Making wine

Fixing and making things, what tools to get and what skills to learn, ...
Salathor
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Re: Making wine

Post by Salathor »

I make wine from the 1 gallon jugs of apple juice from target ($4 per gallon). I add about 1 gram of champagne yeast (I think 1 gr) and it takes 2-3 weeks to ferment. I then add 2-3 tsp of malic acid to give it that cider tartness and just put it in the fridge. IMO it's drinkable right away and pretty good. I just ferment in and drink out of the plastic jug it comes in. I don't drink the yeast that's settled at the bottom but I don't mind drinking the dissolved stuff in the liquid.

Certainly tastes healthier than the kombucha I used to make.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that it ferments to about 5% when the fermentation slows way down. I think I could get it to six but I like a little lower alcohol, even if I would prefer it ever-so-slightly drier.

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Alphaville
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Re: Making wine

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Salathor wrote:
Wed Apr 14, 2021 2:15 pm
I just ferment in and drink out of the plastic jug it comes in. I don't drink the yeast that's settled at the bottom but I don't mind drinking the dissolved stuff in the liquid.
i tried that but the carboys wouldn't fit! gahhh... so bought 2 gallon bottles that take turns.

next i will try fermenting sour milk whey i think. might need to get the protein out first... maybe by boiling (extracting ricotta). might need to add sugar because it only has 4g per cup....

Salathor
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Re: Making wine

Post by Salathor »

Yeah I think 4g per cup would be not enough sugar.

Have you tried the malic acid with your cider? Makes a HUGE difference for cheap-o cider making.

EDIT: Also, I read about kumis production on https://cyclingtips.com/2019/02/ride-si ... yrgyzstan/ and definitely cannot bring myself to think about fermenting milk.

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Alphaville
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Re: Making wine

Post by Alphaville »

Salathor wrote:
Wed Apr 14, 2021 2:26 pm
Yeah I think 4g per cup would be not enough sugar.

Have you tried the malic acid with your cider? Makes a HUGE difference for cheap-o cider making.
not yet.. mine has been plenty tart with chinese apple juice from walmart, but i love the malic acid taste. the american costco juice was not so tart. where do you find yours?

also ive been thinking if adding ascorbic acid to aid fermentation. it's a common enhancer for bread baking and i have tons of vitamin c powder from pandemic storage.

yeah trying to think of reusing a gallon of sour whey.... tasty as an alt-lemonade but how long will it keep? alcohol... sounds interesting maybe.

IlliniDave
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Re: Making wine

Post by IlliniDave »

I haven't decided if winemaking will be in my future yet. My dad is getting too old and complacent to to keep his vineyard maintained, and the peak season for a vintner coincides with peak fishing season, putting me in an either/or dilemma. He's pretty interesting in that pursuit--he's a chemist by degree but a cheapskate and does everything with ancient winemaking equipment picked up in farm auctions and estate sales (low volume). But uses his chemistry know how to time his harvest and the rest of the process. And he dislikes wine.

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Alphaville
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Re: Making wine

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IlliniDave wrote:
Wed Apr 14, 2021 2:53 pm
I haven't decided if winemaking will be in my future yet.
could you guys find an apprentice maybe and share the loot?

IlliniDave
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Re: Making wine

Post by IlliniDave »

Alphaville wrote:
Wed Apr 14, 2021 3:23 pm
could you guys find an apprentice maybe and share the loot?
It's a small operation so not much loot involved. My dad is trying to do that but limiting his search to family members. For quite a few years he had a sidekick that would help him in exchange for taking whatever he wanted from the harvest, but he's getting old too.

The year my mom passed basically broke the back of the operation. My dad was too overwhelmed to do much and Dennis (the sidekick) kept things going during the summer of 2018. Then the winter of 2018-2019 saw the coldest temp on record in the area which predictably killed all the wine grapes down to the ground. It's a three year recovery process so this coming season could have been a full harvest year but the upkeep during the 2019 and 2020 seasons was sporadic. Without my mom around to think up and goad him into honey-do projects around the house, working long days in the vineyard suddenly became less appealing to him.

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Alphaville
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Re: Making wine

Post by Alphaville »

ah man. bummer.

so no cousins, nephews grandkids, anybody like that? and dennis won't pick up full time?

sometimes accepting that all things change is best i guess... is there a way to keep the vineyard semi-dormant, kind of letting it go wild, until a decision can be made?

Salathor
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Re: Making wine

Post by Salathor »

Alphaville wrote:
Wed Apr 14, 2021 2:33 pm
not yet.. mine has been plenty tart with chinese apple juice from walmart, but i love the malic acid taste. the american costco juice was not so tart. where do you find yours?

also ive been thinking if adding ascorbic acid to aid fermentation. it's a common enhancer for bread baking and i have tons of vitamin c powder from pandemic storage.

yeah trying to think of reusing a gallon of sour whey.... tasty as an alt-lemonade but how long will it keep? alcohol... sounds interesting maybe.
For juice I buy the bulk Turkish apple juice from target. It tastes normal un-fermented, but it loses a lot of the crispness after the fermentation is done--or maybe I just like a really tart cider. I got a packet from a brewing supply store a few years back for almost nothing--a couple of bucks, can't remember how much exactly--and each gallon uses very little. I would be surprised if it cost more than a few pennies per gallon.

I think the juice I buy contacts asc. acid already.

My brother ferments the organic lemonade from costco and it's DELICIOUS.

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Alphaville
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Re: Making wine

Post by Alphaville »

Salathor wrote:
Wed Apr 14, 2021 4:19 pm
My brother ferments the organic lemonade from costco and it's DELICIOUS.
OH HEY!

i will try this. thanks also for the pointers on malic acid.

my next known goal is the organic 365 apple juice from whole foods. it's $10/gal which is pricey by comparison to other juices, but once converted to booze it might be a great value. plus it comes with glass bottle included.

https://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/produc ... b074vg4cmw

it's the murky type of juice so it might require pectic enzyme (which i have at hand) for proper floculation.
Last edited by Alphaville on Wed Apr 14, 2021 4:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Salathor
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Re: Making wine

Post by Salathor »

That does seem pricy compared to costco's organic US apples at $5/gal, but those are filtered. I would guess the sediment inside could make for a really thick, delicious cider. Let me know how it goes!

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Alphaville
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Re: Making wine

Post by Alphaville »

Salathor wrote:
Wed Apr 14, 2021 4:37 pm
That does seem pricy compared to costco's organic US apples at $5/gal, but those are filtered. I would guess the sediment inside could make for a really thick, delicious cider. Let me know how it goes!
yah will be a while. let's keep the thread going on the regular.

IlliniDave
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Re: Making wine

Post by IlliniDave »

Alphaville wrote:
Wed Apr 14, 2021 4:15 pm
ah man. bummer.

so no cousins, nephews grandkids, anybody like that? and dennis won't pick up full time?

sometimes accepting that all things change is best i guess... is there a way to keep the vineyard semi-dormant, kind of letting it go wild, until a decision can be made?
I haven't spoken to Dennis, but I believe he is in his 70s and it's a good bit of work. For now it's not going anywhere and the vines will stay alive as long as they don't get overgrown. At least as of last summer Dad was still mowing. So it'll be there for a while. It's just big enough now that he expanded it after he retired that it plus a full time job is tough to juggle.

The ironic thing is that he has a grandson who bought a house with a couple acres and is trying to quasi-homestead on it. Dad even started some cuttings for him from the vineyard. And my dad taught him to keep bees. But he's not interested in tending a couple hundred vines or whatever's left. And he's trying to buy a sawmill now--woodworking/carpentry is his thing. His first job was working for a company that built log homes and he traveled the country with a crew doing that.

I'd sort of envisioned the old man keeping at it, and that I could help in the spring and fall when there's a good bit of work, but I've never been interested it keeping up the whole thing on my own year round. It is sort of fun going around in September doing all the titrating and trying to figure out when the various varieties would be ready to harvest. He had about a dozen concord vines and there's nothing like picking a big fat bunch of them and eating them right off the vine.

But yeah, all things pass. And even if I devoted my life entirely to keeping it going, I couldn't turn back the hands of time. Thinking about all of that is a great source of melancholy for me, but smiling melancholy.

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Alphaville
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Re: Making wine

Post by Alphaville »

yeah. gotta enjoy beauty while it lasts, which is never forever.

but who knows! traits can skip a generation (or two), so maybe another descendent is waiting in the wings... hang in there. you might find a successor yet.

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