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Dolly Welsh
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 Mon, Jun 30 2014, 5:25 pm
A possible way to save money: I hear if you put a cup of white sugar and a packet of yeast into a jar of grape juice, shake very well, and leave in the dark, loosely capped, for two weeks, you have wine. Say, a Kedem half gallon.
I have never done this.
The juice must have no preservatives, flavorings, or anything, added, just plain pure juice only.
You must first pour a cup of juice off, out of the bottle, before starting, so there is room for the sugar.
Wine yeast makes an even better taste, but bread yeast will work. Wine yeast can be bought cheaply online in packets. It must be kosher. It is, it seems.
Putting the bottle inside a knotted plastic bag is prudent because it might bubble out a little, and make a small mess. The cap should be on loose, not tight.
If you re-use any bottles, they must be sterilized. If you strain wine through a wire mesh, lined with a paper coffee filter, the mesh filter must be sterilized first.
There are many You Tube videos about this. Works for white grape juice also.
If you can afford normal wine, good. This is for people wanting to stretch their money.
You can't sell it and you can't give it to anybody under-age and I wouldn't teach this skill to anybody under-age.
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amother
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Mon, Jun 30 2014, 5:53 pm
What you haven't said is that the product can very easily spoil thanks to microorganisms in the air --it smells like sewage when this happens. Even if it doesn't turn toxic like that, it may still taste dreadful. This happens even to experienced winemakers. Let it go a bit too long and you have vinegar instead of wine. Winemaking is both an art and a science, involving very delicate chemical balances of acid and sugar and alcohol, not to mention oxygen and carbon dioxide.
I know because I have a friend who's a vintner. My ds took it into his head to try winemaking from grapes he harvested himself. The first batch was a complete dud and went right down the drain. The second go around, he spoke to our friend the vintner who lent him some small equipment that made a big difference. The second batch was actually drinkable. Sort of.
Considering that there's an excellent chance the whole thing will go to waste, I don't see this as a really viable money-saving deal unless you invest first in some control equipment, like the one-way valve gizmo that lets excess pressure escape from the container without letting air--and microorganisms--in. But it can be a fun experiment.
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MamaBear
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Mon, Jun 30 2014, 5:58 pm
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Just buy the Trader Joe wines....around $5.
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Dolly Welsh
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Mon, Jun 30 2014, 6:00 pm
I have never done this, but here you are starting with commercial bottled grape juice. A cleaned, uniform, industrially produced product.
Starting from the grapes themselves would be a entirely different matter altogether, as you say. Oh yes.
Yes, the bread yeast leaves residues and all, isn't ideal. But everybody has some on hand.
The wine yeast has a much better taste, I hear. But you would need to obtain that.
I only mentioned bread yeast because it does work, and if you drink this stuff after two weeks, perhaps VERY COLD, and if you filter it with the mesh strainer and the paper coffee filter, it might be all right.
Once the bubbling stops, meaning fermentation is done, it might be good to keep it in the fridge. Or just plain use it up.
Some say it improves in flavor if kept in the dark for three months. If made with wine yeast.
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MaBelleVie
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Mon, Jun 30 2014, 6:23 pm
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Just FYI, even grape juice that claims to be 100% juice has flavorings added. That's why all brand x juice tastes the same and there aren't noticeable variations within the brand.
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Dolly Welsh
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Mon, Jun 30 2014, 6:33 pm
The guy on the video was using Welch's. No relation. He said it worked. He had been, hic, making it for years.
I suppose we might use Kedem.
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MaBelleVie
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Mon, Jun 30 2014, 6:40 pm
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OK, just pointing it out.
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Dolly Welsh
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Tue, Jul 01 2014, 12:58 am
| MamaBear wrote: | | Just buy the Trader Joe wines....around $5. |
If that wine is the usual 750 ml size, then a half-gallon 64 ounce bottle of grape juice would be well over twice that amount of product. The half gallon of juice costs $7 for 1892 ml of product. The wine is $5 for 750 ml of product. That is two and a half times as much product.
Making your own is like getting a bottle of wine for $2.
The cup of sugar and half teaspoon of yeast are almost free. They use "a packet" of yeast on the videos.
Some say that you can just use yeast alone and no sugar, but there will be less alcohol. The sugar makes the alcohol. To get it to 12% alcohol, the usual for wine, you would use a cup of white sugar.
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Dolly Welsh
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Wed, Jul 23 2014, 7:56 pm
It came out all right.
I served it in a glass decanter with a stopper. I used a Kedem half-gallon.
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