White grape juice - can sultanas be used?

The Homebrew Forum

Help Support The Homebrew Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Rodj

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jul 7, 2018
Messages
190
Reaction score
83
Location
Cornwall
I’m starting (for the second time) to experiment with making wine from supermarket fruit juices - generally, variants of WOW. Red grape juice is readily available, but white grape juice is almost impossible to find.
White grape juice concentrate is available: Wilkinson sells 220g bottles for £3.00, with no indication on the bottle of how concentrated it is or what volume of un-concentrated juice it is equivalent to. I queried this with Wilkinson (not straightforward!) and got the following response: “Grape juice concentrate is 68%. Typically grape juice is 8%. So, 220g at 68% diluted to 8% = 1,87 Litres of grape juice.” So in effect it’s 1.87 litres of WGJ for £3, or £1.60 a litre.
It occurs to me that as sultanas are dried white grapes, it should be possible to use sultanas instead of WGJ, either by chopping the sultanas and putting them in the brew, or perhaps by soaking/boiling them then using the ensuing liquid.
Does anyone know where white grape juice can be bought, or alternatively does anyone have any experience of using sultanas? If sultanas, what quantity should be used and what is the best method of using them?
Thanks for all ideas.
 
I made a sultana sherry about 15 years ago using this recipe from C.J.J.Berry, one bottle left in the attic, the others have been ace over the years, improving with age.

It should give you an idea of quantities. This recipe gave about 12.5%abv which I fortified to 18%

Try to get sultanas without a coating of oil. It may give them a shine but it makes the wine difficult to clear.

1lb sultanas
1lb grapes
2.5lb sugar
8oz barley
0.5tsp citric acid
1 nutrient tablet
Sherry yeast
Water to 1 gallon.
 
I got white grape juice from Waitrose a few weeks back. Iirc it was 1.70 a litre.
 
Hi, I use sultanas all the time for my regular 5 gallon batches, use 250g per gallon, wash them first in a colander under the hot tap to remove the oil ( and it softens them) add them to your bucket then I blitz them with a hand blender, add 5 litres of orange juice and 5 tsp pectolase, add yeast and ferment on pulp for a week.
After a week, seize into your secondary fermenter, add sugar etc
 
Back
Top