Quick, cheap and dirty wine
So out of boredom I decided to try to make wine out of grape juice. I found a recipe online that uses frozen grape juice and went to town. It does call for a few ingredients that you'll only find at a homebrew shop but those ingredients can be left out and the finished product will still be very drinkable. Here's the list of ingredients:
2 cans frozen grape juice concentrate
1 quart water
2 1/2 cups sugar
1 tbsp bread yeast
2 tsp acid blend
1 tsp pectic enzyme
1 tsp yeast nutrient
1 gallon glass or plastic jug
enough water to top off the jug after ingredients are combined
This recipe is very easy and a good introduction to wine making. You should end up with a gallon of drinkable booze for just a few bucks. Just bring a quart of water to a boil and stir in the sugar. When the sugar is dissolved turn off the heat and stir in the frozen grape juice concentrate. It should be room temperature by the time the grape juice finishes melting. Now is the time to add the rest of the ingredients. The pectic enzyme is an enzyme that breaks down pectin. Pectin creates a cloudy haze in fruit wines. If you don't care about your wine having a cloudy haze then don't worry about this. If you do then add it just in case. The acid blend is a blend of tartaric, citric and malic acid. It adds to the flavor and character. I would consider this more important than the pectic enzyme. Again, though, you can skip it if you just want some cheap, easy hooch. The yeast nutrient is just there to get the yeast going strong. It really isn't that important if you're using bread yeast because it will most likely die off before the alcohol content gets too high no matter how good of a start it gets. If you replace the bread yeast with a real red wine yeast, though, then it will survive in greater concentrations of alcohol and result in a wine with higher alcohol content.
Anyway, once you have your booze to be ready then you need to pour it into your fermenter. The juice will only fill up about half of the gallon jug so add water to fill it so that you end up with a couple of inches of headspace. The resulting original gravity should be around 1.090 - 1.1 if you care. Add your yeast and rubber band a paper towel/napkin to the mouth of the jug. Once the fermentation settles down after a few days then attach a real air lock. Rack it to a secondary fermenter after a week or two. Let it sit for a few months before bottling. Once bottled, let it condition for a few months to a year.
This recipe makes a dry, tart wine that will get the job done when you want to tie one on. Most importantly it's dirt cheap. Get this one down and you can make wine out of anything.
2 cans frozen grape juice concentrate
1 quart water
2 1/2 cups sugar
1 tbsp bread yeast
2 tsp acid blend
1 tsp pectic enzyme
1 tsp yeast nutrient
1 gallon glass or plastic jug
enough water to top off the jug after ingredients are combined
This recipe is very easy and a good introduction to wine making. You should end up with a gallon of drinkable booze for just a few bucks. Just bring a quart of water to a boil and stir in the sugar. When the sugar is dissolved turn off the heat and stir in the frozen grape juice concentrate. It should be room temperature by the time the grape juice finishes melting. Now is the time to add the rest of the ingredients. The pectic enzyme is an enzyme that breaks down pectin. Pectin creates a cloudy haze in fruit wines. If you don't care about your wine having a cloudy haze then don't worry about this. If you do then add it just in case. The acid blend is a blend of tartaric, citric and malic acid. It adds to the flavor and character. I would consider this more important than the pectic enzyme. Again, though, you can skip it if you just want some cheap, easy hooch. The yeast nutrient is just there to get the yeast going strong. It really isn't that important if you're using bread yeast because it will most likely die off before the alcohol content gets too high no matter how good of a start it gets. If you replace the bread yeast with a real red wine yeast, though, then it will survive in greater concentrations of alcohol and result in a wine with higher alcohol content.
Anyway, once you have your booze to be ready then you need to pour it into your fermenter. The juice will only fill up about half of the gallon jug so add water to fill it so that you end up with a couple of inches of headspace. The resulting original gravity should be around 1.090 - 1.1 if you care. Add your yeast and rubber band a paper towel/napkin to the mouth of the jug. Once the fermentation settles down after a few days then attach a real air lock. Rack it to a secondary fermenter after a week or two. Let it sit for a few months before bottling. Once bottled, let it condition for a few months to a year.
This recipe makes a dry, tart wine that will get the job done when you want to tie one on. Most importantly it's dirt cheap. Get this one down and you can make wine out of anything.
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