My first "Brew Day" supermarket juices and tea

[Amadeus]

Mentioned them in a couple of threads but felt they deserved a proper showing off.
Me and the girlfriend spent a day in the kitchen doing these...

Going from left to right.

1)Red grape with Echinacea & raspberry
Stewed 20 Twinings Echinacea & raspberry tea bags in boiling water for 30 mins and put in 1 gallon bucket.
Added 2 litres of Tesco Red grape juice.
Boiled 1 kilo of sugar in 1 pint of water with 2 vanilla pods until clear and added to bucket.
Topped off bucket to 1 gallon with filtered water and added extra sugar to make SG 1.120
1 tsp citric acid
1 tsp young's yeast nutriment
1 tsp of youn's "Super Wine Yest compound"


2) Same as (1) but with Tesco's Purple grape juice and without any tea bags. SG 1.110

3) Same as (1) but with Tescos' white grape juice & Twinings Cranberry, Raspberry & elderflower teabags. SG 1.110

4) Same as (1) but with Tesco's apple juice & Twinings Green Tea with Pineapple & grapefruit. SG 1.115
Left out the Citric acid as I thought with the pineapple, apple and grapefruit it wouldn't need it.

Also did a Young's white kit last week that's just finished. Tastes ok, but not fantastic.
Will this improve with age or shall I just down it?

All been bubbling away nicely since saturday and plan to do the first racking next weekend. Haven't got a spare DJ but plan to syphon into the young's bucket, clean DJ then put it back in.

Also did a 5 gallon Beaverdale chardony on sunday. Thats a noisy bugger! Airlocks been belching since monday.
Hope it settles down, can't hear the telly. :wha:

 

[Moley]

Looking good Amadeus, or can I call you Wolfie?

Hang on though, why are you even contemplating racking next weekend?

Supermarket juices and fruity bags may make fairly quick wines, quite cheaply and they are fairly foolproof, but even so, wine will take as long as it takes.

With this sort of wine there doesn't need to be more than one racking, you haven't got any great volume of solids or fruit pulp. They will probably ferment out within two weeks, perhaps longer as your OGs are quite high. Leave them a further two weeks and most of the yeast will have fallen to the bottom and started to compact. Then you can rack, and I would stabilise and add finings, bottling a week or two later. Racking any sooner is pointless or even counter-productive.

I don't know the first thing about kit wines, I've never made one, so I wouldn't have a clue how long your Chardonnay is supposed to take, but I would reckon on a minimum of 5 - 6 weeks, even for a ‘Wurzel’. Head towards Country Wines and weeks become months.

 

[Amadeus]

cheers for the racking advice.
What signs should I look out for to know when to rack?

Do I wait until there's little or no bubbling in the airlorock or should I be checking the gravity?

 

[Moley]

Wait until it has finished bubbling and you can see no tiny bubbles rolling up the shoulder of the demijohn. Then wait another week or two.

I've got jars ready for racking so I will try to post a couple of photos tomorrow.

I don't check gravity until after I've racked, although I may take an occasional sip from the DJ with a drinking straw to check the sweetness has all gone. Just make sure you completely withdraw the straw from the DJ while you're still sucking.

 

[tubby_shaw]

I don't check gravity until after I've racked, although I may take an occasional sip from the DJ with a drinking straw to check the sweetness has all gone. Just make sure you completely withdraw the straw from the DJ while you're still sucking.

What a brilliant idea :clap:
I use a turkey baster to take samples but it takes too much wine
I owe you a pint for that idea Moley :drink:

 

[falafael]

guys you have got to make peach, tangerine and echeineca wine, its a bloody lovely drink , a gem in my book!!!

 

[Amadeus]

Guys, have I got a problem here?


These black specs are showing up in two of my DJ's

I boiled the sugar with vanilla pods for extra flavour which is the only other thing I can think of.

 

[shadow47]

I've seen them in the bottom of a demijohn after fermentation, did you use youngs wine yeast? Because that contains Bentonite and a few other things which is what it could be. It's probably nothing to worry about.

 

[Amadeus]

I've seen them in the bottom of a demijohn after fermentation, did you use youngs wine yeast? Because that contains Bentonite and a few other things which is what it could be. It's probably nothing to worry about.

Cheers!
Yes i used young's wine yeast. Well thats a load off my mind.
Hopefully i will get to a stage where i stop asking stupid questions and start providing answers....

 

[Amadeus]

Well two of them have stopped fermenting now.
No bubbles or airlock activity for a while not sure how long it's been like this though, at least a week.

White grape juice & Twinings Cranberry, Raspberry & elderflower teabags
Finished at 1.008 giving me an ABV of 13.5%

Apple juice & Twinings Green Tea with Pineapple & grapefruit.
Finished at 1.006 giving me an ABV of 14.4%

Added a crushed campden and 2 caps of vin clear to each now just waiting for it to clear.

 

[Moley]

If they have been going for around 3 weeks and your temperature has been ok, then I suppose they should have just about finished by now, but I hope you haven't been too premature with racking, CTs and finings, those gravities still sound a bit high to me and they are going to be quite sweet. I'd have left them for at least another week.

With a super yeast compound plus additional nutrient you should have quite enough in there for the yeasties to take them down around .994

If they do turn out too sweet for your tastes you could always make up a basic white grape & apple juice with slightly less sugar, ferment out to .992 and then blend them.

 

[Amadeus]

I thought it was a bit soon but there was no bubbles or airlock activity.
I was wondering about the gravity but the temps been fine. (rooms never dipped below 20)
Plus the alc content is about as high as I want it to be honest. Had a sip of the apple and it's a real "warmer"

The girlfriends mum loves sweet wine so she may end up with some of these and dilute with juice for the others.

 

[TheCheekyMonkey]

just out of interest have you degassed thouroughly? as most of mine now have been finishing after about 7 days with minimal airlock activity however ive left them thinking that they are still going, but as i have been learning , ive realised that they have a lot of gas in them, once ive degassed they start to clear and theres no activity.


just a thought and its possible that gas could alter your hydro readings ?

 

[Amadeus]

I was planning of degassing once they've cleared....
Assumed that's the way it was done.

The girlfriends got a milk frother I was going to nick for this very job. :thumb:
She's likes sprite but hates "fizz" so uses it to flatten it.

 

[shadow47]

Good idea, I use a cheap whisk I got from ASDA, squashed it a bit so it fits into the demijohn, works a treat.

 

[Amadeus]

Well got a couple of them racked and cleared nicely now.
Me and the GF had a bit of a taste test and here are the results...


apple juice & Twinings Green Tea with Pineapple & grapefruit.
Nice with a aftertaste of the grapefruit that lingers.
Doesn't taste cidery at all. Hard to discribe. A bit sweet for my taste but it's
got a good warming effect. Going to leave to mature and try another glass in a months time.

Red grape with Echinacea & raspberry
Very nice, we broke our "just one glass to try" rule and had another.
Good body, nice after taste of raspberry and very warming again.
Bit sweet but it seemed to suit this one so I didn't mind.
Going to leave this to mature.
Will be making up a 5 gallon batch of this one after the next wurzels. :thumb: