No wine yeast....

[thirrsty]

Thanks alot for the clarification. I was going to try the wine but.....if the yeast is still alive, won't it become a parasite but this time in the stomach?
How do I know that those bastards are dead? Boiling the wine doesn't sound like a good idea...

 

[Deezil]

Yeast wont hurt you... They're in wine, beer, breads..

 

[spaniel]

Thanks alot for the clarification. I was going to try the wine but.....if the yeast is still alive, won't it become a parasite but this time in the stomach?
How do I know that those bastards are dead? Boiling the wine doesn't sound like a good idea...

You consume live microbes all the time. As stated, live yeast is in a lot of things.

Your gut is full of bacteria which help you with digestion.

 

[thirrsty]

Finally tried the now 7 day wine, and sad to report that I might have added alot more sugar....
It had a sting to it though, the smell was ok but couldn't make out the taste as it was too thick from the sugar although its color did get clearer.
Don't know if it was the juice too or the hot weather (used a natural grape juice with no preservatives but reads keep refrigerated after opening).

 

[cohenhouse77]

I can't imagine trying wine after seven days expecting it to taste good or for the flavors to come forward. Even skeeter pee takes some time for flavors to come in front of alcohol.

The biggest thing I have learned since I started is that no matter what I am making, I have to be patient and prepared to leave it alone for as long as it takes. 7 day wine is store bought in bottles that take you a week to crack open.

 

[keena]

If you don't mind me asking, what country do you live in where it's illegal?

Also yeast in the stomach is not a problem, the flavor is what's scary. You have many things here that are goin to be off at this point in time.
1. Your using bakers yeast which will give a little but off flavor and probly a bread taste at an early stage while yeast is still floating all over.
2. Its lacking some ingredients that aren't needed but help give it that wine feel
3. It's early right now and all wine taste a little weird in early stages.

If you try it just remember it can get alot better with age. So dont dump it because it don't taste right if you try it.

 

[Jarocal]

If you read his situation in the first post long term aging is not likely. He's looking for something fast and easy like a jailhouse hooch. A science lab outlet would probably be able to sell him a hydrometer as all it does is measure sg in a liquid. In his situation the easiest thing to do would be to buy a half gallon or gallon bottle of room temperature grape juice, dissolve a cup or two of sugar in it, and dump in half a packet of bakers yeast. Screw the cap back on and shake it up really well. Slowly take the cap of to prevent it from foaming over and rubber band a latex glove over the opening. Hide/store it in dark place for about 3 weeks then carefully siphon or pour it into another clean bottle. Make sure to rinse out the yeast from the fermenting bottle before just tossing the bottle(no evidence). Will it be a world class wine? No. Will it give him and his buddies a buzz? Yes.

 

[spaniel]

If you read his situation in the first post long term aging is not likely. He's looking for something fast and easy like a jailhouse hooch. A science lab outlet would probably be able to sell him a hydrometer as all it does is measure sg in a liquid. In his situation the easiest thing to do would be to buy a half gallon or gallon bottle of room temperature grape juice, dissolve a cup or two of sugar in it, and dump in half a packet of bakers yeast. Screw the cap back on and shake it up really well. Slowly take the cap of to prevent it from foaming over and rubber band a latex glove over the opening. Hide/store it in dark place for about 3 weeks then carefully siphon or pour it into another clean bottle. Make sure to rinse out the yeast from the fermenting bottle before just tossing the bottle(no evidence). Will it be a world class wine? No. Will it give him and his buddies a buzz? Yes.

This is about as complex as you need to get with it, given the situation.

It is important to get juice with no preservatives. If they are added, it is likely potassium sorbate. This will make it difficult, but not impossible, to ferment. Back in the day the only cider I had access to had sorbate added. I got a gallon to ferment, adding 2 packets of bread yeast.

 

[BernardSmith]

more sugar added before fermenting will not add sweetness unless...

Finally tried the now 7 day wine, and sad to report that I might have added alot more sugar....
It had a sting to it though, the smell was ok but couldn't make out the taste as it was too thick from the sugar although its color did get clearer.
Don't know if it was the juice too or the hot weather (used a natural grape juice with no preservatives but reads keep refrigerated after opening).

Not sure I understand the problem you mention. If you used a yeast that could not ferment out all the sugars in the wine then the wine would be sweet but not very alcoholic. If the yeast COULD ferment all the sugar (not sure that bread yeast will survive in a liquid with 7 or 8 percent alcohol) and did, then the wine would have more alcohol but not taste sweet. The way to sweeten a wine that the yeast has converted all the sugars to alcohol is to either to prevent them from converting added sugar to alcohol (done by stabilizing the wine - by adding potassium meta-bisulphite and potassium sorbate) or by adding sugars that are not fermentable but which taste sweet. Artificial sweeteners won't ferment (I have no idea how they taste in wine) and sugars from plants like stevia which I understand don't contain sucrose, fructose or dextrose won't ferment either.
That said, if there are sugars in your wine that have not fermented (you say the wine was "thick" because of the added sugar) then it should taste very sweet... but I wonder if the "thickness" was flocculating yeasts (flocculation is where microscopic particles that were in suspension in liquid come together and form tiny flakes that are visible) and fruit particles which need time to settle as lees in the bottom of the container you are using.

 

[Jarocal]

Bernard the reason he was probably saying "thick" with sugar would be a combination of suspended particles and the fact that even bakers yeast (good to 9-10%) would not have time to process the sugar. Depending on his geographical location and insividual situation he may be better building a "cold box" a couple feet underground to maintain a more consistant temp for the fermentation to occur at.

 

[thirrsty]

Thanks Jarocal, you and Deezil are the only ones that understand my situation.

So Know I have left half of that bottle just to see the end of the experiment.

What I'm planning on doing for my new batch is:

Ingredients:

- Grape juice or buy grapes and sqeeze the juice out of them
- Baker's instant yeast ofcourse
- Sugar
- Maybe a small piece of banana as Deezil mentioned

How I will process them:

- Boil water with little sugar in it to about 100F and add the yeast and wait for it to foam.
- Add the yeast (foam) to the grape juice, add the sugar and shake it up.

The container will be a large plastic pepsi bottle my only last concern is the hot weather will the juice spoil at a temperature of 95F average?

 

[Deezil]

It wont spoil, no but it will probably ferment very vigorously (read: lots of activity/foam) and probably do what its gonna do for you in a hurry... Keep it in the coolest place you can, out of direct sunlight

Might consider adding the bulk of your sugar to the grape juice, starting your yeast & adding some of your juice to the yeast bit by bit - this acclimates the yeast to the conditions in the grape juice & gets them used to the idea of what they've got in store..

Once your yeast is basically the same color as your must, its pretty safe to pitch the yeast+juice into the rest of the batch

 

[Jarocal]

Your welcome. I seriously doubt you will be able to fashion a hydrometer. Your best bet will be to find established juice recipes that work on sites such as this one and adjust the materials to fit the size container your working with. There are a few other things you can do such as adding some chopped raisens to boost tannin levels in an juice that may need it (remember to decrease sugar amount to compensate for the sugars in the raisens). You could also vary your purchases and branch out a little

4 lbs dates
1 lb sugar
1 quart of black tea steeped strongly
Juice of two lemons

Boil chopped dates in 1 gal water for 30-45 minutes stir in sugar till dissolved. Remove from heat reserving one quart to make yeast starter. Add tea/lemon juice and chill to 70*F. When the reserved quart cools to 105* stir in packet of yeast and let sit according to Packet directions. Pitch starter into the must and follow the directions like in the other recipe for airlock.

 

[Tom_S]

On another wine making forum there was someone who was in the same situation as thirrsty. They lived in Saudi Arabia where alcohol is illegal, and wanted to know if bread yeast could make wine.

Bread yeast can be used, but as others have pointed out, it won't taste as good as regular wine yeast. When I started making wine, I used bread yeast because I didn't know any better, and while it made a drinkable wine it just didn't taste that great. It had an off flavor.

I would say if at all possible, order a few packets of wine yeast and make some starters, then keep these starters in the fridge. I don't know how long they'd last that way, but if it is incredibly hard to get wine yeast where you are, then maybe keeping some starters would help. It might also be a good idea to get hold of some yeast nutrient to keep the cultures going.

Or on the other hand, when racking from primary to secondary, keep all the lees and put that in the fridge. Then when you want to make a new batch of wine, just add some of the lees to the juice. I'm sure there would be some live yeast left in that which could take off.

This obviously isn't the best case scenario, but it might work in places where wine yeast is scarce.