Beginning questions!

[WizarfWine]

Hello, I have made wine before a long time ago with my dad but it was just Welch's grape juice and it turned out alright. This time, I'm making some Prosecco for my friend's wedding gift and I bought a Prosecco Base. I'm not much of a wine person and therefore I don't know much about Prosecco save for the fact it's a white wine.

It's a base to make 5 gallons of wine but I wanted to make 6 gallons to account for how much I'll lose when I decant it. The lady at the wine store said I could use frozen white grape juice concentrate to top it off in a sense but I just can't find that anywhere. Would it be a sin in the winemaking/winedrinking world to use Apple Juice in with the Prosecco? (For a bit of a fruitier Prosecco? I know Sangria has a fruitier profile.)

Please be gentle on me, thank you!

 

[winemaker81]

Welcome to WMT!

Winemaking is mostly about what winemaker wants ... which doesn't always turn out as expected. Narrowing the gap between what ya want and what ya get comes with experience, although asking questions so as to live vicariously through the mistakes of others is a wise choice.

Adding apple juice to extend the batch is fine, but it will change the flavor. If the recipient is expecting the wine to taste like commercial Prosecco, well, it will be different.

Prosecco is a sparkling wine -- is that what you're making?

 

[WizarfWine]

Welcome to WMT!

Winemaking is mostly about what winemaker wants ... which doesn't always turn out as expected. Narrowing the gap between what ya want and what ya get comes with experience, although asking questions so as to live vicariously through the mistakes of others is a wise choice.

Adding apple juice to extend the batch is fine, but it will change the flavor. If the recipient is expecting the wine to taste like commercial Prosecco, well, it will be different.

Prosecco is a sparkling wine -- is that what you're making?

That's fair! Perhaps, as this base was awfully expensive, I won't adulterate the flavor as that's kinda the entire reason I paid so much!

It is a sparkling wine, I hear! This is my plan to make it sparkly, I'd like to know what you think about it: I have a yeast good for whites that will die out around 14% alcohol. Wanting a sweet wine, I'll make sure it's got enough sugar to make a higher alcohol content. When the initial yeast dies out and I'm left with a sweet and "flat" prosecco, I'll then add a little wine yeast for champagnes (I think it goes up to 18%? But I am under the impression that the pressure would kill the yeast early) and then bottle the wine in Sparkling Grape Juice bottles (image attached) and let the yeast finish itself off due to pressure.

That's my plan in a nutshell, have you any experience or heard of something similar that speaks to the veracity of my idea?

Again, thank you for the warm welcome and your time! I appreciate you greatly!

 

[vinny]

I have never made a sparkling wine other than adding CO2, so others will have to chime in to give you clear direction. By base, do you mean you bought a Prosecco wine kit, or just a Prosecco concentrate?

kits come with potassium metabisulphite (K-meta) and sorbate. K-meta will stabilize the wine. Protect it from oxygen, and sorbate inhibits yeast production to be able to back sweeten the wine without restarting fermentation. If you add sorbate at the wrong time, natural carbonation is out the window.

If you want to add a champagne yeast after the initial yeast has reached it's limits, it will consume the sugar you added to sweeten the wine. You may end up with sparkling wine, but it will be dry if there is not enough residual sugar to feed the yeast. You could also end up with an 18% wine if there is enough sugar for the yeast to keep feeding. Stressing the first yeast to it's max ABV can also lead to off flavors.

You will need 'champagne bottles to withstand the pressure of a carbonated wine. From what I understand the easiest way to carbonate is in the bottle which I believe is accomplished by a sugar tablet added to a dry wine to reactivate the yeast still in suspension and produce CO2 in the bottle.

You can also force carbonate with CO2 which might be easier for a sweet wine.

I am not versed in this and I am not trying to dissuade you, but you are aiming for a more involved process than basic wine. Basic wine recipe failure involves a moderate to boring wine. A failed Prosecco recipe can end up in exploded bottles and a giant mess. It can be avoided with the right steps, so my recommendation is to be sure that your steps and required equipment are clear before proceeding.

Welcome to PT. Proceed with great enthusiasm and caution.

 

[vinny]

From a quick search. Again not to dissuade you, you can either shift your techniques to reach your goals, or decide that a dry Prosecco sounds MUCH more sophisticated!

Making a sweet sparking wine is something that the home winemaker can not do in a practical manner, and in fact, can be dangerous, if attempted and done incorrectly!
The real issue is that the amount of sparkle or CO2 gas in the wine is controlled by how much sugar it has at bottling time. Once bottled, sugars are fermented into more alcohol and CO2 gas. The CO2 gas provides the carbonation — the sparkle. This is why your sparkling wine ended up dry. The sweetness was spent on the sparkle.
If you try to compensate for the sparkle by adding even more sugar, then you’ve entered the danger zone. The yeast can create much more pressure than any Champagne bottle can hold, if given the opportunity. The result can easily be exploding Champagne bottles — something you do not want to be anywhere near when they go off. This is not how to make sweet sparking wine.
This brings up the question then: “Well then, how do the commercial wineries make sweet sparkling wines?” The answer is simple. They start by making a sweet wine. Then they stabilize it through both preservatives and very fine filtration to remove the wine yeast. Then they force-carbonate the wine with CO2 gas under pressure.
Force-carbonating the wine with CO2 gas is done by chilling the wine down to just above freezing. This causes the wine to be able to absorb CO2 gas more readily. Then the CO2 gas is charged or forced into the sweet wine.

 

[WizarfWine]

I have never made a sparkling wine other than adding CO2, so others will have to chime in to give you clear direction. By base, do you mean you bought a Prosecco wine kit, or just a Prosecco concentrate?

kits come with potassium metabisulphite (K-meta) and sorbate. K-meta will stabilize the wine. Protect it from oxygen, and sorbate inhibits yeast production to be able to back sweeten the wine without restarting fermentation. If you add sorbate at the wrong time, natural carbonation is out the window.

If you want to add a champagne yeast after the initial yeast has reached it's limits, it will consume the sugar you added to sweeten the wine. You may end up with sparkling wine, but it will be dry if their is not enough residual sugar to feed the yeast. You could also end up with an 18% wine if their is enough sugar for the yeast to keep feeding. Stressing the first yeast to it's max ABV can also lead to off flavors.

You will need 'champagne bottles to withstand the pressure of a carbonated wine. From what I understand the easiest way to carbonate is in the bottle which I believe is accomplished by a sugar tablet added to a dry wine to reactivate the yeast still in suspension and produce CO2 in the bottle.

You can also force carbonate with CO2 which might be easier for a sweet wine.

I am not versed in this and I am not trying to dissuade you, but you are aiming for a more involved process than basic wine. Basic wine recipe failure involves a moderate to boring wine. A failed Prosecco recipe can end up in exploded bottles and a giant mess. It can be avoided with the right steps, so my recommendation is to be sure that your steps and required equipment are clear before proceeding.

Welcome to PT. Proceed with great enthusiasm and caution.

Splendid! Very good information! At some point after I finish the base part of my wine, I may inquire about CO2 process for carbonation as that could be more reliable I bet!

It's just a Prosecco concentrate, comes in a white gallon bottle. I am not at all dissuaded in any bad form of the word! This is all great to be armed with! I'll continue researching carbonation techniques as I start and finish the regular fermentation of this wine and if all else comes to naught, I'll just do some experimentation by setting the aforementioned process of the champagne yeast in the finished Prosecco in a bottle, cap it, and store it in a 5 Gallon pail so if it explodes it doesn't make a huge mess haha

 

[Ohio Bob]

Prosecco is said to have lemon, citrus, green apple and pear flavors. You could add all of these to bump the 5g to 6g. In fact, any one could overwhelm the final flavor so adding all might balance everything out.

You said this is for a wedding? Expect to bulk age for a minimum of 6 months.

 

[vinny]

Splendid! Very good information! At some point after I finish the base part of my wine, I may inquire about CO2 process for carbonation as that could be more reliable I bet!

It's just a Prosecco concentrate, comes in a white gallon bottle. I am not at all dissuaded in any bad form of the word! This is all great to be armed with! I'll continue researching carbonation techniques as I start and finish the regular fermentation of this wine and if all else comes to naught, I'll just do some experimentation by setting the aforementioned process of the champagne yeast in the finished Prosecco in a bottle, cap it, and store it in a 5 Gallon pail so if it explodes it doesn't make a huge mess haha

Things are pretty straight forward for now. Yeast, water, concentrate, sugar, and time. Have fun!

I was wondering if you could enlist the help of a local brew shop. Some that make wine on site have carbonating equipment. A small fee to reach your goals might remove the concerns listed above and make it a simpler achievement.

 

[BarrelMonkey]

Welcome! I think you're being quite ambitious trying to make a sparkling wine as your first effort. However, it can be done and personally I think it's a lot of fun.

Please don't use those sparkling grape juice bottles unless you're sure you know what you're doing and you know you will only have a low level of carbonation. People make jokes about exploding bottles, but in reality it's quite dangerous. Real champagne has up to 6atm pressure in the bottle - 90 psi, or almost 3x what's in your car tires...

To make your sparkling wine you have several options. The easiest, as @vinny says above, is to introduce CO2 in a pressurized vessel. When you bottle, you will lose a bit of the pressure but there will still be enough dissolved CO2 in the wine to make the bottles fizzy. For bottle carbonation you have 2 choices - pet-nat or champagne/traditional method. For pet-nat, you bottle the wine before it's finished fermenting, so fermentation finishes in the sealed bottle and produces CO2/bubbles. It's relatively easy, but there is some ambiguity in when you should bottle the wine since you don't know exactly what the final SG will be. Bottle too early and you'll have exploding bottles; too late and you risk anemic levels of carbonation. For Champagne/traditional method you first make a dry base wine then add sugar and yeast culture at bottling. This gives you more control over the secondary fermentation. For both pet-nat and champagne methods you can either just serve the wine as it is (of course it will be cloudy due to the yeast) or you can riddle and disgorge, which yields clear non-yeasty wine. At this stage you can also add dosage, ie sugar which will give the wine some residual sweetness.

If you search this site for sparkling, you'll find a bunch of threads describing various ways of making sparkling wine. Here is a link to the blanc de noir that I made in 2022, and this post (and the one following it) has some more general information about making sparkling wine. Feel free to ask questions - there is a lot of collective wisdom here in the winemakingtalk community!

 

[winemaker81]

I'll just do some experimentation by setting the aforementioned process of the champagne yeast in the finished Prosecco in a bottle, cap it, and store it in a 5 Gallon pail so if it explodes it doesn't make a huge mess

We're not talking about "making a mess". We're talking about making a grenade. As in "BOOM!" with glass flying at high speed.

One of our members posted this last fall:



He wasn't making a sparkling wine, he was just storing excess wine in a bottle. However, the ferment was not fully complete, pressure built up, and exploded the bottle.

I know several people who had bottles explode -- fortunately, none with injuries. However, that's simple good luck since people have been maimed or killed by exploding bottles.

Glass containers are either rated for a specific pressure, or they are unrated. Unrated bottles are not safe for any pressure, as the picture illustrates.

A rated bottle is designed to handle up to a specified pressure, which varies by container. Commercial sparkling juices handle low pressure. Beer bottles vary a lot, depending on the type of beer. Champagne bottles can typically handle double what a beer bottle can.

A bottle in good condition will be safe up to the rated pressure. Beyond that, the glass may fail at the weakest point(s). As in "BOOM!"

This is a bad area for experimentation.