Note: you will need a hydrometer to get the sugar content right for all my recipe's. No winemaker should be without one. Also, an acid test kit is very important. One more thing, I tend to stick to making wine only from fruits that finish as close as possible to the quality of a good grape wine. If I cant make a Great fine wine then I dont make it!!!
07/112/99 - have juiced 2 watermelons and have 1 gallon of juice. I have it frozen pending the ripening of more melons. after I get 3-5 gallons of pure juice I'll get the wine started and put the recipe here for ya... ;--)++> Note* Frozen berry's work great because freezing a fruit tends to extract the juice from them thus giving a real juicy syrup along with the fruit. Freezing fresh fruit and then thawing will accomplish this as well.
The Lalvin KV-1116 strain tends to express freshness of white grape varieties such as Sauvignon Blanc, Chenin Blanc and Seyval. The natural fresh fruit aromas are retained longer than with other standard yeast strains. Fruit wines and wines made from concentrates poor in nutrient balance benefit from the capacity of K1V-1116 to adapt to difficult fermentation conditions. Restarts stuck fermentations. The Lalvin EC-1118 strain was isolated, studied and selected from Champagne fermentations. Due to its competitive factor and ability to ferment equally well over a wide temperature range, the EC-1118 is one of the most widely used yeasts in the world. The fermentation characteristics of the EC-1118 - extremely low production of foam, volatile acid and H2S - make this strain an excellent choice. This strain ferments well over a very wide temperature range, from 7o to 35oC (45o to 95oF) and demonstrates high osmotic and alcohol tolerance. Good flocculation with compact lees and a relatively neutral flavor and aroma contribution are also properties of the EC-1118. The EC-1118 strain is recommended for all types of wines, including sparkling, and late harvest wines and cider. It may also be used to restart stuck fermentations.
Premier Cuvee (see
also EC-1118) Pasteur Champagne
I currently have 6 gallons of cherry wine in secondary ferment. It is a nice ros'e color and should be an excellent wine! I have read that cherry is one of the fruits that will finish with characteristics close to a Vinifera grape wine. Another being plum, which I have yet to try and make, but no doubt will. You can go several ways with this as far as the type of cherries you use, morrello are supposed to be the best, or a tart pie cherry is also desirable. There are other options as you will see from my recipe.
The cherrys that come in a wine fruit wine base usually have the pits in them, you can however purchase a fruit Pure'e that is actually more fruit and no pits!! Place all the fruit in a fruit bag, and crush the fruit while in the bottom of the fermenter. add your red grape concentrate, then pour some HOT water over the fruit and stir real good to get the color extraction and good juice extraction. let this cool for a while. Add your campden tabs, pectin enzyme, tannin, and acid blend, and rest of water to just over 5 gallons. test sugar content and add enough to bring must to 13% potential alcohol. Stir well making sure all the sugar is disolved so that you get an accurate reading. if you want you can remove some of the must and heat on stove and disolve the sugar this way. Once all is in fermenter and the sugar and acid content are just right let sit untill the next day, and then add your yeast nutrient and yeast. Ferment this on the pulp for at least 5 days, the longer you leave the pulp the better the color extraction will be. make sure you punch down the fruit bag at least once a day. after 5 days or so remove the fruit and dont stir for 2-3 days. after about 8 days from start and 3 days after removing fruit, rack the must into a sterilized glass fermenter. Continue to ferment racking again in 3-4 weeks, and then rack again about a month later. let this bulk age for a couple of months. you should not have to fine or filter this wine, but if you do have to try a general purpose finning such as Clairo KC and then rack off the finning lees after about 10 days. then let wine sit for a good 3 months to make sure all the fining settles out in bulk, so that it doesn't settle out in your bottles. This is a Fine Wine!!! Enjoy. In the words of a wine book author Morello Best!! I am making this wine now, will let ya know.
Yes you can make wine from store bought mixed juices. I just started one with 4 gallons of pure grape/cranberry juice and I added about 3/4 gallon of water to the juice, and left room in the top of the 5 gallon fermenter for the foaming. I cant tell you just yet how this will turn out, but it has some exciting possibilities. Try to find juice that is 100% and no sulphites in it. some juice will contain ascorbic acid, but thats o.k. as it will only help protect against oxidation. here's what I did, if you have tried some of these let me know how they turn out o.k. I had trouble getting this started, so I drew of f 2 cups of the must and heated it to about 90 degrees, I then added some yeast nutrient, and sprinkled a new pkg. of Premier Cuve'e into the glass. It was foaming in 10 mins. I waited anouther 20 mins. and it was really foaming, I added this to the carboy, and by the next morning It was fermenting like crazy!! This is called making a starter bottle!! 05/06/99 changing this to be 5 gallons of juice due to my own experiences. If you make this and it comes out good let me know..
Sterilize carboy and add the juice to it using a funnel. save the one gallon plastic jugs the juice came in, you can use them to store wine. Add enough water to fill to shoulder of carboy. add pectin enzyme and campden tablets. Test your acidity, mine was about .50% tartaric. test your specific gravity, mine came in reading about a 6% potential alcohol without the addition of any sugar. Add acid blend and sugar to get the balance of .60 tartaric and 13% potential alcohol. add all other ingredients, Stir well attach bung an airlock. In 24 hours add yeast nutrient and sprinkle in the yeast. fit airlock and ferment to about 1.030 SG and then rack to secondary fermenter. I have let wines that start in a carboy finish working before first racking, but its probably better to get wine off the lees. I really wanted a grape wine so I started this batch.. I bet it will be good. I did not use welches grape juice, I used a juice thats a combination of California grapes and concord grapes. you can get it at Walmart.. give this a try and let me know.. Let this age a while and give it a chance to clear on its own, if it doesn't add fining, rack 10 days later, and bulk age for a couple of months. de-gas your wine at some stage after 2nd racking. |
Country Wine Recipes
I will post as many recipe's here as I can, and will let ya know if these are proven and tried or if they are my own recipe's. I will try and give credit to whom I obtained the recipe from in case Its not my own creation. I hope that all winemakers will always try new and exciting wines to make, As ones palate can become dull if you are making and drinking the same ol wines all the time. It will be a few years before my vineyard starts producing grapes, But I intend to visit a producing vineyard in the fall and pick some muscadines, so that I can get a head start on a good solid recipe that I can follow year after year. As I develop these recipe's I will post them here, along with other fruit wine recipe's that I have perfected.. Also for finishing a wine with just the perfect balance of acid and sweetness go Here These recipes are for 5 U.S. gallons of wine.
I have made this wine, and this is my proven recipe. Ingedients for: (5 US Gallons) (Proven)
1 pkg Cote des blanc, Premier Cuve'e or a Lavin Ec-1118, Kv-1116, or RC-212 yeast For all wines!! (Pasture Red is also a good yeast for full bodied red wines.) * Note the first time I made this wine It was more of a mixed fruit wine and I added some bananas, 2 lbs table grapes, 1or 2 cans of tart cherry's and towards the end I added some cherry and raspberry flavor extract (about 1 1/2 tsp. each). My batch aged about 4 months from start of fermentation to bottling. I let it sit down in the bottle for 2 weeks and then tried some..ITS WAS WONDERFUL!!!! Improves with extended aging of 6 months to a year. I am now making a pure strawberry wine and its finished with fermentation. Its dry and has a real nice aroma, and flavor to it. I will let it age and then decide based on flavor and bouquet if it needs any sugar to bring out characteristics or not.. Place the strawberry's in the primary fermenter, crush them with your hands squeezing out the juice, but try not to break up any seeds. (Remember Freezing and thawing fruit really helps bring out the juices) heat up some of the water to boiling and pour water over the fruit, Place the lid on with airlock. let sit for a few hours until cool. add rest of water and add your acid blend (test) and then add pectin enzyme, tannin and campden tabs. chill and store for 8-12 hours days. Add the grape juice, sugar and yeast nutrient, stir like crazy to dissolve sugar. (you can remove some of the must and heat on stove and add sugar to this to dissolve better, Make sure to let cool before adding yeast. Test the Specific Gravity, should be around 1.085 - 1.090 adjust with sugar if necessary. Now sprinkle your yeast on top without stirring. Fit with bung and airlock. this will start fermenting in 1-2days depending on the yeast used. Cote Des Blanc is slower but imparts a good fruity aroma to wine. let this ferment on pulp for 4-5 days and then rack to a clean and sanitized carboy. top up with the left over juice if you saved some or some red wine of choice or with cold water. Remember if you add anything with sugar in it at this point your wine will turn out with more alcohol than you had planned and it will take longer to ferment out.(If you dont care then add some Juice for topping) Let wine finish fermentation completely (SG 1.000 or lower, but usually around .992) and then rack to new carboy. right after racking add 1/8 tsp potassuim metabisulphate, and then stir virgorously for 5-10 mins to release carbon dioxide. fit bung and air lock and let age now. rack once more in 2-3 months and then shortly after that you can bottle. (at your discretion, as fruit wines need only 3-4 months bulk aging) *** Remember check acid and add an additional 1/8 tsp Potassium metabisulphate to your wine before bottling.. Taste the wine!! if the acid is good then leave it alone, its easier to add to taste, than it is to subtract once you add it!! if you do need acid, try using just tartaric or malic. Acid blend contains citric acid and tends toward the tart side if over done!! REMEMBER!! Wine needs a balance between alcohol, sweetness, and acid. and proper acid usually means proper PH. and proper ph means less susceptible to bacterial infection. Proper acid levels along with residual sulfur dioxide gives wine its aging potential in the bottle.. all things being said, a wine judge will look for this balance in all wines. If you have residual sugar you will need a little more acid to off set the sweetness, if to much acid, you will need some residual sugar to off set the tartness... see where I am going here!!! BALANCE..... If you will want to stabilize and sweeten this wine before bottling, use some red grape juice to sweeten, it works better then just sugar. Most all fruit wines will need some residual sweetness to bring out the fruit flavor.
I have made this wine and this is my proven recipe *Note: I added 1.5oz of oak chips during the secondary on this wine, its still aging so will let ya know how it comes out. its alittle tart right now.. This wine is said to come out like a nice Beaujolais Ingedients: (5 US Gallons) (Proven)
Heres what I do: I add most of the berrys to a plastic fermenter and crush them in the bottom, add some very hot water. let cool, then add water to just over the 5 gallon mark, add acid blend, tannin, pectin enzyme and campden tabs. Let soak for a few days. I then strain off the juice, and check Acidity, and Sugar content and. I adjust these to proper levels ie. 12.5% potential alcohol and .60 tartaric acid ( acid should still be right on) I then add my yeast nutrient and Lalvin yeast. I then take the remaining berry's and place them in a nylon fruit bag, crush them a little over the fermenter and drop them down in, and ferment on these for around 5 days. after removing let must settle for 3 days and then rack off to secondary glass fermenter. Finish fermentation as usual. In this manner I am combining the cold water soaking method with pulp fermentation. The pulp fermentation is mostly to extract as much color as I can from the blueberry's. and also because you need alot of berrys for this type of wine you tend to end up with less than 5 gallons of must because of the bulk of ALL the berrys at once. You can however ferment on all the pulp if you want to..
Here's what I did on this, I tend to not be stereotypical so some of these recipe's will be unique, but by all means try them. This wine came out Dry and after fining with bentonite it was crystal clear. Its a wonderful white wine one of the best I have made. One word of advise, I bottled most of this wine dry, and sweetened enough for 4 bottles. Since then I have tried the dry and the sweetened and the wine with the residual sugar in it is 10 times better. The dry wine to me is now Terrible!! Thus the old saying most ALL fruit wines will need some residual sweetness in them to bring out the wonderful fruit aromas and flavors. The sweetend Peach is Heavenly!! I have made this and this is my proven recipe!
Chop up th peaches removing pits and any bad spots. you can leave the skin on them. put all but a couple of them in a fruit straining bag and crush or pulp with clean hands into fermenter. pour grape juice into bottom of fermenter. Heat the remaining peaches in a sauce pan with the canned peaches, pineapple, and bananas including all the juice from the canned fruit.. if the pan is big enough you can add your brown sugar and honey to this mixture, and simmer for about 5-10 mins. Peaches are high in pectin so if you boil them to long you could end up with a pectin haze, this is what happened to me. (hence the use of bentonite) after simmering stain the juice from the pan into the fermenter. Add the rest of the water and then white sugar to 13% PA. let the must cool a little and then add your campden tabs, pectin enzyme, tannin and acid blend. Test acidity and adjust to .70 tartaric. at this point your S02 level should be around 40-50ppm, this is what we want. Let must stand overnight and then add your yeast nutrient and yeast. Ferment on pulp for 4-5 days and then rack and proceed as usuall. I topped one of my rackings with a low alcohol peach wine that I picked up, and anouther with some peach/grape juice. If this wine does not clear for you use the bentonite finings and it will become crystal clear. rack off the fining lees and let bulk age for a few months.. Bottle it, then lay down for 6-weeks and then enjoy...Wonderful!!!! For blackberry wine you will need to be careful because the seeds in these berries can leave you with a very bitter wine. Therefore I recommend the cold water soaking for the flavor extraction method. I have seen recipes that say to ferment on the pulp, but I can tell you I have made this wine by pulp fermentation and it came out very bitter. I have made this wine and this is my proven recipe
Place blackberry's into fruit bag and then smash them into bottom of primary fermenter. add grape concentrate. add some real hot or boiling water to this. let soak and when cool add rest of water to just over 5 gallons. add pectin enzyme, tannin, and campden tabs. let this soak 2-3 days stirring and turning fruit bag twice a day. after cold soaking remove fruit and add sugar to must to bring it to 12.5% PA. you can remove some must and heat it and dissolve sugar this way if you want to. in either case make sure must has the required sugar and is a room temperature. Now add your yeast nutrient and your yeast. and ferment as usual. I have not made this wine as of yet!!
I would use the cold water soaking on this one, or press the berrys fresh and ferment on the juice. Raspberries have a very strong and pronouced flavor, so dont over do it on the fruit. other wise make this wine just as you would the blackberry, but with less fruit...
I have made this wine and this is my proven recipe.
Apples make a wonderful wine. I suggest pressing them and fermenting on the juice only, but if this is not possible you can chop them finely discarding all the seeds and core. you can then ferment on the chopped fruit or put the fruit into a food processor to really mash it up, the main objective here is to extract as much juice and flavor as possible from the apples. you can leave the peelings on the apple. Put all in a fruit straining bag and place in fermenter. pour grape juice into bottom of fermenter. Add the rest of the water and then white sugar to 12.5% PA. You can heat some water and add your sugar to this to help disolve it. If this is done, let the must cool a little and then add your campden tabs, pectin enzyme, tannin and acid blend. Test acidity and adjust to .65 tartaric. at this point your S02 level should be around 40-50ppm, this is what we want. Let must stand overnight and then add your yeast nutrient and yeast. Ferment on pulp for 4-5 days and then rack and proceed as usual. I topped one of my rackings with some apple juice, and another with some White grape juice. JUST REMEMBER that topping up with anything that contains sugar will give you a finished wine with more alcohol content and it will ferment much longer than normal. You my also end up with enough alcohol to kill off the remaining yeast, thus leaving you with a sweeter wine than you may have wanted. Bulk age this wine for a few months.. Bottle it, then lay down for 6-weeks and then enjoy...Wonderful!! You can sweeten this a little before bottling, by adding 1 1/2 tsp of potassium sorbate to your wine, let sit a day or two, then sweenten to taste before bottling. this also makes a Great dry white wine. Either way the wine will be good. I prefer to sweeten just enough to overcome the harshness of a young wine. this makes what I call a semi-dry wine of about .998-1.003 on the hydrometer scale. I have 2 pear tree's on my property, they are two different kinds of pears. one is smaller and smooth textured, the other grows large rough skinned pears. I made a wine this year using both kinds, to try and create some complexity to the wine. The wine is still fermenting and promises to be good. This is for 5 gallons. I am making this wine now, and this is how I made it...
Sanitize all. chop fruit into small pieces. keep the skin on but discard the core and the seeds. pour the grape concentrate into bucket. (always use some grape juice). If you juiced some of the pears add that now. Place all fruit into nylon straining bag, tie it off and place in the fermenter bucket. now boil some water about 1-2 gallons, go ahead and add some of the sugar to the boiling water to get some dissolved good. pour the hot water over the fruit. (you cant really crush pears as they are a hard fruit so chopping is just fine) let this sit a while and stir real good. add rest of water and acid blend. now test the must for sugar content and acid content. Add sugar to 1.090 (12.5% potential alcohol) adjust acid to about .55-.60 % tartaric. I left mine at .48% and will adjust later on if the wine needs it. Make sure must has cooled and add pectin enzyme, and the campden tabs. (since you added boiling water you dont really need the campden tabs, its up to you) if you dont add the campden, then you can add the nutrient and the yeast now if you want to. (make sure must is at no hotter that 85 degrees.) if you add the campden tabs, wait 12-24 hours and add the nutrient and the yeast. I did a started on this and got the yeast going in a jar, and added it only 6 hours after the campden tabs. It started right up. Ferment this like apple, but leave the pulp in about 6-7 days. stir daily and remove after a week or so, let settle for 3 days then rack to secondary. finish as usual. This should make a fine dry wine, but you can sweeten if you want. remember to stabilize, and if you didn't start with campden tabs make sure you add about 1 1/2 of them after fermentation has completed. This will help your wine keep and protect it from oxidization. Bottle this in 3-4 months..... should be wonderful..
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TIP:
I started keeping all my fruit
wines at about .48% tartaric acid during the fermentation. they usually finish at about
.43% this totally eliminated the possibility of high acid causing a tart wine!! you can
then leave the wine as is (but a litte low) or add some acid to taste. I suggest some
tartaric or malic acid, but acid blend will do. at this range about 2-3 tsp's to 5 gallons
will bring your acid up to about .50 % tartaric.. this is good for a red/rose fuit wine.
If white then bring up with about 5 tsp's to about .58-.60% tartaric. This is only
for fruit wines, as vinifera wines will need more!!
Watermelon, Pure Vinifera Juice.
For most all fruit
recipes, I recommend adding red/white grape
juice concentrate. I use Alexanders Sun Country concentrates in 46 oz cans. They are
called Vino Blanc and Vino Red/Rose.. These can be bought at most all wine supply
shops for only $11.00 to $12.00 a can, I dont use the entire can at first, I usually
add about 25-28 oz of the juice and then freeze the rest. You will then have some for
sweetening or for topping up another batch of wine with. This does WONDERS for a wine
and helps with body while giving a slight vinifera quality to your fruit wines.. 
