Adding Absolutely No Water To The Wine Kit?

[Pooshka4]

To start off... I have searched all over the internet to find the answer to my question... "What if I do not add any water to my wine kit?" And I have found no forum related to this topic. So I decided to start my own thread.

Now, I know that the wine kits in stores sell the concentrated grape juice with all the water or almost all the water removed from the juice but I was wondering what would happen if I added the yeast to the concentrated grape juice without mixing it with any water as indicated in the wine kit instructions? Has anyone ever tried? Or is the water important? If adding water is important, what is the minimum amount of water that I would need to add in order for the wine kit to work?

I understand that the more water you mix in with the wine kit, the more diluted it becomes... So I'm guessing this should work since it would just be pure, non-diluted grape juice, right?

I've got a 7L wine kit and I use 750ml wine bottles. I know that I would only make about 9 bottles of wine without adding water to the kit as oppose to 25-30 bottles of wine if mixing it with water, but I'm curious if the wine would taste better, worse, or would nothing other than the quantity of wine change?

I have made wine several times and each time I make it, I do something that isn't on the instructions manual. So, now I got a new wine kit from store and this new idea. If anyone could give me some expert advise before I get started, it would be much appreciated.

Thank you

P.S. I've marked all my questions in red for your convenience.

 

[BobF]

If the yeast could handle the high concentrations of sugar and acids, and that's a BIG if, you would end up with a very sweet, high acid, high alcohol wine.

Or something like that ...

 

[dralarms]

To start off... I have searched all over the internet to find the answer to my question... "What if I do not add any water to my wine kit?" And I have found no forum related to this topic. So I decided to start my own thread.

Now, I know that the wine kits in stores sell the concentrated grape juice with all the water or almost all the water removed from the juice but I was wondering what would happen if I added the yeast to the concentrated grape juice without mixing it with any water as indicated in the wine kit instructions? Has anyone ever tried? Or is the water important? If adding water is important, what is the minimum amount of water that I would need to add in order for the wine kit to work?

I understand that the more water you mix in with the wine kit, the more diluted it becomes... So I'm guessing this should work since it would just be pure, non-diluted grape juice, right?

I've got a 7L wine kit and I use 750ml wine bottles. I know that I would only make about 9 bottles of wine without adding water to the kit as oppose to 25-30 bottles of wine if mixing it with water, but I'm curious if the wine would taste better, worse, or would nothing other than the quantity of wine change?

I have made wine several times and each time I make it, I do something that isn't on the instructions manual. So, now I got a new wine kit from store and this new idea. If anyone could give me some expert advise before I get started, it would be much appreciated.

Thank you

P.S. I've marked all my questions in red for your convenience.

Well if you don't add any water it will be really strong . Wine kits are supposed to be balanced so if you don't follow the instructions it might not turn out. If you are wanting more flavor then get some fruit or concentrate of the same type and make a "f" ( flavor) pack. It would serve you better than not adding any water.

 

[Minnesotamaker]

What are you trying to do? Make Frankenwine?

First off, the juice in a wine kit has had some of the water removed. When you add water back in, it should be reconstituting it back to the original full strength juice.

Without water, there would be some things out of whack. Your sugar would be really high. Maybe too high for the yeast to ferment, and if the yeast could ferment some of it, it wouldn't be able to ferment it all; so even if you did this experiment, you might end up with a small amount of wine, with a high alcohol content, and and lots of left over sugar.....blech.

Your acid will also be out of balance since it is also at concentrated levels. I'm not sure what the sulfite levels are in juice right out of the bag, but it could be high enough to give your yeast problems. Between the elevated sugar, acid, and sulfites, it might not ferment at all.

In my opinion, you'll be wasting the money you spent on the kit. If you want to experiment with this kit, I'd recommend just cutting some of the water. For instance, make your kit into 5 gallons of wine instead of 6.

 

[grapeman]

Lon is right on with his comments. You don't end up with pure juice, you end up with pure juice concentrate. Follow the directions, just don't add more water than recommended.

 

[Bartman]

What are you trying to do? Make Frankenwine?

In my opinion, you'll be wasting the money you spent on the kit. If you want to experiment with this kit, I'd recommend just cutting some of the water. For instance, make your kit into 5 gallons of wine instead of 6.

I'm with Lon on this one. This is not a good plan.

I have made the cheaper 10-L kits into 5.5 gal. instead of the directions' 6 gal. and was not satisfied. It was a little syrupy - the flavor was okay (not as intense as I had hoped but avoiding the dilution of adding all the water), but the mouthfeel was off. Then, a couple months later, I tasted someone else's red wine that had been made from a kit into 5 gal. instead of 6 gal. - horrible! Very syrupy and not good flavor. Strangely, he thought it was really good and was quite proud of it. I tried not to burst his bubble, and quietly poured out the rest of the glass...

If you just want to run an experiment to see if it can be done, then have fun, but don't expect to drink it.

 

[DoctorCAD]

The juice I have shows 68 brix, regular juice is in the high 20's.

Do you make your Duncan Hinze cake mix without water, too?

 

[cpfan]

Pooshk4:

I hope that the previous comments have discouraged you from your plan. However, I would like to add a suggestion that somebody else originally made in response to a similar question.

Go to the grocery store. Buy a can of frozen orange juice concentrate. Let it defrost. Drink it. Did you enjoy it? How was the acidity?

I'm pretty sure that it would be awful.

Steve

 

[Pooshka4]

Thank you everyone for your replies. This is exactly what I wanted to know.
I hope that now if anyone else out there was ever wondering the same question could find this thread on here.

Pooshka4

 

[hisse]

I hate to resurrect a thread here but I just wanted to play devils advocate and add to this a separate opinion, Icewine is normally made from must at about 35-45* brix, this is achieved by leaving the grapes til it's around -9* C and then pressed while the water is frozen to get what is essentially concentrated grape juice. On top of the 35-45* brix of sugar you also find a TA between 9-11g/L.

The problem that most people would be running into would be an issue of yeast selection, Standard yeasts don't ferment very well in sugar levels that high if at all. Also Ice wines normally top out in the 9-10% Alcohol range.

So all this being said there is no particular reason you couldn't make a desert wine provided you used a variety with high acidity to balance the sugar and if needed added a bit of water to get the sugar level in the range of 35-45* brix. There's no guarantee this would work as the concentrate is made a bit differently but it's surely a valid theory.

 

[Bartman]

So all this being said there is no particular reason you couldn't make a desert wine provided you used a variety with high acidity to balance the sugar and if needed added a bit of water to get the sugar level in the range of 35-45* brix. There's no guarantee this would work as the concentrate is made a bit differently but it's surely a valid theory.

You might be right about the sugar content and figuring out some way to get a yeast to ferment at least some of the sugar, but that's actually the second-biggest problem I see with this 'idea'. The big problem is the syrupy/high viscosity of the concentrated juice - icewine is not made with the concentrated juice from a kit, although the grapes used may be somewhat raisined, I suppose. The biggest problem I see with this plan, as I described is that the finished product is far too thick for any kind of "wine" and just tastes/feels weird in your mouth.