Welch's Grape Juice Wine

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It gets better with some time. My 1 year old juice wines are much better than the new stuff. Some that I didn't really care for have become quite tasty with time. They will never compare with wine from grapes or most real fruit wines but still quite drinkable. They make great spritzers.
 
I just added sorbate and campden and bottled my first batch after back sweetening. I hope 60 days of aging will make it much smoother... what I tried was very strong so I hope it mellows out.

I just racked my second batch from primary to seconday onto american oak chips. How long should I let it sit in the secondary before raking it off the oak?
 
This is a thread that I've looked at for a long time and finally have an excuse to make.

Last week my wife was talking to her doctor about migraines and he mentioned cutting back on sulfites. "Sulfites" rang a homebrewing bell

I have limited experience with wines. i tried one from a kit and it took about 7 years of aging before it tasted decent. By then, most of it had been used for cooking because I gave up on it after two years.

So I've mainly stuck with beer, cysers, and meads.

Here's what I'm thinking of making for her:
4 gallons 100% cranberry juice
4 cans Welches grape juice concentrate
2lbs of honey
Red Star Montrachet Yeast (my other option is Lavlin 71B)

I figure it should end up pleasantly fruity.
 
I started some welches....
19 cans grape concentrate
NO SUGAR
I wanted a heavy bodied wine
10 tsp acid
5 tsp pectic
Nutrient
water to make 5 gal
Beginning SG 1.120
should make about 16% yeast should hold out.

Comments from experts please! suggestions
 
way too much acid I think and I would add a teaspoon of tannin. I have been using 15 cans with sugar and the flavor and body has been good. I normally add just two teaspoons of acid blend.
 
I was having some crazy ideas and wondered if adding a pack of jello (no potassium or recognizable yeast killers) to my primary fermentation would be detrimental to the outcome of my wine? Any thoughts?
 
From other things I've read gelatin (jello) works as a fining agent. I wouldn't add it untill secondary fermentation if at all.

It could mess up or cause a stuck primary fermentation
 
So I just made this:

4 gallons of Ocean Spray 100% Cranberry Juice (actually cran, apple, grape, & pear)
6 cans of Welches Grape Juice Concentrate
Monrachet yeast

OG = 1.080
 
Last night I tried a bottle after 60 days. Wow! It was sooo much better then at the 30 day mark. A little age gave this recipe a big boost.
 
Yooper said:
Welch's Frozen Grape Juice Wine
2 cans (11.5 oz) Welch's 100% frozen grape concentrate
1-1/4 lbs granulated sugar
2 tsp acid blend
1 tsp pectic enzyme
1 tsp yeast nutrient
water to make 1 gallon
wine yeast

Edit- note! You may want to skip the acid blend, at least at first, as some results say this wine is too "tart".

Bring 1 quart water to boil and dissolve the sugar in the water. Remove from heat and add frozen concentrate. Add additional water to make one gallon and pour into secondary. Add remaining ingredients except yeast. Cover with napkin fastened with rubber band and set aside 12 hours. Add activated wine yeast and recover with napkin. When active fermentation slows down (about 5 days), fit airlock. When clear, rack, top up and refit airlock. After additional 30 days, stabilize, sweeten if desired and rack into bottles.
Click to expand...

Hey Yooper, I'm just breaking into the wine making and I brew beer quite a bit.. If I were to use corn sugar instead of table sugar in this recipe would it benefit me at all or will the wine yeast even eat it??

Thanks!
 
wyoast said:
Hey Yooper, I'm just breaking into the wine making and I brew beer quite a bit.. If I were to use corn sugar instead of table sugar in this recipe would it benefit me at all or will the wine yeast even eat it??

Thanks!
Click to expand...

Yes, it would be interchangeable with table sugar so if you have corn sugar it can be used.
 
If I scale to 2.5g do I need to add more enzyme or nutrient as opposed to the original recipe?
 
Made it to page 18 and couldn't find my answer, please forgive but my heads about to explode if I keep going through the replies 😜lol.

I want to try oaking this. I have a 1gal batch and want to know about how much oak(and what kind would be best) should I use and for how long in my secondary?
 
Just a quick question, has anyone here tried wyeast 4783? SWMBO and I like liebfraumilch, and would like something other than a $80 kit. If the wyeastperforms well, it doesn't need to be spot on.

Thanks!
 
thejudge said:
Made it to page 18 and couldn't find my answer, please forgive but my heads about to explode if I keep going through the replies 😜lol.

I want to try oaking this. I have a 1gal batch and want to know about how much oak(and what kind would be best) should I use and for how long in my secondary?
Click to expand...

Medium American oak is good, and so is the French oak. The American oak is a little stronger tasting. I generally use about 2 ounces of oak in 5 gallons, so you won't need much at all in a 1 gallon batch. Start with a little, and taste it after two weeks. When it's just a tad bit too much, then it's oaked enough and should be racked off of the oak.
 
Yooper,

First off, thank you and other posters for creating a great thread filled with excellent questions and answers. I've never done any wines other than from fruit juice concentrate. I started doing them with a gallon water jug, welches 100% concentrate, bread yeast and of course, sugar, with a ballon taped over the top with needle holes poked in it. That's how my old "redneck" boss taught me how to do it. lol

People really under estimate how tastey of a wine those basic ingredients can create. White grape peach and white grape raspberry seem to be everyone's favorites. I've recently got back into this hobby a bit more seriously and ordered a bunch of supplies like REAL airlocks, wine yeasts, nutrients, etc.


I've begun putting together a number of 1 gallon test batches using my newly acquired wine specific yeast and tools. This weekend will be some mead test batches but that's off topic.

Anyways, I just joined the forum to show my appreciation for everyone's shared knowledge here and to provide a few notes of my own that i've learned over the years.

-Never warm your water in the microwave when trying to hydrate yeast in "warm" water. It's easy to get entirely too hot and killing your yeast. You don't know it's dead until everything is put together and a few days later you're wondering why your must won't ferment.. Most yeasts seem to hydrate just fine in warm water from the sink. (In my experiences)

-Regular purple grage Welches concentrate tends to produce a strong almost too tart of a flavor when using 3 cans to a gallon. But it's still very drinkable, IMO.

-White grape peach and white grape raspberry tend to come out perfect when done with 3 cans to a gallon.

-My rule of thumb has always been (2) cans of water added to the fermentation jug per each can of concentrate. So 3 cans = 6 cans of water per gallon. Seems to work great and leaves a good headspace at the top.

-Don't be afraid to give something a try. It may be easier than you think.



Thanks again to everybody for posting their recipes! I have a handful to try out, now. haha
 
BrewDaddyJoe said:
Last night I tried a bottle after 60 days. Wow! It was sooo much better then at the 30 day mark. A little age gave this recipe a big boost.
Click to expand...

I just racked again and added some clearing agent... I only used 1 tsp of acid blend but the wine still seems really tart.. Did you see that "tartness" mellow out a bit from the 30-60 day samples?
 
bottled this yesterday.. I stabilized for a few days then added 3oz of sterilized sugar water to backsweeten..after chilling all night, this wine is pretty darn good for concentrate...thanks Yooper! Very subtle alchohol bite this young but a few months in the bottle and I think this wine will be very good.
 
I wish some of this stuff would last long enough to age. I have made about 40 gal of it and it never lasts longer than 3 months in the bottle. :(
 
Wow 40g is alot! I like it a heck of a lot better than the raspberry merlot kit I did a few months ago..and it was about 50 bucks cheaper.. it had a crazy tartness to it before I backsweetened it..but 3oz was just enough to get rid of that and not make it "sweet"
 
I've tried about 3-1gal batches of this recipe in various versions of additional fruit, but they all seem flavor weak, and yeasty, not to mention the essence of rubber bung. I've re-racked to secondary twice do I just let it sit longer? Stir more to Degas? Anybody got thoughts? Feel like I've read everything in here.
 
toadbugger said:
I've tried about 3-1gal batches of this recipe in various versions of additional fruit, but they all seem flavor weak, and yeasty, not to mention the essence of rubber bung. I've re-racked to secondary twice do I just let it sit longer? Stir more to Degas? Anybody got thoughts? Feel like I've read everything in here.
Click to expand...

i need some more details, when did you brew it, how many cans per gallon did you use? have you stabilized and backsweetened? some batches benefit from using concentrate to backsweeten.
 
I have a rookie question. I'm ready to rack to my secondary and top off. Due to miscalculating my starting ingredients, I ended up with more than I planned, so I've got a 6.5 gallon carboy and two one gallon bottles fermenting.

On to my question: I used a different type of wine yeast for the 1 gal batches than I did in the large carboy. I think I'm going to need to add more than a gallon to top off the big carboy when racking into the secondary...can I top off from one of the one gallon jugs instead of using water?

BTW, I sampled a bit last night, and I've got to say it's already good. Strong alcohol bite, but pretty frickin' good. :D
 
webfoot said:
I wish some of this stuff would last long enough to age. I have made about 40 gal of it and it never lasts longer than 3 months in the bottle. :(
Click to expand...

I made a gallon in Feb 2012 from this post. Bottled to 3 1L bottles. I tried the first bottle after 1 month of aging. It tasted like grape juice, but it had a kick and it was cloudy. I just found the second and third bottles in the basement last week, they were clear and inviting me to try them ;) I will crack one open in the next few weeks since it is at the one year bottled stage.

I really need to try this again, one of my goofs is that I don't think I put in enough water so I remember my OG was high. Silly me, noob winemaker, didn't know to just add more water.
 
StoutLover said:
I have a rookie question. I'm ready to rack to my secondary and top off. Due to miscalculating my starting ingredients, I ended up with more than I planned, so I've got a 6.5 gallon carboy and two one gallon bottles fermenting.

On to my question: I used a different type of wine yeast for the 1 gal batches than I did in the large carboy. I think I'm going to need to add more than a gallon to top off the big carboy when racking into the secondary...can I top off from one of the one gallon jugs instead of using water?

BTW, I sampled a bit last night, and I've got to say it's already good. Strong alcohol bite, but pretty frickin' good. :D
Click to expand...

yes you should be fine to add one of the wines to top up even though you used a different yeast, they may taste slightly different but what you are essentially doing is blending.
 
LoneTreeFarms said:
yes you should be fine to add one of the wines to top up even though you used a different yeast, they may taste slightly different but what you are essentially doing is blending.
Click to expand...

Excellent, I suspected it'd be alright. Thanks for the info. :)
 
LoneTreeFarms said:
i need some more details, when did you brew it, how many cans per gallon did you use? have you stabilized and backsweetened? some batches benefit from using concentrate to backsweeten.
Click to expand...

I used 2 cans of welches for a 1 gallon batch, and placed a can of tropical fruit and half of a 1 lb. Box of white raisins chopped, into a new 1gal. paint straining bag. Brewed on the 9th, secondary on the 17th, re-racked the 7th. Haven't stabalized or anything yet, just sampled it from the hydrometer jar and it seemed flavor weak, and YEASTY. SG-1.088 FG-0.990

Maybe 3 cans of welches white would have given it the non watery flavor I am ending up at. No? Not sure where I made a wrong turn. 1 good note is it is clearing nicely. Not sure if I should even save it for topping up future batches. Thoughts?
 
So if I wanted to make it like a mogen david. What would I want my starting gravity at
 
Yooper, you got any recommendations for the issue I mentioned above? Yeasty, weak, rubber stopper??? Thanks! LoneTree Farms never responded, may be busy. I would kind of like to resolve so I can get some more batches going.
 
toadbugger said:
Yooper, you got any recommendations for the issue I mentioned above? Yeasty, weak, rubber stopper??? Thanks! LoneTree Farms never responded, may be busy. I would kind of like to resolve so I can get some more batches going.
Click to expand...
Well I'm not Yooper but some things come to mind:


  • Yeasty - Make sure you are using a quality yeast, give it time to drop and clear (optionally chill crash it) and or maybe use some sparkaloid.
  • Weak - Make it stronger! I use 4 x 11.5 oz cans of Welches (recommended by Arpolis in this thread) and no sugar, top off to 1 gallon. Works great.
  • Rubber Stopper - Buy new ones. If they are giving off flavors then maybe they need to be replaced. If it's from the yeast then using a better yeast will help. I like the 71B after a couple batches for a nice round flavor that does well at higher temps.

Simple wines take simple steps. Just don't over-look them.
 
LBussy said:
Well I'm not Yooper but some things come to mind:


  • Yeasty - Make sure you are using a quality yeast, give it time to drop and clear (optionally chill crash it) and or maybe use some sparkaloid.
  • Weak - Make it stronger! I use 4 x 11.5 oz cans of Welches (recommended by Arpolis in this thread) and no sugar, top off to 1 gallon. Works great.
  • Rubber Stopper - Buy new ones. If they are giving off flavors then maybe they need to be replaced. If it's from the yeast then using a better yeast will help. I like the 71B after a couple batches for a nice round flavor that does well at higher temps.

Simple wines take simple steps. Just don't over-look them.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the responce, really appreciate it a lot. The stoppers are brand new. The yeast was montrchet for those 3 batchs but I picked up some k1-v1116 for the next attempts. I also grabbed some sparklloid. Basically they just have a watered down flavor, so I may save them for topping, or back sweeten with more welches. I did read somewhere where a guy was using 4 cans of welches and also got good results for 1 gallon batches, so I grabbed 4 today, and will also try some light oak chips on the next batch. I also need to do 1straight up version of welches minus the extra fruit. I like your idea of making it stronger.
 
With oak in this "class" of wine you are really just looking to add some tannins to round things out. You can also use tannin powder or even easier some tea as recommended in that other recipe.
 

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