Getting back into wine making again

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

watermelon wine...
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention. I have made it twice. Both times, it turned out like a French (Burgundy?) white wine I had at a wine tasting years earlier. Everyone raved about it, said it was complex, some words to describe it was barnyard and horse leather...Yep, that's what it tasted like and smelled like, and that's what my watermelon wine tasted like also.

[Blackwater]

Well, that makes 3 of us now. You, me and the guy in Savannah I got my supplies from. I still have some of that watermelon wine I made, and after 20 years, it's STILL so musty I wouldn't EVER take a sip. Just thought it'd keep the wine bottles clean to leave 'em in and corked up. I need to pour it out after 20+ years of "aging," but it's SO bad I hate facing the smell! Maybe I should give it to someone I don't like?

[MaryB]

Hydrometers are dirt cheap now, complete setup for $15 http://www.northernbrewer.com/brewer...sting-assembly brewing/wine making has come way down in price and you can do lab grade measurements that previously only the big boys could do.

Thanks, guys. All this stuff is really interesting. Sure makes it easy to understand why there's so many labels out there, doesn't it? And just about all of it is good. My cousin is approaching it from a viewpoint that everything has to be weighed out very precisely, but I learned long ago that's just not so. Yes, it does affect the quality, taste and alcohol content, but it's really pretty easy to make wine. In fact, if you keep everything scrupulously clean, it's really pretty hard to NOT wind up with some kind of wine. One's initial efforts are adjusted by regulating the amt. of fruit and sugar that's put in. Other than that, the rest is what tends to get as technical or non-technical as you want it to.

If anyone here has never made any, it's a good skill to learn, and your first efforts should be pleasing, even if not quite what you thought you wanted. Just keep everything really clean, use a vapor lock (I always just used a tight cork in the top, with clear plastic hose running out and into an empty bottle half full of water) so no airborne yeasts or other stuff that might ruin the batch gets in. Deciding how much fruit and sugar to put in is the biggest part of the whole thing. And that can be readily and easily regulated in subsequent batches.

My old buddy I made wine with for so many years had made his own alcoholic refreshments back in college. We didn't have much "pocket money" back then, and he liked to party, so .... he made his own beer and wine. The ingenuity of college kids always exceeds their pocketbooks! Once we got into it, it was really pretty easy to make some very good wines. We started with the grapes from the vines my grandfather planted on the farm 100 years previously, but other fruits were more easily available - the plums in my back yard and horse apples in his - and we branched out, and had an awful lot of fun in the process. That cranberry wine, though, was really special. We got it just sweet enough and just dry enough that it REALLY made Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners really special, and gee golly wow did it go good with the usual turkey, dressing, etc.! Just like cranberry sauce, only better. And that beautiful wonderfully clear red color just added to the air of festivity. I highly recommend you try it if you get a chance. I think you'll be pleased, but then, that's why wines come in so many delicately subtle varieties.

My own experience would be to stay away from watermelon wine, though. Has anyone made any successfully? The guy I got the campden tablets, etc. from in Savannah had the same experience I did, but said a neighbor of his, a "little old lady," made her first wine from watermelons, and said it came out fine! Obviously, there's some "secret" to making watermelon wine that I have yet to discover. Anybody have a good recipe for it?

[MaryB]

Hmm I wonder if you could pickle the beets slices for beet relish? Add some onion, maybe red pepper...

I was gonna suggest that blueberries (at least the blueberries grown in MN), are fairly low in acid, especially when fully ripe, and I prefer wines with some acid bite to them (like a Pinot Gris). So I was gonna suggest adding lime or lemon or even food grade citric acid powder. But with what you said above, I guess you'll be going a different route.

One of my concocted homestyle wine recipes is a Beetwine, but there is NO acidity in Beets, so I added Gooseberries (a type of current), they are extremely tart...until they are fully ripe, then not so much, I use them at half ripeness. I called it Goozbeit wine. Here is the recipe and notes from a batch I made in 2009.
=====================
Goozbeit
5 gallon bucket of Beets cleaned and sliced thin (like scalped potatoes)
1lb 11oz lite DME
7lb 14oz table sugar
12lb Gooseberrys
1/8 tsp vegemite
Muntons ale yeast cake off Apple cider

covered beets in brewpot w/filtered Glencoe tap water.
Heat up to 160 deg. and hold til cooked tender (about 40 min).
strain out liquid and throw away Beets (you can eat them too, if you like)
Add DME slowly, once disolved add sugar, once disolved then measure G=1.
Heat back up to 160 deg.
Add wort chiller, Gooseberrys, heat back to 160 deg. and hold for 20 min.
NEW THIS YEAR, I ran the gooseberrys through a food mill, then add vegemite,
heat back to 160 deg.
Chill to 73 deg, strain and aerate
Yield was 5.0 gallons, OG=1.102
Threw yeast 3:00 PM




BTW, this recipe has become almost world famous, due to a UK friend of mine putting the recipe in his book, "Booze for free"
https://www.amazon.com/Booze-Free-An.../dp/1905811705

[MaryB]

I think I have enough mulberries for a 5 gallon batch of wine... I need to get another fermenter(all 3 of mine always have beer in them...). From what I have heard mulberry wine can be some potent stuff due to the sugar level of the fruit...

[Rustyleee]

I made some cider last year and I was told to use 2.5 lbs for the 6 gal fermenter I bought. I thought it turned out a little dry for me. I like more on the sweet side.
I've been thinking of trying some wine though. The store I purchased my stuff from told me the reason to measure is so you can repeat your successes.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

Hmm I wonder if you could pickle the beets slices for beet relish? Add some onion, maybe red pepper...

Oh, I'm sure you could...they taste real good after they've been cooked...The cooking only bumps the water/sugar level up about 7 points and Beets have soooo much flavor, the amount taken and imparted into the water only mellows the actual beets a little bit.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

My experience with watermelon wine parallels yours. BAD! Haven't met anyone yet that has been successful at it but I'm sure there are folks that can, and do, make watermelon wine. Why else would there be a song about it?

Well look at some of the other things there are songs about.

I think it is important to remember than you can't judge acidity simply by how acid a fruit tastes. A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down, and an acid-tasting fruit may be quite adequate on sugar, but with a very high acid content - which may leave the wine strong but particularly acidic or astringent, but that is another problem. Conversely a lot less sugar than you need may still taste sweet, if there is an absence of acid. My guess is that watermelons may be the latter situation - or with them so cheap for a given amount of juice, in season, why wouldn't a lot more people be using them?

Boiling the juice down to a smaller volume may help, and it has another advantage. Traditionally winemaking originally relied on the natural yeasts found in the bloom on the grape skin. But harmful natural fungi and yeasts can get in by the same route. Boiling kills those. But you have to let it cool down to lukewarm before adding your own yeast, as higher temperatures will kill or prevent the action of that too.

You can even make your own simply hydrometer. It can be as simple as a plastic tube or drinking straw with a buckshot in one end. Just mark the waterline in pure water and/or a wine that is of the sweetness you want, using a DVD labeling pen, and if you don't plug the top glue on a thread to lower it in, so that liquid doesn't slop into the tube..

Provided that it is cylindrical, you can mark in any other specific gravity by calculation or by testing with a salt solution made up according to the table below. Or if you have been getting along with trial and error, mark the starting water-level in a juice that works for you.

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct...pbMUVpTST-mpGw

[Blackwater]

Great resource, BinS. THANKS! I still doubt I'll use a hydrometer, though. Part of the fun of making it has always been the mystery and surprise and anticipation of it all. Just tends to make the work more worth while. And we were always lucky with the results, just from keeping everything so clean, I think, and killing the yeasts and funji as you note. I always used a simple tube (sterilized of course) into a wine bottle partially filled with good, clean water for my air lock. Worked great. And I guess I just kind'a like keeping it as simple as possible, and the surprise at the end.

I'm even tempted to try the watermelon wine again. I guess I can be a glutton for punishment, but Tom T. Hall wouldn't lie ..... would he? Love that old song. I'm considering using the rind and giving it at least a try. Haven't heard of anyone doing that, so can't help but wonder if that might not be the "secret" to making it? I'd think it would come out something akin to a Rhine wine maybe????

[44man]

Don't try paw-paw wine! Stuff boiled out the lock to cover the floor with slime only cardboard could pick up. Took half a day to clean up. Stuff never tasted good either.

[Blackwater]

Thanks for the tip, 44man. I and probably a lot of us would try to make wine out of all sorts of stuff, just to see what would happen.

And for y'all who use carboys, I wound up having to improvise and overcome to clean out my old jugs that had been stored in our utility bldg. for @ 15 years now. Big job to clean up! And not what we call "fun" usually. Could only find a short bottle brush, and that came from a dollar store. Nobody apparently uses them much. Have two long ones with twisted wire handles coming so I'll be able to bend them and scrub the inner sides of the carboys. They have to fit down inside the small hole in the top, so I looked in the hardware and other sections, and finally found two BBQ forks, a smaller one and a larger, longer one, and they worked out well. Used the smaller one by tying wash rags to the two prongs with nylon fly tying thread, bent the very ends of the tines inward so they wouldn't fall off. Took a knife and split the handles off, so I could chuck the handle end in an electric drill. The centrifugal force threw the rags out and did a FINE job of cleaning out the insides! Success! I love it when a plan comes together. Only problem was, with the smaller one with thinner wire shank and tines, the tines broke off. I'll get a friend to weld it back much more securely than it was when new. I think it cost me $1 or $2. No big loss if I can't use it again. The bigger one's tines are too wide to get into the bottle, so I had to take a hammer and reshape them to a narrower profile, so it'd get into the big jars. Haven't tried it yet, and may well have to get it welded too, in order for it to last. Just thought I'd pass this along.

Will be happy to get those long bottle brushes to clean with, but I'll keep these "just in case." I like the idea and what they did before the tines broke off. Really did a great job inside the jugs. Just thought I'd pass this on to any who encounter this same situation. I got two of the better designed bottle brushes in case one breaks or whatever. Haven't been able to find some of my old stuff, but still have the corker tool and some corks on the way.

Talked to my old friend up northward now (his back yard is the Chattahoochee River), and he and a couple of friends have been making wine in 100 gal. batches! He hasn't needed to make any for a couple of years now, and it gets to age a while that way. We both got kind'a excited and enthusiastic about making it again in our conversation. We really made some very nice wines, and we both miss them, him probably even more than me.

And BTW, have any of you ever heard of a dark purple grape with smooth skins that grows in big clusters? We used to have a vine of those behind our house for many, many years. My grandfather planted them and built the arbors for them. They were the walk under kind. We had 5 very large vines and folks came from all around the county to pick and eat them, and make jellies, etc. from them. Mom and Dad would have skinned my hide if I'd made wine with them back then! Mom cut them down before she passed on - one of the times when all I could do was just groan and bear it. I have some vines now from those grapes, though, that were from vines that my cousin grew from cuttings from them. Nothing like the amount we had growing up, but enough for a jug or maybe two. Scuppernong wine has never really thrilled me, but muscadine I really like. Everyone's taste is different. That's why we have thousands of commercial varieties, I guess. Sure is good to get back into this. It's the anticipation and temporary mystery that makes it fun.

What kinds of wines are y'all making, or planning on making this year?

[jwhite]

I too have had trouble with watermelon wine and the only one i ever made that got dumped out! My favorite is rhubarb followed by cranberry, i make at least ten gallons of the rhubarb every year. Some others i have tried in addition the ones mentioned by others already are rose hip wine, ginger wine, and blackberry wine.

[Blackwater]

Blackberry wine has always been one of my great favorites. Now that they're using so many herbacides, though, it's hard to find many around here, and they once were literally almost everywhere. Just took a blackberry pie I found by pure accident to the Senior's dinner at church yesterday. Most folks went for the cake, but there was only a little of it left. So many berries! So little time!

And I've thought about trying several varieties of berries at the same time. Will that work? Any reason it won't? I've never tried it, or even heard of it, but I couldn't help but wonder if the berries were mixed in the initial stage, what the wine might taste like. Anybody tried this?

[DerekP Houston]

Apple cider mead is on my first list to try once I get the equipment. recipe is super simple and from the results I've sampled equally delicious and potent.

[bangerjim]

I totally respect those that ferment wines and brew beers at home!!!!! I tried it several time in my younger daze and was a total failure! Even brewed up a batch "corn squeezins" in my parents basement! OMG!!!!! What a stinking mess!!!!! Made a pot still and everthing was a disaster.

Now (in my wiser olde age) I make only fine liqueurs........by using 95% Everclear alcohol and various select fruits and herbs. They turn out perfect ever time! (in fact, after typing this, I am going into my home bar and have a "sampling"!)

I now buy all my wines and beers at my local Total Wine & More! The wife is the wine (whine!) consumer around here. Sweet and semi-sweet.....not red or dry at all. For me, one sip of a blood red wine with heavy tannins gives me INSTANT heartburn! YUCK!

Give me a fine liqueur or good old bourbon any day! Praise the Lord for Pappy VanWinkle! And 18-25 year old Irish single malts. ("Whisky is the only reason the Irish do not rule the world"....sign in an Irish pub I visited over there).


I have several sachrometers in my antique scientific instrument collection.

Let us know how your latest batch of vino turns out@@@@@!

banger - (fine alcohol molecule aficionado)

[kens]

I been making wine since last summer, started with a pear tree giving bountiful harvest. I needed about 2lbs sugar per gallon of crushed fruit, to get to a specific gravity of 1.100
This summer Im doing blueberries, and it still needs about 2lbs sugar per gallon for a reading of 1.100.
I am using wine yeast in all cases, and it has fermented to dryness under 1.000.
For pears I use about 4lbs fruit per gallon plus 2lb sugar.
For blueberries, cherries, grapes, about 3lbs per gallon plus 2lb sugar per gallon.
Because grapes have all the necessary nutrients & natural sugar to make yeast ferment well, it is a good thing to substitute 1lb of your fruit per gallon with grapes.
always use wine yeast for best results, and keep your equipment clean.

[bangerjim]

And the Lord God said, "....let there be bountiful fruits of all sorts".......and man made it into hooch!!!!!!!!

Oh well.

[Blackwater]

Jim, if it helps any, and you'd like to try again, try these recommendations:

1. Make SURE everything you use is clean and totally disinfected. Clorox is good for the final cleaning, but be sure it's rinsed out thoroughly (no smell remaining at all) before putting your fruit in.

2. Use campden tablets (sp?) to kill all the natural yeasts, molds and funji on the skins of the fruit. Some of these can cause your wine to go bad or turn it to vinegar (if it does, keep that vinegar! It's more expensive now, on average, than the wines!).

3. Come back after 24 hours with a known good yeast. You can use Fleishman's just like you'd use for rolls from the grocery store, but the various wine-making yeasts MIGHT (?) be a tad better.

4. Keep your airlock, whichever type you use, in place and don't let the air contaminate your wine as it's working.

These 4 things should help you get a very good result. Wine CAN, at least to some, tend to smell "bad" at certain stages, but I always liked the smell. I guess it was anticipation kicking in??? It's really pretty easy to make wine, but you DO have to be scrupulous about how you go about it. The rest is just nature taking its course. Simply leave a bunch of berries to itself and in the open, and it'll often turn to either wine or vinegar all on its own. It's controlling those natural processes, and keeping them from going awry, that the winemaker has to do. And that's mostly just keeping everything clean and sterile, and letting nature take its course. Hope this helps???

[bangerjim]

Thanks. Our 5 grape vines at the back of the property have long finished production. I love just eating the white and red wine grapes we get.......at least B4 the birds find them! We have 2 whites, 1 red, and 2 table grape vines. None produced very well this year for some reason.

May try it next year! Remember.....our seasons are much earlier here in the desert SW!

[Blackwater]

In my experience, grapes can be like that. I think the rains and when they come have a lot to do with their production. I think they'd fertilize them something like every other year. Water is the big factor, though, I think. Some of the more knowledgeable farmers and gardeners here can probably give better info on that than I can, though. If you feel froggy before then, do what I just did and go buy some juice and have at it. I got cranberry juice today. Thanksgiving should be especially good this year. I've always given 90% of the stuff I've made away. When I stopped making it, some of them got mad at me! I'd never realized how much it meant to them. I guess I have some amends to make now. It's a small pleasure of course, but who doesn't miss the small pleasures that come our way when they're gone? Got to go get some more things cleaned and ready, and maybe get some of it started. Now's when the anticipation and mystery starts!