Hi, I am a wine maker from India

[M dubey]

I am from India and making homemade wines and mead for past 6-7 years. until recently I don't even have access to wine yeast. I use to mature baker's yeast in fruit juice for a week and then use to start to start a new culture from this yeast in fresh juice. After consecutively followiing the same process for 4-5 times. I generally had yeast strong enough to deal with high alcohol.Now wine yeast is available but, its overpriced because of import duties. For a packet of 5 5g small pack of redstar or lalvin wine yeast I end up paying close to $18-25. which leave little room for other additives. Besides I want to use as little chemical in my wine and mead as possible. I am looking for natural substitute of pectolase, tanin and yeast nutrient. Can somebody guide me in this.

 

[beano]

Hello@m dubey!​

Welcome to the forums. I gave used papaya skins as a substitute for pectin enzyme(pectolase) for clearing.
Some might laugh but I also use powdered infant formula as yeast nutrient. (New granddaughter). I hope we gave not become gender neutral here as I don't want to be offensive. Also bananas for tannin and body. As well as oak wood and grape skins and seeds if available.
Others here might tell you more hopefully.
Once again, greetings.
Big Joe.

 

[BernardSmith]

Hi M dubey , and welcome. You might use a cup of strong black tea for tannin and for yeast nutrient you could do worse than boiling some bread yeast. As for wine yeast, this may not be what you are looking for but most fruit is naturally covered in yeast and you might gently cultivate this yeast from different batches of fruit tasting the results and slowly increasing the gravity of the test batches until you find a yeast that meets the criteria you are looking for. So, for example, a few days ago I created a starter using enough sugar added to some spring water to give me a gravity of about 1.040 to which I added about 1 pint (about 1/2 L) of blueberries I bought from the supermarket. These berries were covered in yeast (the bloom) and the yeast has been gorging on the sugars. Going to smell, taste and measure the starter tonight (it's not meant to be a wine) and if it looks OK (and the gravity is close to 1.000 then I will harvest the yeast and repeat the process this time a) without the berries and b) increasing the gravity by say 20 points (to 1.060) and so I will be "selecting" the wild yeast to look for a colony that provides flavors (and mouthfeel) I like with the ability to ferment (ultimately) to about 12% ABV . The price of this unique-to-me colony will be the price of the blueberries - which the way they looked this morning could still be eaten either raw or cooked.. Good luck!

 

[Yogi]

Hi Dubey ji

You can go for a pack of 10 satchet of Redstar Premier Cuvee. It will cost you about Rs 2000/-. This way, one sachet will cost you just Rs 200/-.
Each sachet can make 5 to 6 gallons of batch.

Redstar has 4 or 5 other strains too. But I recommend this keeping in mind your need for high ABV%. It gives 18% Abv, and can function in a very wide range of temperature - 7 to 35 degrees Centigrade. Best part is that it doesn't seem to leave off flavours.

I haven't tried it yet but this what the literature and blogsites are telling consistently. I wonder that why did Lalvin 1118 became so popular when Premier Cuvee can do all what the former can.

If you still don't want to buy a full pack of 10 then another way seems to be resorting to yeast washing and harvesting. You can buy one sachet, and keep harvesting from the lees. Literature says that you can do it for 10 successive batches.

Another suggestion is that you buy yeast from a website called arishtam.com. It is an online homebrew shop in India. They are claiming to have good wine yeast, cultured particularly for hot climates of Asia, with 15 ABV%.