Without wine yeast

[Kivanc]

I'm new to wine making and last month I've made grape wine without adding wine yeast. I want to make orange wine. What if I don't use wine yeast during the fermentation process?

And what is the role of adding sugar? How does it effect the fermentation process?

Thank you.

 

[Sacalait]

If you plan to let things go along naturally ie. without the addition of wine yeast you will get fermentation from yeast cells that are every where but by doing this you don't have a clue how it will turn out in taste or alcohol content. Wine yeast strains have been developed over time so that the end product is predictable, taste and alc. tollerance.

Yeast turns sugar to alcohol, so without the addition of additional sugar the yeast will consume the natural sugars in the orange and run out of somthing to "eat" leaving you with a low alc. wine.

 

[Wine Maker]

To measure the starting sugar in fruit you need a hydrometer. To determine the starting potential alcohol multiply the brix reading (one of the scales ranging from -5 to 30+) by .55. For example, if the brix of the orange juice reads 10, your potential alcohol would be 5.5% (10 x .55). To get the wine to 11% alcohol you would have to raise the brix from 10 to 20. This would require the addition of sugar. 1.5 oz of sugar /gal will raise the brix by 1. In this example you would need 15 oz sugar per gallon 1.5 oz x desired additional brix desired).

 

[Kivanc]

To measure the starting sugar in fruit you need a hydrometer. To determine the starting potential alcohol multiply the brix reading (one of the scales ranging from -5 to 30+) by .55. For example, if the brix of the orange juice reads 10, your potential alcohol would be 5.5% (10 x .55). To get the wine to 11% alcohol you would have to raise the brix from 10 to 20. This would require the addition of sugar. 1.5 oz of sugar /gal will raise the brix by 1. In this example you would need 15 oz sugar per gallon 1.5 oz x desired additional brix desired).

Thanks for that great explaination. It seems to me that it will help me a lot in the future...

By the way, I finally got a hydrometer but it doesn't got brix readings. It doesn't got potential alcohol scale either. Once I dipped the hydrometer into the orange juice, I had a specific gravity of 1.051. What does it probably mean? What is the equivalent of 1.051 in brix? On the other hand I believe that my orange juice has 6,6% alcohol by volume.

 

[cpfan]

(starting sg) - (final sg) * 133
If we assume final sg is .995
1.051 -.995 = .056 * 133 = 7.5 %

Stvee

 

[rough2]

This might sound a silly question.
Your formula for Alchol content.
Is that % Alchol or Alchol by Volume?

 

[Kivanc]

(starting sg) - (final sg) * 133
If we assume final sg is .995
1.051 -.995 = .056 * 133 = 7.5 %

Stvee

Thank you very much.

By the way, I forgot to say that what I took was the final sg. I hope that it doesn't have much effect on formula.

rough2, what I meant was alcohol by volume. Sorry for the mistake...

A quick found on SG-Brix conversion table:
http://www.fermsoft.com/gravbrix.php