Homemade Wine Instructions

Hi:

Today is day 8 and I just transferred my wine from the plastic fermenter to a glass carboy like the homemade wine instructions say to do. I do not see the wine brewing at all. Shouldn't the wine still be fermenting? Do I have a problem?

Please help!
Robert
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Hello Robert.

I am going to assume that you are making your wine from a wine ingredient kit such as our European Select or KenRidge Classic since you mentioned "day 8" much like their directions would.

How fast your fermentation goes can...

One of the most commonly used ingredients in home wine making are Campden Tablets. You will find them in almost any of the wine making recipes you will use; talked about in almost any of the wine making books you will read; and called into action by just about any of the homemade wine instructions you will follow.

What Do Campden Tablets Do?
The original reason these tablets were used in wine making was to keep the wine from spoiling after it had been bottled. By adding these tablets at bottling...

Hello E.C. Kraus,

I recently purchased your County Fair concord juice. I am planning to use 4 cans to make 5 gallons. I noticed the can shows 5 tsps of acid blend for 4 cans, but your wine recipe page online shows to use 1 tbsp [3 tsps] with 40# of fresh concord grapes and none in 80# version of the recipe.
 
Why is there a difference? I don’t want the wine to have a “bite” it can have with too much acid.  What do you suggest?

Thanks Kelly
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Dear Kelly,
 
I can certainly understand your...

[This is the conclusion of a two part blog post. See the previous entry for the beginning of this post.]

The Alcohol Level Needs To Kept In Balance.
In general, the fuller the flavor of a wine, the higher the alcohol level must be to keep it in balance. Wines that do not have enough alcohol as compared to their flavor intensity, will taste harsher. The astringent characters of the wine will be highlighted in the wine's final flavor profile.

To help put this into better perspective, lighter white...

[This is part I of a 2 parts]

Hello,

Your blueberry wine recipe on your website states you need 13lbs of blueberries for making 5 gals. Will using 20lbs of blueberries add more color and flavor to the finished wine?

Thank-you
Gary C.
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Yes, adding more fruit to any wine recipe is going to intensify the flavor and add more color. But before you go taking this bit of information and run with it, here are some considerations that you may want to think over first.

Do You Really Want More...

Dear Kraus --

I have started 5 gals. of wine using your SunCal concentrate along with 6 ½ lbs. of sugar and one pack of wine yeast. It has been fermenting for 3 weeks. I have racked it and checked it with a hydrometer. It had a reading of about .995 SG. When It started it was at 1.075. That is enough sugar to make 10% alcohol. I then added 2 lbs more of sugar and another pack of yeast. Now it has stopped fermenting.  Is the batch ruined or what can I do to start it back to fermenting.

Please...

Hello:

Is there a service that can repair leaking oak wine barrels?  I had used mine for many years and did not do it for a while and now the barrel leaks when I try to put fluid into it. 

Thanx,
Steve
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Good Afternoon Steve,

There is no repair service that we know of for individual wine barrels, but here are a couple of things you can try that might get your wine barrel back into service.
 
Keep adding water to the barrel until the wood has had time to swell back up. This could take a...

Hello Kraus,

How do you know if the wine yeast is working, I prepared the yeast per the homemade wine instructions that were on the packet and when set to ferment the air-lock is not popping. Did I do something wrong, What would cause this to happen?

Thank you for your help,
Albert the beginner

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Good Morning Albert (the beginner),

Let's see if we can't figure out what's going on...

First, it's important to understand that it can take a wine yeast up to 36 hours to start showing...

Kraus,

I have a couple of questions about using the hydrometer and when I should remove the wine from the primary fermentation to the secondary fermentation and also after the wine brewing is done. As I take readings I am a little confused about when do you move the wine to the second fermenter. Is it a certain number of days or are we measuring for a specific reading on the gravity hydrometer? On the secondary fermentation I know you are looking for a reading a specific of 0.995. Is that true?

Te...

Hello

My name is Lee and I have been making wine from your recipes for awhile. I was wondering what I could do to lower the alcohol content. If I used half the sugar the recipe called for would that do it? If you could help i would appreciate it.

Thank You Lee
__________

Lee,

A very short answer to your question is, yes, however there is a lot more to this question than meets the eye.

It sounds like you understand that when a wine ferments it is turning sugar into alcohol. Less sugar in the...

Good Morning,

I recently made some apple wine. It is now in secondary fermentation, and still looks very “milky”. There seems to be a lot of tiny fruit particulate in suspension. Very little seems to be settling out. I will need to rack this wine next weekend, what should I do to clarify the wine?

Ken H.

__________

Hello Ken,

The reason your wine is still milky or cloudy is because it is still fermenting. You will not see any signs of clearing until the fermentation has completed, or its activity...

Hello,

I bought two wine making kits from you that makes 6 gallons (30 bottles). Last night we bottled the the first wine and got 25 bottles. Is this about right considering you do lose some during racking? Approximately how much waste do you normally have due to sediments in the bottom?

Mary M.
__________

Dear Mary,

While there will be some waste, there should be nothing close to the five bottles you lost on your first batch. You should be losing no more than one bottle when making wine from...

Have you ever wondered where all the sediment in the bottom of your fermenter comes from?

We're not talking about the strands of pulp and other bits of the fruit, but that creamy, brown-looking stuff at the very bottom. Is it the broken-down solid remnants of the fruit? No, it even shows up when you make your wine from pulp-free concentrates! Could it be sugar that was added to the juice? No, the sediment's there even when no sugar at all has been added to the must. So what is it? Where did it...

Kraus,

I purchased a California Connoisseur Merlot concentrate kit. Does this concentrate consist of tannins?  If it does, would it hurt to add a little more tannin to help it's staying qualities?

Should I have an acid testing kit?  If so, does the tannin have to be added during/before fermentation or can I put it in at any time?

Are there any other adjustments that need to be made to this concentrate?

Doug B.

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Dear Doug,

Thank you for this great question.

All of the wine making...

Dear Kraus,

I would like to order Alexander’s Sun Country concentrate and blend two of the [ALC106] Zinfandel and one of the [ALC108] Barbera. I have done this with actual grapes but never with concentrate and would like to have your opinion. Using grapes the resulting wine has been rated as equal to a $40.00 bottle.

I know that I can’t have any type of guarantee as to the results, I just want to know if the 2 concentrates can be mixed and the follow the regular homemade wine instructions. I don’t...