My wine overflowed

[Kpassa]

I make test batches of wine in a 2.5 gallon spring water jug, 2 gallons of juice, sugar and yeast. If I like the way it comes out then I make a regular 5 gallon batch. Sometimes I use it when I want to make a small batch of something. This was the case when I made my latest batch, Grape / Black Cherry wine.

I was looking in the clearance section of my local Krogers and found 3 packs of Red Star platinum superior baking yeast for 69 cents, a great deal on a known good quality brand. I figured that it may not come out as strong alcohol-wise as their wine yeast but it should still work okay for what I was doing. So I mixed up my batch, set it aside with a coffee filter over the top of the bottle and went about my business.

About 24 hours later I checked on it and there was dried wine all over the counter. It had foamed up so much it overflowed and made a hellacious mess. In about a dozen small batches with both bread and wine yeasts I had never seen anything like it.

So my question is what overflowed on me? Is that foam part of the stuff that eventually would have ended up on the bottom of the jug as silt? Or was it the part that would have ended up as alcohol, leading to a less potent wine? A combination of both?

 

[Rocky]

I would guess that it was mostly the foam from the gasses generated by the yeast. You can probably tell by the amount of liquid that was lost. If you recorded or remember where the liquid level was prior to adding the yeast, you can estimate how much wine was lost. I suggest that when you add yeast to juice, sugar and water, that you have a very wide mouthed fermenter so that the gas generated can readily escape. If you read or hear of the "wine volcano" that is what you generated. In the long run, I don't think it will have a major detrimental effect on your wine.

 

[Tom_S]

Some yeasts foam up more than others. Pasteur Red is notorious for creating large amounts of foam. Seems like there's another one I use that foams up high but I can't remember right now. I don't know what Red Star bread yeast does, but it would appear that in wine it's a high foaming yeast.

Personally I'd never use bread yeast for wine, but to each his/her own.

 

[Kpassa]

My wines fall more into the category of Pruno than fancy. I only use bottled juices that I find on sale in my local stores and rarely are they 100% juice of anything. More often they are blends of apple, grape, pear and whatever flavor the company is trying to push. I do get 100% juice (the batch that just overflowed is one of those) but I also get juices that contain either beet or cane sugar. I did try one with high fructose corn syrup once but it was one of my first tries and I won't do that again. I don't use a hydrometer, even though I have 2 of them. Instead I go by a chart that says if your juice contains X amount of sugar per liter and you want it to get to Y% ABV add Z amount of sugar to the mix. It goes from grocery store to fermentation to bottled back into the original 64-ounce plastic bottles in less than 3 weeks. Wine yeast (as opposed to bread yeast) isn't going to make it any better, only stronger.

 

[Tom_S]

Sounds like what you're making is hooch instead of wine. You'll get a much better wine when using only 100% juice and wine yeast. The wine yeast won't necessarily make it stronger, but it will give it better taste. Avoid using any juice that has the word "cocktail" or "drink" on the label, since they'll be anywhere from maybe 25% on down to 5% actual juice, with the rest being food coloring, artificial flavoring, and high fructose corn syrup. And best to use a hydrometer every time, since you probably won't ever know for sure how much sugar is in your juice. Then let age for months instead of just 3 weeks. I suppose using the original juice jugs is OK, but I prefer to store in bottles.

 

[Vertumnus]

I wouldn't recommend putting the wine back into the plastic container as the acids and alcohol of the wine can leach hazardous compounds from the plastic if it's not of the correct food grade. I believe that's why one shouldn't use 5 gallon water jugs as opposed to Better Bottles.