Limited Resources Wine Making

[RoyalFe]

Limited Resources Wine Making
OK, I’m a cheap SOG but that’s not the kind of resources I'm referring to.
The issue I have is limited sources for equipment and supplies. I have been able to find only instant and sketchy dry yeast. No airlocks, hydrometers, Campden tabs, potassium whatever, pectin, finings, bungs, tubing, brewers or wine yeast, but plastic carboys everywhere, but thought I would give it a shot anyway. NO INTERNET sources as I can't have it shipped to where I'm located. I have brewed many beers in the past and understand some of the process of fermentation but I have never made wine. Any suggestions or ideas for equipment and supplies would be appreciated.

I started a batch of wine last week in a 5L (about 1 gal) plastic water jug to experiment with. I cannot measure SG to start or finish, probably need a license to have a hydrometer here. Is there a formula I can use with the nutrition information to figure out a ball park SG to be able to add sugar to make my final SG reasonable? I just guessed at it from jailhouse or inmate method. The label on the juice showed per 100ml Energy…292Kj / 70 Kcal. Is there a conversion to figure a rough SG for that?

I used 4L of the grape juice and 2.5 cups or about 500g of table sugar. The yeast I could find was instant and used just over one teaspoon. My Must....primary fermentation mix...is rocking and at first had a "bready" smell like pizza dough, now the CO2 has the sweet scent of C2H5OH. The mix isn’t foaming much and is still sizzling away.
How long should this take to finish? ie: when can I drink it!
What can I use to substitute for Campden tablets?
Is Campden in other products I can glean it out of?
Should I really care if the wine is cloudy?
Can I bottle this in Grolsch style swing top bottles with no problems?
Picture of supplies + first batch:

 

[tkmorgan]

According to google, a cup of sugar is 773 calories. So maybe a way to think of it is 70 calories = 1/10th of a cup. From there, I have seen estimates of how much a cup of sugar increases sg, but I'm sure this is wildly inaccurate. Of course I am curious if the moderators will kill this post, considering its nature.

 

[JohnT]

To answer some of your questions..

You can drink it any time. In Europe, wine that is still fermenting is considered a fall treat. Considering that you have no k-meta, no fermentation traps, no acid or acid test kits, I would drink it as soon as possible. Do not worry about it being cloudy.

You can bottle using grolsch type bottles, but as it will be a new wine, you do have a risk of the bottles exploding due to the amount of CO2 pressure created by the yeast.

I do not know of any substitute for campden tablets except for the powdered form (potassium metabisulfate).

Sounds to me like this is not legal in your area. Be careful.

 

[Bailey]

Fermcalc is very helpful in conversions, adding sugar to a specific sg, etc... If the juice you buy is labeled as to how much sugar it includes, you can use that as the starting point and go from there to a desired sg. Fermcalc = http://web2.airmail.net/sgross/fermcalc/ from google. Works as a download or online.

 

[BernardSmith]

Royalfe, Hi. I agree with JohnT. Be careful.

I think I can provide you with some information.
Four liters is about 1 US Gallon.


Using ktmorgan's estimation, one liter of of your grape juice contains about 700 cals from sugar and 700 cals of sugar is about 1 cup. So 4 liters = 4 cups of sugar. Four cups of sugar = about 2 lbs. You say you added another 500 gms of sugar. That is equivalent to a heavy lb, so your gallon of wine contains about 3 lbs of fermentable sugar in total and 3 lbs of sugar would suggest a gravity of about 1.120 which will result in a maximum ABV of about 15.6%.

If you are using bread yeast it is likely the yeast will give up the ghost before all the sugar has fermented leaving you with a sweet wine at less than 15 % alcohol.
If you can find a child's balloon I would puncture that with a pin and use the balloon as an airlock. The CO2 will be expelled through that pin hole and the CO2 being expelled will prevent air from entering. When the balloon collapses the fermentation will have more or less finished producing CO2. If you cannot find a balloon you might use cling film (saran wrap) or a small plastic bag (sandwich size) that you attach with rubber bands. They still need a pin hole.

I would transfer the wine into another clean container after about a month

If the grape juice was produced commercially then it is likely to be sufficiently sanitized so you are not going to need campden tabs (or SO2 at the start of fermentation) but the lifetime of your wine may be short because you don't have anything to prevent oxidation over time. I would be concerned about the CO2 absorbed in the wine and so I would store the wine in a fridge. If you don't have a good way to whip the CO2 out of the wine I would store the wine in plastic soda bottles. If they don't expand and become rigid after a month or so, I think I would be comfortable re-bottling the wine in glass bottles with Grolsch stoppers. If you are sure that there is no significant CO2 in the wine and you know how to do this >>> SAFELY <<<I might pasteurize the wine just in case some of the yeast survives and starts refermenting in the bottles...
But be careful. Making alcohol in societies that view alcohol as an abomination may result in severe punishment.

 

[RoyalFe]

Thanks for the information. Ill play around with the fermcalc and see what batch 2 will need, rather not be a sweet wine, prefer dry but won't be critical something is better then nothing. Shelf life won't be an issue, my neighbors will help make sure of that.
Ill try the cling wrap and a pin that's a great idea. Probably will rack it at least once thn bottle and put in the fridge, it won't last long after that anyway.

Thanks again, been enjoying reading the old topics and looking at the pictures posted also. Pretty sweet forum.

 

[jamesngalveston]

where in the world are you that you cant get supplies on line.

 

[BernardSmith]

where in the world are you that you cant get supplies on line.

James... If you order something online and that something has to be imported then local customs officials get involved. I teach at the state university in NY and if a student is taking an online class in certain countries we know that they will not receive certain books they order for certain courses. Customs can and does block their distribution..and sometimes knocks (rather heavy handedly if not brutally) on their door... They have the address of the would be recipient, after all. It's on the shipping label.

 

[Stressbaby]

where in the world are you that you cant get supplies on line.

Given that pic, my guess is Saudi Arabia

RoyalFe,
I use Winecalc, which is free online. You can get pretty close to a SG from the grams of sugar on the label followed by a little math.