Wine making question

Dear Bernie

Bernie i have heard about you talking about making wine, and from what i gather you are very good at it so i have come to you with a question about making wine. I don't have alot of money to be buying carbouys and vent traps and such things at this time, so i was wondering if you have a great recipe that i can use using a balloon on a gallon jug.

Another question that i have is if i were able to get a brand new 5 gallon plastic water jug from the store could i use that also and if so how would i measure it out. Would i just mix it all in the gallon jug separately then dump it in the 5 gallon jug.

Another question is, if i don't have a a instrument to measure the alcohol content what would be an average alcohol content of wine made this way.

Hi there Mr. North Star:

I have been unable to get on the internet for a full week now and finally am back on this morning. I had to obtain an updated DSL (box).

Yes I have made wine and still do. Right now I have some that is ready to bottle when I get the time. This batch will be 90 bottles. Then I have another 60 gallon batch to set right after that. I have been making wine since the 1960's.

Your questions, Mike are sort of hard to answer. You can make wine out of almost anything. I have turned just to grapes but most any fruit will work. Even plain water would work and all you would have to do would be add some sugar. The alcohol comes from the sugar in the batch. The sugar is turned into alcohol by the yeast. Without any hydrometer to start with it will all be just a guess. Most fruit will need a little sugar to start with.

Without an air lock of some sort you just might get 9% alcohol if you are lucky. With and air lock you might get 12.5%-13%. Using bakers yeast you might not get that as the higher alcohol content will kill the yeast. And there is natural yeast floating around everywhere. Still if you want to give it a try go for it.

I adjust the sugar content to 12.5% and use special yeast.

I would not use a balloon but would use something like a cork with a piece of tubing stuck in it. Put the open end of the tubing into a glass of water. The idea is to keep the oxygen from the air from getting into your ferment. Even a bottle cap would work with a hole in it. You can seal it up with some melted wax. Most anything can be made to work as an air lock.

Heck you got tomatoes and that would even work if you add sugar. Get some fruit of somesort and crush it up. Make it very sweet with sugar and just go by taste. Throw in some yeast and let it fermet. For the first, say 5 days you need not airlock just cover the opening with a piece of cloth to keep the bugs out but will let the gas excape. When the fermenting slows down then put on an air lock. Finally when the secondary fermenting quits it is time to taste you new stuff.

It is all a guess this way but go for it.

Bernie

You can leave the whole crushed fruit in during the primary fermentation. You might want to add some water also. Then after the ferment slows down strain the juice out with some sort of a strainer or use a cloth or cheese cloth and squese out the juice by hand. Then put your home made air lock on for the secondary. During the primary you can even use an open container like a crock or something; just cover it up with something to keep the bugs out. Ha ha you see, it is all very simple.

And by the way, when I used to pick my own grapes for the wine I left the whole fruit in during the primary. The skins would give the wine its color. Also the skins would add tanin which is why I did not want to wash the grapes first. Just mash them up directly from the field.

When you airlock for the secondary it is a good idea to use a container that is almost full. You don't want a full surface area absorbing oxygen. The yeast will use that excess oxygen and you don't want that. You want to yeast to concentrate on keeping converting the sugar to alcohol.
I have tried to explain all of this in simple terms. I hope it all helps you Mike. Cheers!

this helps alot bernie and i think you lots, im sure that i will have more questions as i go along. right now im in the process of making a couple gallons of wine just using a couple gallon jugs and a balloon, im making 1 apple and 1 grape. so far the balloons have expanded so the are fully inflated and is 2 days old so far, it's fun to watch the precess as it goes along. Mean while when pay day comes i will be buying the things needed for a large batch, im sure is were i will have questions as i go along thanks for the information Bernie it helps alot.

There are tons of sites that have great information. The biggest thing is you gotta keep everything that touches the wine sterile. My carboy is a 5 gallon water jug. If you have a Friar Tuck's around you they have good prices. This is another great web site that I buy supplies from http://www.midwestsupplies.com/

Very informative, Bernie! Thank you very much! Ridge, thank you for the link also. Some very good information on those sites!

Bump

Things are going great with the batch of wine that i have going here on the farm, today me and the little woman talked it over and decided that before we buy anything large for making wine we would go with a small kit. So today we bought this small kit along with a couple extra 1 gallon glass jugs to go with it, yep we also bought the extra airlocks and rubber stoppers along with the wine yeast. This should give me the general idea and learning lessons along with all your help here to get me going on the big carboys, man i can't wait till it gets here and i can get started.

Here is what we bought.

Link here.
http://www.midwestsupplies.com/products/ProdByID.aspx?ProdID=4278

The extra Jugs.
http://www.midwestsupplies.com/products/ProdByID.aspx?ProdID=6261

Yep got me one of those tripple scale hydrometer to.

http://www.midwestsupplies.com/products/ProdByID.aspx?ProdID=5025

Plus i got me some extra stuff.

http://www.midwestsupplies.com/products/ProdByID.aspx?ProdID=7138
http://www.midwestsupplies.com/products/ProdByID.aspx?ProdID=4939
http://www.midwestsupplies.com/products/ProdByID.aspx?ProdID=4930
http://www.midwestsupplies.com/products/ProdByID.aspx?ProdID=4393

2 extra airlocks.
http://www.midwestsupplies.com/products/ProdByID.aspx?ProdID=4213

2 #6 rubber stoppers for the airlocks.
http://www.midwestsupplies.com/products/ProdByID.aspx?ProdID=4743

I think this should get me off to a good start. lololol Do you recommend me to get anything else for this.???

Believe it or not, we ordered it this noon hour today and i received a tracking number already from FED X stating that it has been picked up and is on the way already, that is some speedy shipping right there man i can't wait i have always wanted to do this since i was a young teenager.

They are a good company to deal with. Even down here in Illinois it doesn't take long to get it here. Did you get some sanitizer too?

Yep forgot to post that up, this is the one i got.

http://www.midwestsupplies.com/products/ProdByID.aspx?ProdID=6978

You done good Mike. The main thing is that hydrometer and that says it all. That is your key to the hobby. I have learned over the years not to use all them extra chemicals and junk. Some profectionals will tell you that I am wrong. I do not put any of that stuff in my wine any more. Just enough to get the good wine yeast going and that is all. After that I just rack the wine when needed and bottle it. I have never had any problems. I never add sulfites and clearing agents as I find that is not necessary and is more healtly anyway. I make wine the simple way although when I got started I tried it all. No more of all that junk for me.

Sorry but I have to tell it like I see it.

I do have an adittional hydrometer which is narrow band and will tell me just when to bottle but you really do not need that. Just wait until the fermet is complete and the wine clears and you are ready to bottle.

But what do I know as I am just an old man.

I've used that before and it's great stuff. The nice thing is that now that you have some supplies you can make beer too. Midwest has a dvd that you can get with the order that is great too. Look for this book too; there's tons of great info in here

I did not get my 90 bottled today but did get 1/3 of it done anyway. I was too busy making venison sausage and smoking some of it.

Thank you Bernie this is why i ask you questions you have done it for many years, once i get the hang of it im sure i will be tweaking it also as you do, thanks again Bernie. Thank you to ridge that site is awesome and fast at shipping.

Bernie wrote:

I did not get my 90 bottled today but did get 1/3 of it done anyway. I was too busy making venison sausage and smoking some of it.

That sounds good to.

ok as of now i have the first 2 jugs of balloon wine going yet 1 is grape and 1 is apple, then we ordered our kits from the wine supply place and now we have a 2 gallon batch of apricot wine and a 1 gallon batch of pineapple wine. Things seem to be going good so far, i am still reading a few things and trying to learn the process of increasing the alcohol level without killing the yeast and also when the best time is to add the sugar for doing this. Other than that i find it very interesting and fun to be learning these things and hope at some point and day that i get as good at is as my friend before he died, that man could make some wine that was out of this world with taste and alcohol levels sure do miss him. any ways that is the up date for now will have a few pictures at some point today.

If you want high alcohol content use champagne yeast. It has the highest alcohol tolerance of the yeasts. I made some barley wine one time. I used a can of malt that you would use to make 5 gal. of beer. I mixed it up to make 1 gallon of wine. At that time I only had 20 ounce bottles, and it was all I could do to finish one bottle at a sitting. Coped a good buzz on that stuff that's for sure.

Well i had my first dilemma this morning, today i should be racking my double batch of apricot wine but when i took the SG reading it had no potential alcohol reading lolol well we worked over the paper work and the little woman worked over my brain and it was an error on my part. Here what happen was i didn't put all the sugar that was suppose to go into the double batch, i missed it by 2lbs now i know i got everything else right just by memory of doing it but i also remember not measuring 4 lbs of sugar and only measuring 2 lbs so i added the sugar this morning we will see what happens now Hope it still turns out.

I was going to rack this this morning till i checked the SG's and it had no potential alcohol, i think we have it fixed now not sure.

I did make some apricot/pear wine in 1963 and it turned out real good. Picked the apricots and pears myself. Must have made 20-25 gallons. (That wine must have had some poison in it however. I found out that when I drank a gallon of it my arms would start to go numb so there after I just cut down on my intake to eliminate the poison . An other thing that works good is to put your jug by your chair and run a piece of tubing from the jug to your mouth. That way you do not have to keep filling your glass . I hope these pointers help you out Mike.)

Now let see if I can answer some questions or explain to you from my point of view.

You use that hydrometer that you have for the initial mix. It measures the sugar content of the must and tells you the final alcohol content when fermenting is complete. Once the fermenting starts that hydrometer is sort of useless unless you want to see how the ferment is doing along the way. When all the sugar content has been turned to alcohol your hydrometer will read "zero" or slightly below. I sometimes use a narrow range one and at completion the SG might even be down to 0.96 or close. I do not like sweet wine and run my ferment to completion. When I do this there is not much danger of fermenting starting again in the bottle and blowing out the corks so I do not need any chemical to kill any remaining yeast. I like that as I do not want any sulfites or anything else in my wine.

I see nothing wrong with you adding some additional sugar after you started. Of course you will not know now what the alcohol content will be at completion. Your hydrometer will be sort of usless until it stops fermenting. When it stops fermenting and your hydrometer reads anything above zero then some sugar is still in there and there is nothing you can do about it. If you are not going to put it in corked bottles then is is OK the way it is. If you are going to cork it then you may want to kill the yeast so that the ferment does not start in the bottle.

I try to make mine simple these days but over the many years I have developed some habits to keep me out of trouble with the wine making. I did make mistakes along the way yes. I like my simple methods these days and the results are usually spectactular according to others.

Thank you Bernie yes that answers a lot right there, when we read the hydrometer between 0.990 and 1.000 my guess was that it was 0.996 or 0.998 im still learning how to read this thing. now once that it stops fermenting then i will be putting it in the secondary jugs and fitting the air-locks to them, thank you again Bernie that idea in the beginning lolol i like.

I never wait to put the wine under air lock until it stops the primary fermet. I wait until the fermenting slows down enough so that the air locks can handle it. If you wait for the air lock too late there is a remote chance that a ferment lock (stoppage) might take place and it might be difficult to get it going again.

Just wait until the primary slows down and then lock it.

Bernie wrote:

I never wait to put the wine under air lock until it stops the primary fermet. I wait until the fermenting slows down enough so that the air locks can handle it. If you wait for the air lock too late there is a remote chance that a ferment lock (stoppage) might take place and it might be difficult to get it going again.

Just wait until the primary slows down and then lock it.

Thank you Bernie i was thinking the same thing as i have been reading lots of different things about the process of making wine, some book and web sites can make things sounds like you have to be a scientist to make wine were others say that it is really simple to do. Im sure once that i get all my questions answered as i go along that i will be able to do the process of making wine with ease, although there will be some kinds that are different and the learning process is still going to come into play but it will be easier because of the knowledge that i have learned from my friends and the books that i have been reading. I will say this there is nothing like being able to talk to someone that does it everyday and is a hands on teacher as far as the making of it step by step, thanks again Bernie i enjoy your teachings.