Post by: DoubleJ on December 11, 2010, 11:06:01 AM
3 weeks was up today. I pulled them all out. The watermelon wine was rotten and had to be thrown out. The plum without the skin was like campaign. Very carbonated and alcoholic. Not very sweet but enough that I could taste the plum. FYI, I only tasted about a teaspoon of each. The plum with the skin left on for the mash was not as carbonated, not as alcoholic though I could taste the alcohol, but VERY sweet. This will be the best of the batch I think. Anyway, I filtered each quart again, to 2 of the quarts, I added 3 more tbls of sugar, and the others I left them how they were. Then I resealed and returned to the basement. I have to do this every 3 weeks for 12 weeks, then again 5 months later, then one last time at the 1 year mark.
Post by: mallard79 on December 11, 2010, 06:56:16 PM
Post by: Sumpnneedskillin on December 11, 2010, 07:16:31 PM
Post by: DoubleJ on December 11, 2010, 08:01:26 PM
Post by: Ellensburg on December 11, 2010, 09:00:17 PM
Post by: chester on December 11, 2010, 10:01:39 PM
Post by: DoubleJ on December 11, 2010, 10:07:47 PM
I think the wine was already being made before he decided to quit. :dunno:
:yeah:
The wife didn't want me to throw it out. I was going to but she said to continue with making it and she'd drink it. She has the equivalent of a 6 pack a year so, it should be around a while when it's done. I only sampled a total of 2 teaspoons.
Post by: markts on December 11, 2010, 10:31:11 PM
:'(I think the wine was already being made before he decided to quit. :dunno:
:yeah:
The wife didn't want me to throw it out. I was going to but she said to continue with making it and she'd drink it. She has the equivalent of a 6 pack a year so, it should be around a while when it's done. I only sampled a total of 2 teaspoons.
Post by: chester on December 11, 2010, 11:09:48 PM
I think the wine was already being made before he decided to quit. :dunno:
:yeah:
The wife didn't want me to throw it out. I was going to but she said to continue with making it and she'd drink it. She has the equivalent of a 6 pack a year so, it should be around a while when it's done. I only sampled a total of 2 teaspoons.
Now find a way to say that in a picture :chuckle:
Post by: stormking on December 12, 2010, 11:00:06 AM
Post by: kenbell27 on December 12, 2010, 11:21:04 AM
Post by: stormking on December 13, 2010, 06:59:06 AM
Post by: lokidog on December 13, 2010, 08:35:41 AM
I think watermelon wine would probably do better with some kind of white grape as a base. That is what is recommended when doing dandelion wine as well.
Post by: stormking on December 13, 2010, 08:58:47 AM
Post by: lokidog on December 13, 2010, 09:31:01 AM
Post by: DoubleJ on December 13, 2010, 10:00:03 AM
Post by: stormking on December 13, 2010, 01:05:34 PM
Post by: stormking on December 13, 2010, 01:10:53 PM
Post by: DoubleJ on December 13, 2010, 01:26:09 PM
I need a hydrometer
Post by: stormking on December 13, 2010, 05:31:38 PM
Post by: lokidog on December 13, 2010, 06:41:16 PM
The recipe I have says that the more sugar the more alcohol. If I continue to add 3 tbs of sugar every 3 weeks during the fermenting, will it get stronger or does the sugar content to alcohol need to be the initial sugar amount?
As long as there are live yeast, and no oxygen, additional sugar will produce more alcohol... to a point. Different strains of yeast have different tolerances for the amount of alcohol they can survive in. Also, if there are not enough nutrients for the yeast to reproduce, they may die off as well. Alcohol is a waste product of anaerobic (w/o oxygen) fermentation along with carbon dioxide. If you aerate your wine when racking it off the sediment, you will add oxygen. Until that O2 is gone, the sugars will not be turned into alcohol.
It does not matter if the sugar is added at the beginning or along the way, except that if it is added too slowly, you will simply prolong the working of the wine without any benefit. It will just take longer to reach it's alcohol tolerance point.
To sweeten wine once the ferment is done, there are several methods. The easiest are to add chemicals, including sulfites and sorbates, bleh. The others are to freeze it, need lots of room in the freezer; filter it, not practical cost wise for the home vintner; wait and rack, and rack, and rack until all yeasts are dead and gone, which takes a lot of time. You can also use the chemicals when the residual sugar meets your requirements (this is what the commercial guys do).
BTW, distilled water is probably not the best as there are no micronutrients for the yeast to use. If you add your water to your fruit before you add your camden tablets, you can use whatever water you want as it will kill or slow the wild bacteria and yeasts enough to let your added yeast get a start.
A hydrometer will only tell you something useful if you read it before and after the ferment. A vinometer will give you an approximation of the alcohol content of the wine. Be sure to calibrate it with some known percentages of commercial wine, mine reads about 2% high.
Stormking, not sure why you would have to drink it in 30 days.... "They" say whites should be drunk young, but I have fruit wines that are 18 years old and are as good or better than when they were bottled, when I dare to open them. :chuckle:
Hope this helps anyone out there thinking of vinting some wine.
Post by: DoubleJ on December 13, 2010, 06:47:51 PM
http://www.ehow.com/how_4477182_delicious-homemade-wine-yeast.html (http://www.ehow.com/how_4477182_delicious-homemade-wine-yeast.html)
No yeast at all. There is yeast in the jars though. I can see it. Natural yeast I guess
Post by: lokidog on December 13, 2010, 07:27:17 PM
What I have done is this, to the letter:
http://www.ehow.com/how_4477182_delicious-homemade-wine-yeast.html (http://www.ehow.com/how_4477182_delicious-homemade-wine-yeast.html)
No yeast at all. There is yeast in the jars though. I can see it. Natural yeast I guess
I am sorry, but that recipe just sounds nasty... "scrape the mold layer off the top"?? Eeww! Hopefully this turned out for you, but for all you aspiring wine makers out there, there are a lot better, more sanitary, and efficient ways to make delicious tasting wine without breaking the bank. Done this way, I can see why it would not last more than 30 days... the wine will turn to vinegar, or worse.
I am not sure of the credibility of the author of that since right away he says "vinegar is basically wine made from apples..." Vinegar is made from any kind of wine that has alcohol in it. There are varieties of bacteria that turn alcohol into acetic acid, the stuff that makes vinegar vinegar. Apples make good wine and if you bottle it before it is done working in capped bottles, you get hard cider.
Sorry if I am jacking your post. ;)
Post by: lokidog on December 13, 2010, 07:32:36 PM
Whats wrong with sorbate i use it all the time in my fresh fruit wines.i had a buddy who made blackberry wine and didnt sorbate and all his bottles started poping on him that was a big mess.
Your buddy bottled it way to soon. If he had an airlock on his carbouy, he should have waited until absolutely no bubbles were being produced, at least six months in my experience. I have not had a single bottle of wine explode in almost twenty years of making homemade wine. I have never used any kind of "finishing" agent/chemical before bottling unless I was adding sugar to sweeten it.
Post by: DoubleJ on December 13, 2010, 07:33:17 PM