Homemade wine

[Diane2]

I started making wine about 2 years ago when my mate gave me a bottle he'd made and I thought it was as good as anything you can get in the supermarkets in the £5 - £10 range. Instead of buying the kits which tend to be regimented and boring, I get the grape juice and fruit juices from the supermarket, that way you can vary it according to your taste. 4 weeks is all it takes from start to finish and works out about 60p a bottle.
Currently I have 15 litres of dry white wine @ 17%alc ready for bottling and 28 litres of strawberry Ribena fermenting away in a bucket.
Happy days *hic

17%..??....will you be considering throwing a DIYnot party..?..only seems fair to share it ..

 

[ericmark]

I started with Beer so easy buy a kit open can add sugar and water wait a week bottle wait another week and drink. OK maybe a little more but very easy.

My wife bought two wine kits the Cherry was much as expected sugar, flavour, and yeast then at set time other items added and it came out quite well. However it was at first very sweet then as it was kept went drier and at first was to my wife's taste then more to mine but not that much cheaper than buying fortified wine from supermarket and decided if going into wine needed to start from scratch the kits not really worth all the hassle.

However the second was called PROHIBITION and was Orange flavoured now this kit was completely different. Sugar yeast and Nutrient were left to produce high alcohol then all the nasty bits removed with charcoal etc and finally flavour and extra sugar added. 21% ABV and the result tasted like Cointreau now 7 bottles for £14 this was well worth the effort. I have included link to instructions together with my notes.

The problem brew was Ginger Beer. Seems odd as a kid I had a Ginger Beer plant to make Ginger pop which worked well but this was non alcoholic there were two items one was yeast but the other got rid of the alcohol so I bought a Coopers Ginger Beer kit. Three kits all together from different outlets and all three the yeast failed and I had to use yeast from Bitter beer kit.

Even with the beer yeast the fermentation was very slow. Starting a beer after 24 hours I expect a bubble every 5 seconds with Ginger Beer a bubble every 20 seconds and instead of a week in the fermentor it was a month which resulted in nearly running out of Bitter.

Yes when finished it was nice but not a beginners kit.

Anyway this is an account to how my brewing has gone some ups and some downs. Also links to instructions and what I did wrong but with and without intending to and what results I have had.

Adding extra sugar to Bitter got it more to my taste but this is personal.

I did look at brewing forums but they are too much into brewing for me. I want a simple way to make cheap booze that tastes OK. 30p a pint is to my mind great only problem is not drinking all the stock.

Although the instructions say around 3 weeks really more like 8 weeks from start to drinking big problem is getting enough bottles. Now use plastic pop bottles for beer. The shed is full but at the temperature goes down I need to leave first week in the house 16 pop bottles do take up some room as does the 6 gallon fermentor.

 

[Conspiracy]

Thanks for the link, Eric. I wish I had time to experiment with this too... I'd probably go with orange, though

 

[ericmark]

Just started another PROHIBITION kit. Never seen an air lock so active. Around 2 bubbles per second where as even with 40 pints of beer it's only around 5 seconds per bubble.

OK there is a lot of sugar in the demijohn for 4.7 litres 1.6 kilograms plus the Sucrose & Citric sachet and Yeast Nutrient sachet.

I would love to work out what determines the fermenting speed? Slowest was Coopers Ginger Beer but Mild was slower than Bitter and both from Youngs Harvest Range.

Temperature was what I expected to make a difference and when one brew cooled while on holiday I returned to find room at 16 degs C and fermentation had stopped. Restarted once warmed up again.

Again 4.7 litres of wine will cool down and heat up much faster than 22 litres of beer so with wine more care is required. I have moved to using an old body warmer around both wine and beer to reduce the rate of temperature change and also keep it a little warmer as clearly fermenting releases heat. Room at moment sitting at around 18 degs C but thermometer inside the body warmer with wine showing 20.2 degs C.

 

[CuppaCoffee]

Have you tried making juice wines yet Eric?

As the weather's rubbish now, no point in going out in the garden. Great time to get a few wines on the go I'll soon be putting on 18 litres of orange wine and 18 litres of Strawberry Ribena wine which should both be ready by Xmas. The last lot was lovely but amazing how quickly it disappears! It's strange how much better it tastes when you're not paying vat on it!!

Cheeers *hic

 

[ericmark]

I have three cans of Beer from Morrison's at under £7 each and sugar piled up ready, but also have 3 demijohns with cider in and one with Mild where I have run out of bottles so at the moment things are on hold until I have enough bottles.

What was rather a surprise is demijohns are slightly different in size. Two are 4.7 litres right to top but others have 3 inches left so I have to mark them all as wine kits need 4.7 litres.

I few other things have caught me out. Two hydrometers calibrated at 15 degs C but most beer and wine needs to be at 20 degs C the two hydrometers one plastic other glass go opposite to each other with temperature change. Why they are not calibrated at 20 degs C not a clue!

Measuring beer kits is easy you put in sugar and concentrate mix well and measure and note once settled then add yeast however cider was completely different as the juicer makes a brew with floaters on top and so can't read hydrometer and demijohns are too small necked to be able to get a sample without some wine thief or other sampling device.

The air lock also caught me out. Slight leak and you think fermentation has finished but in fact still going on.

Never worked out speed thing. Why Ginger beer was so slow or last lot so fast but now I always cover and let the fermentation to warm up the brew. I have a warming plate 18W but only where error made do I use it now I take attitude if fermentation causes heat it is less likely to kill yeast as as it starts to die the temperature will drop.

 

[zarrahtracey]

Wines made of rice. It's one of the most wines I love since I tried this on one of our company events.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Why do you keep asking her that?

 

[ericmark]

Asking her what?

Well started another Prohibition Liqueur but temperature is a problem.

Wine instructions state:- “a constant room temperature between 18ºC and 22ºC (64ºF to 72ºF), for 2 to 3 weeks to ferment” it also states:- “From 20ºC up to 25ºC (68ºF - 77ºF) there is a gradual reduction in the overall alcohol produced with final gravities ranging from 0.980 through to approximately 0.992. However, above 25ºC (77ºF) there is a profound reduction in the performance of the yeast, for example at 27ºC (81ºF) the final gravity is likely to be 1.005- 1.020”.

Kitchen temperature goes 16 to 20 degrees and at 16 degrees beer stops brewing however will restart once temperature raises again. With 24 litres it does not cool or heat quickly I have a heated floor tile I use if really cold in the room. But wine only 4.7 litres so cools and warms much quicker.

Questions are:-
What happens if it gets cold? Does it just temporary stop then start again once temperature increases or if once stopped do it stay inactive.
Does the critical temperature matter the same at start to finish? If it raises and falls at start but is held static near the end is that good enough?

What I have done is place the beer on the floor tile and put wine against it with body warmers around the pair in the hope that the beer will stabilise the temperature of the wine. Both in their first week and wine at least has another two weeks at to run. Hoping the wine is not already damaged by temperature variation.

What does the team think? I will guess most of the problem is down to the 21% ABV and with a lower ABV there would not be a problem?

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Asking her what?

IHNI.

I think there must have been a post before mine which has been removed.

 

[gardener1214388]

Not too difficult, and not too shabby.

Would like to try beer, but carbonation might be a step too far!

Not so much a hobby, as a means to reduce the shopping bill

We decided to make our first grape wine two years ago; excellent, but alas, last year we think the yeast was old and hence, it made excellent vinegar that went down the drain. This year after careful grape vine pruning we now have even more grapes and will try to make another good batch. Wing making really is a great hobby.