Brewing Master

Question:

My wife has a bumper crop of grapes, not sure which kind, and she boiled some of them down yesterday and poured them into my carboy. Now we are wondering which kind of yeast to use. She is the sort that tends to barge ahead with a plan, before the plan has been fully formulated, so I am sitting now with about 5 gallons of grape juice that she is hopping to turn into wine. All I know for certain is that we will end up with white wine when we are done. Perhaps "white wine" is a bit optimistic, but surely it won’t be red or any variation. If anybody can jump in here with a suggested yeast to use, I am assuming I need yeast because I use it in my beer making, or any other suggestion that can be molded into the idea that I am already half way into the process, I would appreciate anything you might have to say. I do have just about all of the needed hardware because of my beermaking hobby, but we have never made wine before. Thanks,

Response:

I forgot to mention, I have a packet of Coopers yeast …

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – My wife has a bumper crop of grapes, not sure which kind, and she boiled some of them down yesterday and poured them into my carboy. Now we are wondering which kind of yeast to use. She is the sort that tends to barge ahead with a plan, before the plan has been fully formulated, so I am sitting now with about 5 gallons of grape juice that she is hopping to turn into wine. All I know for certain is that we will end up with white wine when we are done. Perhaps "white wine" is a bit optimistic, but surely it won’t be red or any variation. If anybody can jump in here with a suggested yeast to use, I am assuming I need yeast because I use it in my beer making, or any other suggestion that can be molded into the idea that I am already half way into the process, I would appreciate anything you might have to say. I do have just about all of the needed hardware because of my beermaking hobby, but we have never made wine before. Thanks,

Response:

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Not on wine topic but for my own curiosity but are you the same Jeff Stickland from ramjw? My wife has a bumper crop of grapes, not sure which kind, and she boiled some of them down yesterday and poured them into my carboy. Now we are wondering which kind of yeast to use. She is the sort that tends to barge ahead with a plan, before the plan has been fully formulated, so I am sitting now with about 5 gallons of grape juice that she is hopping to  turn into wine. All I know for certain is that we will end up with white wine when we are done. Perhaps "white wine" is a bit optimistic, but surely it won’t be red or any variation. If anybody can jump in here with a suggested yeast to use, I am assuming I need yeast because I use it in my beer making, or any other suggestion  that can be molded into the idea that I am already half way into the process, I would appreciate anything you might have to say. I do have just about all  of the needed hardware because of my beermaking hobby, but we have never made wine before. Thanks,

Jeff. My choice would be champagne wine yeast.  All my recipes for white wine in my new winemaking book call for champagne wine yeast. I made a batch of white wine with my Interlocken green grapes last year, used  the champagne yeast, and it was delicious. good luck. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text –

Response:

um, im no pro but i think if she boiled them you may get jelly of some kind. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I forgot to mention, I have a packet of Coopers yeast … My wife has a bumper crop of grapes, not sure which kind, and she boiled some of them down yesterday and poured them into my carboy. Now we are wondering which kind of yeast to use. She is the sort that tends to barge ahead with a plan, before the plan has been fully formulated, so I am sitting now with about 5 gallons of grape juice that she is hopping to turn into wine. All I know for certain is that we will end up with white wine when we are done. Perhaps "white wine" is a bit optimistic, but surely it won’t be red or any variation. If anybody can jump in here with a suggested yeast to use, I am assuming I need yeast because I use it in my beer making, or any other suggestion that can be molded into the idea that I am already half way into the process, I would appreciate anything you might have to say. I do have just about all of the needed hardware because of my beermaking hobby, but we have never made wine before. Thanks,

Response:

Not on wine topic but for my own curiosity but are you the same Jeff Stickland from ramjw?

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – My wife has a bumper crop of grapes, not sure which kind, and she boiled some of them down yesterday and poured them into my carboy. Now we are wondering which kind of yeast to use. She is the sort that tends to barge ahead with a plan, before the plan has been fully formulated, so I am sitting now with about 5 gallons of grape juice that she is hopping to turn into wine. All I know for certain is that we will end up with white wine when we are done. Perhaps "white wine" is a bit optimistic, but surely it won’t be red or any variation. If anybody can jump in here with a suggested yeast to use, I am assuming I need yeast because I use it in my beer making, or any other suggestion that can be molded into the idea that I am already half way into the process, I would appreciate anything you might have to say. I do have just about all of the needed hardware because of my beermaking hobby, but we have never made wine before. Thanks,

Response:

the yeast is like beer yeast different kinds for different wines  try some montrachet at first seems to be a good all a round yeast the rest is like brewing, rack to carboy after a week or two, let set month or two rack again  etc  and know the the fancy words are just like in brewing  ie means normal things and check out web pages just like i did to make my first beer a month ago grady – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -wondering which kind of yeast to use. She is the sort that tends to barge ahead with a plan, before the plan has been fully formulated, so I am sitting now with about 5 gallons of grape juice that she is hopping to turn into wine. All I know for certain is that we will end up with white wine when we are done. Perhaps "white wine" is a bit optimistic, but surely it won’t be red or any variation. If anybody can jump in here with a suggested yeast to use, I am assuming I need yeast because I use it in my beer making, or any other suggestion that can be molded into the idea that I am already half way into the process, I would appreciate anything you might have to say. I do have just about all of the needed hardware because of my beermaking hobby, but we have never made wine before. Thanks,

Response:

My wife has a bumper crop of grapes, not sure which kind, and she boiled some of them down yesterday and poured them into my carboy.

"Boiled"?  I hope that doesn’t mean what it sounds like.  Did you, perhaps, loosely borrow a term from zymurgy? In winemaking, fruit is never cooked.  Also, if it is grapes it is not normal to add any water. If you have 5 gallons of grape juice, you’ll need a bigger container than that for the fermentation – at least at first.  Yeast gets pretty vigorous while fermenting.  If you just dumped yeast into a nearly full jug of juice you’d end up with a gallon or two on the floor.  A good fermenter would be wide-mouth, and about 50% bigger.  Plastic trash cans or food-grade poly containers with a loose fitting lid are often used for initial fermentation. An alternative would be to split it between two carboys. You can get an appropriate yeast strain from a homebrew shop.  Also get some nutrient, potassium metabisulfite, air locks for carboys, rubber stoppers for both carboys and gallon jugs (solid and one-hole), a racking cane and hose. You should do some reading at Jack Keller’s website while you’re at it: http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/index.asp Good luck! Tom S

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