![]() Organic raisins – To provide nutrients to young, growing yeasts that work hard for you, and to give the wine body (a nice mouthfeel/texture). Purified water – To put into the airlock and to top off any jugs or secondary fermenters. That’s all you need, but there are some tools and additions I suggest: Otherwise, you just need a normal funnel for adding sugar and yeast. They’re stupid cheap ( 2 for $5 on Amazon), and they make fermentation even more fool-proof.įunnel – If you pour juice with preservatives from jar to jar, I recommend a canning funnel. You could use a balloon, or a latex or nitrile glove with a small puncture in the tip of the middle finger, or even cheesecloth or a tea towel but seriously, get an airlock. Since we don’t want pressure to build up in our jug and explode, and because we want to keep oxygen out, we use airlocks. I’ll mention a kitchen scale later on that I’d suggest as a great tool you’ll use a lot.Īirlock – Yeast produces CO2, and that gas needs somewhere to go. You might have to do some mathing and guesstimating, but you want approximately 70-80 grams of sugar per serving in your juice to start (you can use more or less in other ferments as you learn what you like). Plain old inexpensive granulated sugar works great. Sugar – To get an ABV (alcohol by volume) percentage approaching normal wine levels (10.5-13.5%), you need to add sugar. I recommend Bourgovin RC-212 from Lalvin. Yeast – You can rely on wild yeast, and I do when making some meads, but it’s much quicker and a sure thing when you add wine yeast that is inexpensive and bred for the job. Yes, a big advantage of fermenting juice in the bottles they come in is that you don’t have to worry about introducing bacteria to a primary fermenter. The downside is this can introduce contaminants to the juice. The oxidation will remove most of the preservatives. If that is all you can find, pour the preserved juice from one container to another several times over the course of 12 hours. ![]() Feel free to experiment, but try not to use juices with preservatives like potassium metabisulfite or potassium sorbate. And I’ve had several people–people who like their vino–tell me so.īottled juice – I buy Walmart’s brand of grape, white grape, and white grape/peach juices that come in 64 ounce, or half-gallon, jugs. It might not be clear like store-bought wine or shelf-stable without some preservatives, but give it 3-4 weeks and a bit of practice and you’ll be amazed. Because I capped it off before all the sugar was used up by the yeast, it was sparkly and still sweet.Making your own wine from bottled juice is easy, cheap, safe, and enjoyable. I was aiming for about 5%, and that was around 3 tbsp of sugar (but it would depend on the natural sweetness of your juice). The maximum potential content went up as I added sugar.Without any added sugar, the maximum potential content of the juice was around 3%.It took five days to come close to full fermentation.This is not the sort of thing that improves with age, so drink it when it tastes good! I used a hydrometer to measure hooch content, and did some experimenting with my brews. If you want a sparkling drink, cap it after three days, and put it in the fridge so that the carbonation can build up. Release pressure built up in the bottle every few days as needed. ![]() Replace the original cap and store in the fridge.Ferment to taste (it will become less sweet and more intoxicating as time goes on).Top with an airlock (or balloon) and allow to ferment somewhere warm for 3-5 days.Pour out 2oz of juice from the bottle (to prevent overflow during the fermentation process).1 bottle of fruit juice (preservative free, 100% fruit, clear juice).
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