Fermenting?!
I want to make my own alcohol without any special equipment or ingredients!. If I made 1 liter of fresh grape juice from grapes from the store then put about a tablespoon of sugar and a teaspoon of yeast, would it taste okay!? I was thinking to put it in a soda bottle with a balloon on top so the gas gets out but it's not open to air!. If that won't work or the ingredients are off, tell me!.Www@FoodAQ@Com
Answers:
If you must make second-rate wine, make a few modifications!.
1) Don't crush and squeeze your own grapes!. They will probably not be wine grapes and they will be contaminated with wild yeasts and bacteria!. Buy juice!. Be sure that there are no preservatives in the grape juice!. Otherwise you will kill the yeast!.
2) You may not need the sugar if the juice is sweet!.
3) Splurge a dollar or so on a real wine yeast, such as Montrachet!. Baker's yeast produces a lot of carbon dioxide and little alcohol!. You want the reverse!.
4) Puncture a tiny hole in the balloon with a pin!. That may keep the carbon dioxide from blowing off the balloon or bursting it!.
5) Sanitize your equipment carefully!. You might be able to get away with using Oxi-Clean or a similar cleaner if you don't want to get one designed for winemaking!.
6) If you want to make good wine, learn to do it with the right equipment and supplies!. The results will be much better than what you are proposing!.Www@FoodAQ@Com
1) Don't crush and squeeze your own grapes!. They will probably not be wine grapes and they will be contaminated with wild yeasts and bacteria!. Buy juice!. Be sure that there are no preservatives in the grape juice!. Otherwise you will kill the yeast!.
2) You may not need the sugar if the juice is sweet!.
3) Splurge a dollar or so on a real wine yeast, such as Montrachet!. Baker's yeast produces a lot of carbon dioxide and little alcohol!. You want the reverse!.
4) Puncture a tiny hole in the balloon with a pin!. That may keep the carbon dioxide from blowing off the balloon or bursting it!.
5) Sanitize your equipment carefully!. You might be able to get away with using Oxi-Clean or a similar cleaner if you don't want to get one designed for winemaking!.
6) If you want to make good wine, learn to do it with the right equipment and supplies!. The results will be much better than what you are proposing!.Www@FoodAQ@Com
You would need more sugar, grapes for eating don't have as much natural sugar as grapes for making wine!. You would also need real wine yeast if you wanted it to taste good!. But if you kept it clean it should make some drinkable wine!.Www@FoodAQ@Com
I have made wine before its very tempermental but what you are making is technically an ale I would acc some more sugar and open the bottle often about once a day or it will burst This has happened to meWww@FoodAQ@Com
first off squeezing your own grapes and doing small batches is a fools errand ,if you want to make wine ,do it right ,vis:
start out with a 5 gallon water cooler jug rinse it out with a solution of 1 gallon of clean water with 2 tablespoons of bleach ,slosh it all around inside the jug ,then dump it out and rinse the jug 3 times with hot water then 3 times with cold water then one more time with as hot as you can stand water ,cover the mouth with foil and set aside !.next make your must with 4!.5 gallons of good (welches)grape juiceput 1!.5 gallons into a stainless steel pot and bring it to 150 degrees and hold it at that temp for twenty minutes ,while you are waiting for the time to pass ,place the remainder of the juice into the jug (take the foil off first ) and shake uo really well to get as much oxygen into the juice as possible ,put the foil back on and set aside again noe, bring the juice in the pot up to 170 degrees and add eight cups sugar to it aand simmer (dont go over 180 degrees ) for as long as it takes to disolve ALL of the sugar,turn the heat off and watch it ,stirring once in a while ,to make sure all of the sugar has disolved it must cool to 125 degrees ,while you are waiting for it to cool down prepare a small (i ltr)bottle with the following in it 1/4 cup white sugar ,1/4 cup corn syrup 3/4 oz yeast nurtient,two packets of whitelabs 3126 yeast ( or whatever the guy at the winearts store sugests )and 1/2 ox urea ,disolve all of this well in about 1/2 to 3/4 liter of straight apple juice ,and keep it at about 88 degrees til it starts to foam up a lot( should take about 2 to 3 hours) when the stuff on the stove has cooled to 125 degrees pour it in to the jug and dump the stuff from the small bottle into the jug ,fit a bubbler type fermentation lock or a really huge balloon onto the top of the jug and set it in a place where it will stay around 65 to 80 degrees for the next 2 to 3 weeks ,watch the balloon and when it is getting really full let most of the gas out of it and let it start over filling the balloon again after about the fourth week rack(siphon) the wine off into one gallon jugs that have been rinsed out the same way you did the big jug and fit them with smaller balloons and wait for the action to stop altogether ,if you have sanitized everything properly and the yeast was good you will have about 4 gallons of fairly decent wine at about 15 to19 %alcoholthen rack this off into 1 liter bottles that have been treated the same as all of the other bottles and push a cork into each one ,then set them in a cool place (like the basement) for as long as it takes to clear ,the drink it responsibly as this stuff will screw you all up if you are not careful-if you have any questions email me at the addy in my profile -good luckWww@FoodAQ@Com
start out with a 5 gallon water cooler jug rinse it out with a solution of 1 gallon of clean water with 2 tablespoons of bleach ,slosh it all around inside the jug ,then dump it out and rinse the jug 3 times with hot water then 3 times with cold water then one more time with as hot as you can stand water ,cover the mouth with foil and set aside !.next make your must with 4!.5 gallons of good (welches)grape juiceput 1!.5 gallons into a stainless steel pot and bring it to 150 degrees and hold it at that temp for twenty minutes ,while you are waiting for the time to pass ,place the remainder of the juice into the jug (take the foil off first ) and shake uo really well to get as much oxygen into the juice as possible ,put the foil back on and set aside again noe, bring the juice in the pot up to 170 degrees and add eight cups sugar to it aand simmer (dont go over 180 degrees ) for as long as it takes to disolve ALL of the sugar,turn the heat off and watch it ,stirring once in a while ,to make sure all of the sugar has disolved it must cool to 125 degrees ,while you are waiting for it to cool down prepare a small (i ltr)bottle with the following in it 1/4 cup white sugar ,1/4 cup corn syrup 3/4 oz yeast nurtient,two packets of whitelabs 3126 yeast ( or whatever the guy at the winearts store sugests )and 1/2 ox urea ,disolve all of this well in about 1/2 to 3/4 liter of straight apple juice ,and keep it at about 88 degrees til it starts to foam up a lot( should take about 2 to 3 hours) when the stuff on the stove has cooled to 125 degrees pour it in to the jug and dump the stuff from the small bottle into the jug ,fit a bubbler type fermentation lock or a really huge balloon onto the top of the jug and set it in a place where it will stay around 65 to 80 degrees for the next 2 to 3 weeks ,watch the balloon and when it is getting really full let most of the gas out of it and let it start over filling the balloon again after about the fourth week rack(siphon) the wine off into one gallon jugs that have been rinsed out the same way you did the big jug and fit them with smaller balloons and wait for the action to stop altogether ,if you have sanitized everything properly and the yeast was good you will have about 4 gallons of fairly decent wine at about 15 to19 %alcoholthen rack this off into 1 liter bottles that have been treated the same as all of the other bottles and push a cork into each one ,then set them in a cool place (like the basement) for as long as it takes to clear ,the drink it responsibly as this stuff will screw you all up if you are not careful-if you have any questions email me at the addy in my profile -good luckWww@FoodAQ@Com