Winebuddy 30 bottle cabernet sauvignon enhancement

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tonyhibbett

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Not the very cheapest red wine kit, but in that range. It's fine, but I have tasted better. There is only 20% grape juice in it, the rest is sugar. In the UK, cider must contain 35% apple juice!
The cheapest way to increase the grape juice is to add supermaket red juice, currently 85p per litre. Ok, it's probably not wine grape juice but cheaply adds colour and flavour and 2 litres will increase the ratio to about 30%, reducing the sugar by 500g to 3.5 kg. This increases the grape element by 50% at a net cost of £1.20. This alone will make some improvement, but why stop there? Taking a page out of the excellent Kenridge Classic barolo kit, add 50 g of dried elderberries. This adds a bit more flavour, colour and tannin.
To add more body, I boiled some parsnip and added the liquid. I also threw in some lamb leftovers. It used to be the practise to add meat on the bone, and this is still the case in Chile, usually horsemeat. You may omit this, but Chilean wine is really good. Plenty of 'body'!
Reducing the amount of added water helps and since blackcurrant is a feature of cabernet sauvignon flavour and is included in the flavouring pack, some freshly crushed blackcurrant, if you can get it, added at the the end, will give it it bit more bouquet.
 
Some interesting ideas there. To be honest I son't bother with the cheaper red wine kits but have just started drinking a Young's 7 day Chardonnay that's very good. I only made it to about 20 litres and left it for longer than the instructions stated, I also don't filter it. he result is a really good wine with plenty of body and mouth feel.

The other Young's kit I do is the Merlot, but I do it to about 25 litres, the result is a very good Rose that's very nice to drink chilled.
 
Agree with slightly reducing the volume. I think the makers of these kits tend to exagerate the 30 bottle bit. Better to get 26 slightly better bottles in my view. I am just trying a Red Wine Enhancer sachet from Leyland Home Brew. Not used it before and was curious as to what it does. Not sure what's in it, probably Mega Purple or similar, and or very concentrated grape juice. Trying it on a Celar 7 Merlot.
 
I'd be interested with the results, please. Young's do a red wine enhancer, which is a 240 ml can of pure Spanish grape concentrate, probably granacha, available from Wilco's at £2.50. Leyland postage is punative! I contacted Young's today about their 'Distinctive' 900g cans, which contain glucose. It seems this is about 20% by weight and is really only there as a buffer to compensate for variations in the sugar levels of the (Spanish) grapes, with a typical Brix (% sugar) value of 60 in the pure concentrate itself.
As for the Cellar 7 cab sauv, after just a few days, it's already very good, but I did add 30 g of Young's French oak chips, not included.
On that subject, the kit supplier, BrewUK, sells much cheaper chips, medium or heavy roast, so I bought both when I ordered the special offer California Connosseur cabernet sauvignon, along with dried elderberries. Next day parcelpost £4.70, no extra for extras.
 
bobsbeer said:
Agree with slightly reducing the volume. I think the makers of these kits tend to exagerate the 30 bottle bit. Better to get 26 slightly better bottles in my view. I am just trying a Red Wine Enhancer sachet from Leyland Home Brew. Not used it before and was curious as to what it does. Not sure what's in it, probably Mega Purple or similar, and or very concentrated grape juice. Trying it on a Celar 7 Merlot.

try the bevadale merlot kit from LHB, they come out great, no enhancer needed
 
Interesting result. Certainly not remotely cab sauv, but deeper colour, more body, smooth and fruity, with, if anything, a prominent cherry flavour. I think the 2 litres of cheap red grape juice had the most significant effect. Next time I will use half a can of Young's Definitive medium red instead. Hard to say what effect the meat had, but did no harm!
 
My local, not exactly cheap, grocery store sells real cabernet sauvignon at 2 for £5, with a further discount if I buy 6 or more. Tesco can't match that. I just costed a 'chianti-style' recipe and it came out over £2 a bottle using the cheapest available ingredients, best matured in oak for at least a year. I have analysed a number of 'modern' 'quality' recipes and ruled most of them out as impractical and uneconomic.
Seems like local vendors are catching up with wine kit vendors for our diminishing cash resources and this is a great development.
 
What a difference a week makes. I had written off this experiment as a bit of a failure and, in terms of making a better cabernet sauvignon, it was. However, after a week, it turns out to be a smooth, full-bodied and deep red wine with a pronounced fresh raspberry flavour, which confirms that the principle of adding defrosted mashed soft fruit towards the end of fermentation to preserve maximum bouquet and flavour is very sound. The effect of adding a mere 300g to 20 litres is quite astonishing. Had I used blackcurrants instead, I would have got a rather more new world type cab. sauv. tasting wine.
 

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