2 days added second 1/5 sugar, slooooowwwwww foaming, then SPLASH as 8-10 oz shot out the bottle. Coulda been worse, and I know better: can't add particulate matter to a saturated solution of CO2. Btw, the oxygenated sterilants will get rid of most of the grape stain.
Good luck.
Well, thank god no eruption last night when I got home as well as when I stirred it. I need to set up a better degassing rig. So at this point it's 3 days old, should I be introducing oxygen into it or not?
Al, I am not planning on adding more sugar. I think I added all I need in the beginning by adding to the grape juice jug and shaking the crap out of it to dissolve the sugar.
Al, I am not planning on adding more sugar. I think I added all I need in the beginning by adding to the grape juice jug and shaking the crap out of it to dissolve the sugar.
BobbiLynn
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If you taste it as it goes, the flavor will change so much. Just a matter of picking the right time to drink it! It'll go from hoochy tasting pruno to sour to very good. And for us frugal buyers, Welch's website posts printable coupons you can use along with in-store offers.
Well, looked and right now they don't have any posted, but check before you go to the store with juice in the back of your mind.
http://www.welchs.com/promotions
Well, looked and right now they don't have any posted, but check before you go to the store with juice in the back of your mind.
http://www.welchs.com/promotions
Wine is the original protected market, with legislation already dating back at least a thousand years in various kingdoms and countries. Generally, vineyards don't sell wine quality grapes at the farmer's market for kids to munch on at breakfast - if they have extra wine grapes, they sell to local "wineries without land" such as Zenato. It's not really in the best interests of vineyards for people to be able to make wine on their own that can compete with their product and brand. This is why the Italians, French, Spanish, and Portuguese came up with systems such as DOC and AOC in the first place.
Most grape trading on the international level nowadays is done as concentrate. The concentrate market is 99.9% for supermarket drinking juice (either straight or blended, depending on what the buyer wants to do with it), and the other 0.1% (or less) is wine grape concentrate intended for the homebrew market.
So, can you make a decent wine from store bought grape juice/concentrate? Most probably not, unless the store you are buying it from is a homebrew shop and you are paying upwards of 30 bucks a litre for the concentrate (at the very low end).
