Grape juice wine

[WaWa]

Hi all, I have 4 litres of 'drinking' dark grape juice with no additives (except vitamin c) (store bought) and I have an old recipe book that has a very simple recipe for grape and mixed berry wine, I'm keen to give it a go and would also like to try using oak chips in this one. When and how do I go about incorporating these in the must and what yeast would be best?
Is this wine likely to taste like a regular grape wine and what sg should I start with?
sorry about all the Q but the recipe tells me nothing except ingreds
which are:
1.3 kg blackberries
450g raspberries
400g currants or raisins
4 litres dark grape juice ( not concentrate)
yeast and nutrients
5 litres water

Thanks

 

[St Allie]

This is a 2 gallon recipe?

campden tabs and pectic enzyme are missing from the recipe,

You can add the oak during the fermentation or afterwards when bulk storing.. I used toasted oak on a berry port wine when bulk storing.. means you can keep a better eye on how much oak you are adding.. you can't take the oak flavour out once it's in there and it will need to cellar longer if you do add oak. Remember to leave room for the oak.. it takes up a bit of room.

If the brand of juice you are using is McCoys.. it ferments fine and tastes ok once fermented.. I used that one as the base for a tabasco chilli wine. It's still cellaring.. but not bad at all.. considering the dark grape juice is supposed to be a drinking juice.

Allie

 

[WaWa]

Thanks Allie,
It looks from the quantities that this will indeed make 2 gallons, so I'm thinking I could split into 2 x gallon jars and add oak chips to one only, to compare. the brand is Greenways, btw.
I love this winemaking lark, you never know what's around the bend do you?
Thanks for your help

 

[waynemart]

I've made a lot of good wine cheaply from store bought frozen concentrates. Bottled juices usually have a lot of perservatives and not enough sugar. Whites do best in the concentrates. I stay away from Welches Dark Grape because the wine ends up tasting just like the grape juice. I never liked Welches after taste. Everyone will comment about the similarity when you serve it. If you don't want to add sugar, it takes 22 cans per 5 gallons of most brands to get 1.110 SG. At $1.50 a can you will see the cost savings compared to kits. Just like the kits, I add bentonite during the primary fermentation as well as the usual pectic enzyme, campden tablets, yeast nutrient, and a teaspoon of acid blend. I use champagne yeast to get 18% alcohol in the whites. After two to three rackings and using clearing agents near the end, you can usually serve it in 60 days. I find the whites make a great tasty medium table wine and also work well for a topper-offer at racking times for all wines, white or dark.

 

[St Allie]

I've made a lot of good wine cheaply from store bought frozen concentrates. .

WAWA and I are in NZ Wayne,

We don't have access to the concentrates you guys have in the States.. we have to buy kits or juice or fresh fruit.

Allie

 

[Midwest Vintner]

we have to buy fresh fruit.

Allie

^there, fixed it. no problem with that. although, i'm not sure of how much variety you have there, but out here in MO, USA. we have many available fresh produce. makes great wine.

 

[St Allie]

^there, fixed it. no problem with that.


There fixed it?

no problem with that?


Allie

 

[waynemart]

WAWA and I are in NZ Wayne,

We don't have access to the concentrates you guys have in the States.. we have to buy kits or juice or fresh fruit.

Allie

Wow, New Zealand! I worked in Windy Wellington from 89 through 92 and remember the stores were lacking in things like frozen concentrates. Almost everything came fresh out of the gardens there and it wasn't easy to find everything you needed at just one place like here in the states. Kits are extremely expensive here so I can imagine how they must be there. Still, it is a cheaper way of getting good quality wine without buying it off the shelf. I've made wine from just about every type fruit there is. Of course it is less trouble if it is already in juice form and you don't have to dispose of all that leftover multch. Straight juices also clear quicker for bottling. You guys invented Kiwi which makes the best flavored wine I've ever had. The last ones I bought locally were $5 a pound. That makes five gallons come to about $90. I just bought a Kiwi fruit wine kit for $75. Have you tried making Kiwi wine yet?

 

[WaWa]

Yip
My 23 litres of Kiwifruit wine is the best wine I've made yet ( although at a recent blind tasting that Boozehag and I forced on a few of our friends my apple was rated better, but that's because it's gone fizzy in the bottle and tastes like Champers!!!)
It's even better coz the fruit was freeeeeee! I figure it cost me about 30c per bottle ( sugar, yeast etc) He He

 

[St Allie]

give grapefruit a try Wawa,

It makes a really nice, early drinking, dry white..

Wayne.. i have some kiwifruit in the freezer.. was going to just make a gallon for a test.. I made a melomel earlier this year.. it's still cellaring..hoping it will improve.

Allie

 

[WaWa]

That's a great idea, my folks have a tree full of them and no one wants them......Thanks Allie

 

[waynemart]

give grapefruit a try Wawa,

It makes a really nice, early drinking, dry white..

Wayne.. i have some kiwifruit in the freezer.. was going to just make a gallon for a test.. I made a melomel earlier this year.. it's still cellaring..hoping it will improve.

Allie

St Allie. I don't usually have luck with small one gallon batches. Seems the bigger the better for some reason. Grapefruit, hmmmmm.....? Someone once told me to stay away from the high acidic fruits like orange, lemon, and grapefruit, so I did. I did a large batch of pineapple and ended up throwing it out in the end. So, I've been sceptic about high acid juices. But, I'll take your word on it and try a five gallon experiment. Grapefruit are a dime a dozen here in Texas. So are blackberry. Now there is some good stuff! Allmost all store-bought juices we have here are mostly a mixture of cranberry and apple. Those, I find, make a good sparkling wine. Adding carbonation to wine is a whole new subject.

 

[St Allie]

Kiljoy posted his grapefruit wine recipe here..

http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3640

just realised I haven't posted my recipe for it.. Will do that today and pop back with the link for you..

Allie

 

[arcticsid]

WA, if you go with grapefruit or orange be careful. The only batch I ever dumped was orange. This is why. I bought a case pretty cheap, spent all night peeling them. Wizzed em around in the food processor. Was going great fast fermentation, good aroma. Where I went wrong, after they were peeled, there was still that thin white "skin/membrane" left on the "meat". It made the wine extremely bitter. If you go with the grapefruit or orange, for that matter, they need to be juiced, DO NOT use them with that white skin on them, it will realy be a dissappointment.
Troy

 

[St Allie]

link to my recipe..

http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5130

this uses juiced grapefruit.. and use a zesting tool or grater on the very fine side.. to avoid getting the white pith in the wine.

Allie

 

[arcticsid]

I'd like to try the orange again, now that I am a little more wise. I had a great feeling about it, I reall thought I had something going.

Alot of people don't realize that citrus fruit can be used to make wine. I'm not sure if Pineapple is considered citrus, but it too will make a nice wine.

 

[St Allie]

think that orange would be more difficult.. it'd oxidise a bit quicker.. I have visions of brown tinged wine..

I've got recipes for lemon wine as well.. made some and it was a pig to get it to ferment.. took me two days and two starters.. Once it was going though.. it was a foamer! hehehe... Sadly I oversweetened it so it's bulk stored and another batch of lemon will be made this week and I'll blend the two, to tone it down a bit.

The grapefruit fermented same day and was quick to finish and clear. I particularly like grapefruit.. that and cider are my favourites so far.. with the gorseflower wine looking very promising. Honeysuckle is in flower this week.. so am getting my buckets out again, at least I don't need gloves for honeysuckle.. the thorns on gorse are nasty.

Allie

 

[arcticsid]

I sure like that idea of lemon! To buy lemons here, PHEW!! Bought 1, ONE lemon the otherday. 89 cents, for 1. Sounds good though, I wish I could have someday a chance to try that, something about that sounds right.

The honeysuckle sounds exciting. I can't wait for spring to do the wild rose petal wine again.

I am SO envious of those of you that have availabilty of all these fruits and flowers.

But, no worry, if I ever find a way to ferment spruce needles, snow, or mosquitoes, you'll be the first to know.

 

[Midwest Vintner]

^there, fixed it. no problem with that.

There fixed it?

no problem with that?


Allie

fixed the part with "kits." no need when you can get juice or real fruit.

orange makes a pretty good wine. although mine was pineapple/orange, i could get a good orange flavor from it to give me an idea of what it's like. the kiwi sounds interesting to me. i will have to try it sometime.

 

[myakkagldwngr]

I made a Welch's Concorde grape just for S&G's. Was joking that I was making MD20 20.
I pulled one bottle out after it had femented and used it to figure the sugar to back sweeten it.
Well when I racked it to get rid of the sediment, it needed to be topped off. After adding the sugar, I also added two bottles of elderberry that was almost 6 months old.
It almost totally got rid of that Welch's after taste.
Next to my blackberry, this is the best of my wines so far.
I'm going to make another batch as soon as possible.