# Grape-Apple Wine



## Old Philosopher (Oct 5, 2017)

I've searched for 1/2 hour and drawn a blank, so this might be the forum to ask.

My wife made a gallon of "Country Wine" last year:
1/3 gallon crushed grapes
1/3 gallon apple peels
2 cups white sugar
Topped with filtered water.
Let sit 6 months, stirred 2x per month
Filtered
Cleared
Racked.
She LOVED it!

Now she wants me to make something 'legitimate" that resembles the flavor.
Does ANYBODY have a clue for the proper ration of crushed white grapes to apples, weight-wise? Volume, if I use straight juice of both apples and grapes?

I can wing it, but I'm looking for anyone with any experience mixing these two.
Thanks in advance.


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## salcoco (Oct 6, 2017)

I would make a separate wine from the grapes and the apple juice. use formulated yeast in each at proper specific gravity.once wine is clear post fermentation explore different ratio blends in a bench trial to the taste profile you are looking for. you can also use sugar syrup to sweeten end result with the same bench trial.


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## Old Philosopher (Oct 6, 2017)

salcoco said:


> I would make a separate wine from the grapes and the apple juice. use formulated yeast in each at proper specific gravity.once wine is clear post fermentation explore different ratio blends in a bench trial to the taste profile you are looking for. you can also use sugar syrup to sweeten end result with the same bench trial.



That makes the most sense, and the method I would like to use. Finish each to its own, and then create a "blend" of the two.

I usually use Premier Cuvee for my apple, and EC-1118 for my grape. DW knows nothing of my process, nor the properties of different yeasts. She relies upon wild yeast on the fruit in her "jug wine". Some is delicious (apple-grape), some kicks like a mule (raspberry-apricot) and some comes out like kerosene (chokecherry-hawthorn). No controls on the resulting ABV.

I don't need to experiment with back sweetening. She prefers a dry wine, and I like sweet, so we've compromised on a finished SG of 1.012. Since I found the FermCalc program, there's no guess work.

Thanks for the input.


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## salcoco (Oct 6, 2017)

If you do acid adjustment use malic acid for the apple and tartaric for the grape. each is the predominate natural acid for each. I would adjust the apple sg to 1080 and the grape to 1090 good luck another good wine to blend with apple is pear.


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## Old Philosopher (Oct 6, 2017)

All I have is "acid blend" and citric acid. I should get more into the whole acid thing, I guess. But all I really do is apple, Italian plum, and grapes. I have one of those acid test kits, but never took the time to learn to use it properly. I got that when I was trying to lean how to make vinegar from scratch.


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## meadmaker1 (Oct 7, 2017)

She loved it
Isnt that the goal
Did you take good enough notes to do it again. 
The advice ive read here is more likely tne time tested methods but you have likely stumbled onto some thing. I see folks adding grape juice to all kinds of country fruit wines. Why not use fruit, especially if you have had positive results. 
Seperate batches I suppose may be more predictable ?


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## Old Philosopher (Oct 7, 2017)

meadmaker1 said:


> She loved it
> Isnt that the goal
> Did you take good enough notes to do it again.
> The advice ive read here is more likely tne time tested methods but you have likely stumbled onto some thing. I see folks adding grape juice to all kinds of country fruit wines. Why not use fruit, especially if you have had positive results.
> Seperate batches I suppose may be more predictable ?


Notes? What are those? I asked her about ratio of grapes to apple peels and got yelled at. Says she's not as anal as I am.  Then some comment about the Romans not worrying about SG and acid.


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## meadmaker1 (Oct 8, 2017)

Im pretty sure the romans figured out some times good some times not. 
And that thats how we got to the 10, 000 varieties available today. 
But LOL I take bullet proof notes that I seldom understand in the end.


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## Old Philosopher (Oct 8, 2017)

I take meticulous notes now, and all my adventures are recorded in Excel, with SG charts over time, etc...blah...blah. 
But I learned to do that the hard way. Now DW tells me my first Italian prune-plum wine was delicious, and has never been the same.
I went back to my first batch notes.  All it says is "7# sugar; bread yeast."

Maybe the bread yeast was the key?  The last batch I shared, I caught one of the guests pouring it out of his glass over the porch railing, after telling me how good it was. 

I have 40 lbs of plums again this year, and not sure what to do with them.


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## meadmaker1 (Oct 8, 2017)

So learning the hard way lol
With the residual sugar you will undoubtedly have, you must make sure fermentation is dun. 
Warm it up cool it down stir it and let it sit. 
Bottle bomb potential alert!!!!


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## Old Philosopher (Oct 8, 2017)

meadmaker1 said:


> So learning the hard way lol
> With the residual sugar you will undoubtedly have, you must make sure fermentation is dun.
> Warm it up cool it down stir it and let it sit.
> Bottle bomb potential alert!!!!


I'm only had one bottle bomb in 8 years.
Unfortunately, it was 1 gallon jug of my prized raspberry!


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