Homemade Wine Questions...?

Question

Questions #1 as far as simple wait 3 weeks and then your done homemade wine goes, i guessing that the grape juice is mostly for flavor; so, what if i was to just make the mixture with out the juice, just water sugar and yeast? it would still make alcohol wouldn't it? i'm also guessing it would taste like crap.

Question #2 I know this is a spacial chemical reaction between the yeast and the sugar that makes the whole thing work. But, if i wanted to make a lower calorie wine and not have all those sugar calories could i use i different sugar product? like splenda for example, its made from sugar but its zero calorie, would the yeast still be able to eat it and make alcohol?

Answer 1

1) The grape juice can be used either for flavor or as the entire source of fermentable sugars (key word here for #2). You can measure the sugar content of the juice with a hydrometer (around $4-8 at your local home brewing store) and find out how much potential alcohol is there. If it's not enough for your liking, you can always add either sugar, fruit juice concentrate, or honey. If you just used sugar, water, and yeast, you wouldn't get much...yeast needs more than *just* sugar to survive and produce alcohol. Fruit juice adds the other necessary nutrients.

2) Yeast needs fermentable sugars...i.e. sugars that it can eat (calories and all) so that it can survive and multiply. Alcohol and CO2 are simply by products of this consumption. No calories, no metabolism, no by-products, and so on...need calories. The calories in wine come from the alcohol and other constituants. If it's a dry wine (dry meaning not sweet) there is minimal or even zero sugar...all your calories essentially come from the alcohol. If it's a sweet wine, then you have residual sugar and thus, added calories from the sugar.

For minimal calories, you need to start with a low potential for alcohol. You then need to make sure it ferments completely dry. The sugar will be totally consumed (so no calories from sugar) and the alcohol content will be lower than typical wine (so minimal calories from alcohol) and then if you want a sweeter wine, *then* add your splenda as a sweetener.

Answer 2

Q 1) If you use sucrose (table sugar) the end result would be a very watered down ethanol, just imagine adding a 1/2 shot of everclear to a 8 oz glass of water. You would need to add some nutrient & I am sure the yeast used would attribute some flavor, you could of course distill the wash & make you own neutral spirit

Q 2) from everything I have read sucralose (splenda) is a non-fermentable sugar that can be used for sweetening the end product. I have read adding beano after the primary ferment can reduce the colories by up to half, I do not know what other effect this may have though

Answer 3

I've made mead and a variety of country wines as well as grape wine. Mead takes the longest to get to bottling. I bottled after a year and got chewed out for being in too much of a hurry. However, the mead had cleared and tasted just fine. Papazian has some good recipes (as well as general instructions) in The New Complete Guide to Home Brewing. Other wines can ferment in a matter of weeks. A few (port, bordeaux, etc.) benefit from aging.

Answer 4

I believe that it would tast horrible. Why would u want to do that?
Also, about the low calorie thing, is all to do with the grapes. Low cal wine is made from the first grapes picked in the season.

The younger the grape, the lower the sugar content, which means less alcohol and fewer calories. The grapes are also lighter in colour.



I found this site that could help you:
http://www.cheresources.com/winezz.shtml

Answer 5

I made my wine 4 months ago , took wine out of barrel, put some in bottles and corked them , the rest in gal jugs, last night one gal jug blue up, still was foamy, any help why, thanks

Answer 6

your wine went through mlf

Answer 7

splenda will not work

it doesnt work for pavlova either