How to brew cheap wine
Preface: I’ve never done this before, and i’m totally inexperienced about brewing. I did a little bit of research online and found this was the easiest and cheapest way to brew wine, which seems like the easiest of all alcoholic drinks to make. Follow these directions at your own risk
Like the title says, this method of brewing is not expensive (cost me roughly $12. This will make me 2-3 gallons of wine. maybe more), but the returns aren’t for connoisseurs. This is for cheap-asses, college kids, and 15 yr olds who can’t buy anything themselves. If you do it right, it’s enjoyable, cheap, easy to do, and most importantly, alcoholic. Plus, it only takes a maximum of 2 weeks to fully ferment!!!
Step 1:
Buy ingredients. Get the cheap stuff. It doesn’t matter what quality it is because it’s hobo-wine.
I made a gallon jug of this. The recipe calls for:
- 2 cans of juice concentrate (room temp) I chose welch’s concorde grape. You should be able to use any type of concentrate like strawberry, kiwi-whatever etc. Two juice concentrates makes 1 gallon.
- 2-3 cups of sugar
- water
- water container (I used a water jug that was 60 cents at the store, plus I got to use the water)
- Active Dry yeast
- bleach
- funnel
- rubber band
- balloon
Step 2:
Sterilize everything you’re going to use to keep the fermenting wine in. You don’t want unwanted bacteria growing in your wine, it ruins it. Bleach out your funnel and your jug. Rinse well, and wash with dish soap. Air dry.
Drying:
Step 3:
Go ahead and bring your water to a near boil. What I did was let the water boil just for a bit to kill anything in it (just in case), and then I took it off the heat and let it cool. I heated mine in separate pots because I didn’t have any large enough to hold it all.
Step 4:
While you’re waiting for your water to heat, go ahead and add your room temperature juice concentrate to the clean, dry jug. Use the funnel if you need it.
Step 5:
As the hot water cools, dissolve 2-3 cups of sugar in the water. Most recipies I’ve read say 2 is fine, but i added 3 so the yeast had enough nutrients and so that the wine would be sweeter. Stir while pouring.
Step 6:
Activate the yeast. Follow the instructions on the back of the packet. For me, I added 1 teaspoon of sugar into a separate bowl along with 1/4 cup of water at 100-110 degrees Farenheit. Add the yeast to the concoction and stir briefly. Let sit for 10 minutes. The yeast should be very frothy now.
Step 7:
Pour the dissolved sugar-water into the jug that’s holding the juice concentrate. Your juice/sugarwater might be warm. Cool it off a little by placing the jug in the sink and fill the sink with cool water. When you introduce your yeast to their syrupy mix, it can’t be too hot or it will kill the yeast and ruin your project. I waited until the jug was just warm to the touch. 80-90 degrees i estimate.
Step 8:
When the mix is cooled enough, add the yeast to the mix.
Step 9:
Cap the jug containing your sugar water, juice concentrate, and yeast and shake violently. Try not to spill. Do it enough just to mix everything up.
Step 10:
Remove the cap, place a balloon over the top to allow for expansion. The yeasties produce CO2, and it’s got to go somewhere. You cannot introduce air to the mix or it will ruin it/make vinegar. Bad bad bad! Some people use valves, some make tubing that runs from the jug to a glass of water so air cannot get in, but it allows the CO2 to escape. I use a balloon.
Note: when using a balloon, make sure it doesn’t over inflate and pop. Again, this will ruin your batch.
If you want you can put a rubber band over the ballon to further secure it. If you really want to i suppose you can tape it as well. I didn’t.
Step 11:
Keep your jug in a relatively warm place (room temp). The yeast can handle 60 degrees, but i wouldn’t want to chance it. Also, i wouldn’t expose it to direct sunlight.
There it is! I just brewed it up tonight, now I just wait 10-14 days and then i can…
Step 12:
ENJOY!
When you’re done fermenting, you can siphon the good stuff out while leaving the clumpy yeast in the jug. To repeat, just make sure to sterilize again and you’re good to go.
Again, i’m way not a pro at this. I just thought some of you might want to try this with me and we can help eachother along. If you know what you’re doing, post in here and give advice. I’d love to hear it.
Filed under: Tips on August 27th, 2006
But it’s cool that this is here for others. I may send my cousin the link the recipe page. He could use a recipe like this.
Be good, and have fun. And for goodness’ sake, if you develop a problem, get your ass to AA.
May you know the Lord Jesus and have peace. God bless you.
The arrival of babies “postponed” our culinary adventurings.
aka The Nectar of the Gods, go to the above
URL, you’ll find many Mead recipes here.
how did you pasteurize? also, i think you might have better results with regular old active dry yeast or a wine yeast!
And yeah your right, if I try it again I’ll get the right stuff instead of Walmart yeast
I think for a better wine you should probably use fresh fruit or canned fruit if you can’t find appropriate amounts of the fresh variety. The actual fruit probably contains a higher yield of natural sugars, alkaloids, scientific mumbo jumbo, etc., that helps provide a more well-rounded, full-bodied, wine flavor.
I’m actually about to start brewing up some wine for my roomies and college buddies and I read somewhere that you can allow the wine to ferment for as long as you want to get a more “professional” flavor, so I hope to get some great wine for the holidays
Anyway, I’ll try to stay in touch and let you know how the fresh fruit avenue leads me!
Ingredients:
10 lbs. honey
Citrus peel
sliced ginger
yeast
Procedure:
Make a basic mead with 2 lbs of honey per gallon. Use a clover honey or
a light wildflower honey for this recipe. Just before taking the must
off the boil, add a small amount of sliced ginger (about the size of
one’s thumb for a 5-gallon batch) and then add the thinnest peel of
orange skin (about 3/4 of the skin of the orange). Be careful not to
get the white pith of the skin, it leaves a bitter/soapy after-taste.
Let it cool naturally about 3/4 hour (longer for larger batches) and
then remove the ginger and orange peel. Put in a carboy to cool, then
add yeast and let it go for three to six weeks (I usually let it go till
it starts to clear). Bottle, let sit for another week or two (to charge
the bottles) and then chill and serve.
I haven’t tried and probaly won’t for a while i might give beer making another go and i’ll continue to trie and crack this wine recipe i’m thinking about evolving it to 25 litre or 6.6 gallons
i have read other recipes that say it is helpful to use yeast nutrient with mead. another problem could be that you did not shake it enough. for mead, you have to really shake in the begining to get lots of oxygen dissolved. one thing you could do is try adding yeast nutrient and pouring it into a sanitized pucket and back into fermenter, splashing it, to try and add some oxygen to it.
so, don’t throw it out. the recipe that rahne sounds like most of the ones i have read. yes, you probably added too much yeast.
http://www.gotmead.com/content/view/745/53/
this site has some good mead recipes… check out the beginners section.
I HAVE MADE BALLON WINE SEVERAL TIMES. IT IS A VERY SIMPLE AND FUN PROJECT. THE ONLY THING I DO DIFFERENT IS I USE CAKE YEAST. I SEEM TO HAVE GOOD LUCK WITH THIS. I USE A SEVEN GALLON PLASTIC JUG TO BREW IT IN. MY NEIGHOBORS LOVE IT. IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS PLEASE LET ME KNOW.
I am now making banana-apple wine (from real bananas), jalapeno wine, spiced-apple wine, apple wine, and another batch of the grape.
There is very little danger with this recipe. People have been making wine for 1000s of years using this method. Just make sure you the follow the directions. Don’t let air get to your wine, otherwise it will turn to vinegar and taste like crap.
It is also best to use actual wine yeast. This has a huge effect on the taste.
-people aren’t huge fans of red grape wine around here. how do the concoctions with other fruits and fermentables turn out? sweet like a wine cooler? a little more bitter like a fruity wine perhaps? anybody done this with just pure sugar and no other ingredients?
-most importantly, how does using a better grade of yeast affect the taste? specifically, i hope that i will not have to subject myself to the ‘bread effect’ in order to get drunk…perhaps some champagne yeast is worth the trip across the city to the wine store?
Thank you all so much…and keep fermenting!!!
Enjoy
I have made countless batches basically the same way! Improvements in brewing tek lead to improved taste, control over sweetness and flavor, maturity and less hangovers! The top 3 lessons I have learned are: 1. Never use bread yeast- use a good quality wine yeast instead ($1.00) in brewing supply stores 2. Use a hydrometer ($10.00) in the same place - it helps adjust the sweetness and alcohol levels of your finished wine. 3. Control the fermentation temp precisely!- That means less hangovers! 4. Get a good brewing or winemaking book or DVD. I found a 2 DVD set on ebay called “easy homebrew” that got me jumpstarted in my home brewery. It even shows you how to build your own fermenters! Happy brewing and safe travels!
Here’s a recipe you can make by buying all your ingredients on food stamps.
At Henry’s Foodstore, WholeFoods, or Sprouts get a few jars of Eden Organic Barley Malt - Traditional Malt Syrup. These places take EBT cards and foodstamps so you can buy this as foodstuff.
At your supermarket, buy generic corn syrup that says it’s made from high fructose corn syrup, or use brown sugar.
Place equal parts of the barley malt and sugar to equal about 1/2 pound or about 200 grams, into a pot. Add 3 liters of water and bring to slow boil. Cover and let stand to cool until it’s 74 Degrees Farenheit or cooler.
Funnel into a CLEAN 3 liter plastic bottle with the cap. The only thing you have to pay cash for is the beer yeast or champange yeast. Find it at a local brewery supply. It’s about $1 a packet. Use Beer yeast for low alcohol, use champagne yeast for high alcohol. At this point you can choose to make alcoholic Root Beer(for flavor) or Beer. To make root beer buy some McCormick Root Beer concentrate and follow the directions for how much to add. Put the cap on tight and shake vigorously. Open the cap and add the yeast to the bottle, add a quarter teaspoon of yeast and screw the cap on. Now loosen the cap enough so that air can get out. Just squeeze to see if the bottle can still breath. Keep the cap on to prevent contamination.
Place in a dark place and let ferment for a couple of weeks. You will occasionally get that beer/root beer smell as gas is released. When it stops bubbling it’s time to change bottles.
Siphon the brew into a another clean 3 liter bottle. Don’t get any of the yeast at the bottom. Add a teaspoon full of sugar to the new bottle. Cap it tight and set aside for a day. When the bottle feels pressureized, release pressure and put in the fridge. Taste it while it’s cold about once a day. When it tastes like dry wine add more sugar for taste and serve.
Be drink and eat mary…
Ingredients
Eden Organic Barley Malt Traditional Malt Syrup - Health food food stamps
Corn Syrup - supermarket food stamps
brown sugar - supermarket food stamps
3 liter soda bottle - supermarket food stamps
brewing yeast - brewery supply, one in every city, cash
Thanks.
summary: it is safe to make this wine if you follow the instructions… just don’t try distilling/freezing it unless u really know what you are doing (i.e. methanol comes off first with fractional distillation)… search google for more answers!
be careful!
However I have never heard of anyone having trouble with it as long as they didn’t attempt distallation. Looking it up on the net yielded the fact that mathanol is made using a completley different process.
Just stick to fermentation and you should be alright.
Also i made a wine out of orange cordeal i added coconut essence when i started brewing because i like the tropical flaver how ever the coconut essence is now to strong so if you wish to have the cocnut flavor ad it after you finish brewing because i think the brewing prosses slightly altered the flavour of the coconut essence as well as making it stronger.
Now the yeast is the reason for the bad taste.
and hear is how to get around increase the amout of sugar leave out the yeast completly but it in a streilised bottle thatseals tight and leave it for a few months now this will take longer but it will work and leaves out the aftertaste of the yeast use a hydrometre to check out the percentage.
I know this will work because my mum did this accidentally. Each year we used to make quite alot of lemon cordeal (love the fruite trees in the back yard) anyway one time it was left so long it went alcoholic it also hapen againd with homw made preserved pears
2 cans of juice concentrate (room temp)
2-3 cups of sugar
water
water container (I used a water jug that was 60 cents at the store, plus I got to use the water)
Active Dry yeast (??? 1 packet, 2 packets?)
bleach
funnel
rubber band
balloon
If you can’t get wine yeast. It is a bit of a risk. But wild yeast grows in the skin of grapes. You could just drop a few grapes in your brew. People were making beer and wine 6,000 years before they knew what yeast was.
I collected some wild yeast to make sourdough bread. I am still alive.
Just started my first homebrew today. I used
1 packet of avtive Yesast, two containers of strawberry kiwi, pinapple orange, and after three hours the yeast is bubbling and chowing down amazing!
could this be done with just sugar-water? Has anyone here tried to ferment anything especially unusual?
I am trying this recipe with lemonade concentrate and plenty of sugar, as well as some wine yeast that was supposed to thrive in a slightly acidic environment. After about an hour there is no activity and I am a bit worried. I will update again soon if it activates, but I am thinking the lemons are just too acidic without something to buffer the solution.
-Chris R
Ingrediants for a 2-litre bottle of sugar wine.
1 packet of yeast
750-1000ml or 5-6 cups of water
3-3.75 cups of sugar
(Note, the cup of liquid and the cup of sugar are vastly different in size. The sugar cup is MUCH smaller, about as big around as a can of cola and half as tall or so. I just added that so no one would misunderstand and try to fill half the jug up with sugar. Wouldn’t work I’d imagine and even if it did you’d probably get diabietes from drinking it all, just kidding.)
I only used a 2-litre and it worked. So if you want to make more than that at one time, just double the ingrediants to make 1 gallon.
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One last question. Does anyone know how to tell the alchohol percentage other than by taste?
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Or would it filter out everything?
Go to a wine/beer brewing store (or go online to http://www.midwestsupplies.com/) and buy a few essential supplies:
1. An airlock for less than $1. The airlock is placed on top of your brewing container. This will eliminate the need for playdough, balloons, condoms, etc. This will also vastly improve your chances of actually getting wine and not something like vinegar or worse. Be sure to purchase a rubber stopper that is the same size as the neck of your brewing container.
2. While you are there, buy some wine yeast. It starts at 50 cents a pack and again, vastly improves your chances of getting a good result. For the wines that are made with fruit juices on this site, my best result has been with Red Star Wine Yeasts 5 grams. Cotes Des Blanc. Sounds fancy, but it’s not. You throw the whole pack of yeast in whether you are making a gallon or 5 gallons.
3. If you want sweet wine, you will need to kill all the yeast left in your wine, then add sugar to taste before bottling it. Do this by adding Potassium Metabisulphite before adding sugar prior to bottling. You can get a small bottle at the wine making shop for less than $2 and the instructions are right on the bottle.
4. Like everyone has said, sterilization is EXTREMELY important when making wine or beer. You can’t get stuff too clean. If you want to round out your supply list, pick up a packet of no-rinse cleaner like One-Step. For $2.75 for an 8 oz. bag, you can make 16 gallons of sanitizer that is safe enough to drink (although I would not recommend drinking it!). You don’t have to rinse (in fact, I recommend not rinsing) as this product is meant to be used without rinsing.
So there you have it — for about $7 you can VASTLY improve your chances of making a wine that will actually taste like wine. Be careful in the wine store though. If you are like me, it’s like a kid in a candy store — there are LOTS of things that will temp you!
If you have about $75 and want to seriously get into winemaking, talk to someone in the store about a kit. This will get you everything that I talked about above, plus better equipment (i.e. glass carboys, fermentation container, etc). You can actually make wine that does taste like what you buy in the store for about 90% less. The guys (and in some cases gals) who work in the wine making shops have also been a tremendous help to me too and can provide an amazing amount of free advice.
Have Fun!
I love to brew wine and have all the equipment, but I love DIY projects so I really want to try this
I’m going to do some in some 7-up bottles, and as a suggestion to make it taste better, I’m going to use one can of concentrate in the brewing process, then I’m going to rack it twice add stabilizer and then, add the second can of concentrate
I made some cranberry wine by this method, starting with grape concentrate and adding the cranberry afterwards
And to Nick, above
Add enough water to bring water up to a few inches from the top
To the person that said to avoid oxygen: The yeast needs oxygen at the start, and the space between the liquid and the top won’t hurt too much, as long as you don’t take the top off regularly. Just don’t splash it too much around bottling time and when you rack it.
Racking is pretty much essential, as every real batch of wine I’ve made taste like wet dog before racking, but afterwards tastes like good wine
I work in germany , bavaria , for paulaner
all I can say is, brewing is not dangerous! only distillation is!
it does not matter how much yeast you take! because yeast reproduces!
but more yeast=less time waiting
FUN RECEPT FOR BEGINNERS AND ADVANCE:
…IF YOU DO NOT HAVE YEAST: pour a little beer instead of yeast! beer has live beer yeast inside! and it will make a good mixture of malt, hops and your mixture
tried the balloon method , but the balloon poped up several times i think i have added too much of bakers yeast,
can any one suggest me much quantity of yeast has to be take, will bakers yeast do the jobs for me
Your yeast will keep growing till it runs out of food. Sugar.
All the jugs started bubbling quickly, about 10mins after mixing. They are still bubbling fast at 1.5 days. It smells good too. Im going to rack and bottle one jug at 3 days, one at 7days and another at 10-14. I want quick liquor.
having a little problem though. The bubbles are rising up to the ballon and leaking some grape juice out, the jug with less juice doesn’t do this.
This my first fermentation, this recipe is really easy and so fun! I’ll post again when i taste it, and thanks for posting
With foodstamps this cost me about 3 bucks for the balloons, rubber bands, and funnel.
PS
If your underage living with parents the smell might get you caught!
After pouring half of my first jug in a new bottle, i drank a few glasses. It tasted ok, kinda spicy but no bread taste, took 2 short kitchen cups to get buzzed. Then I put it in the freezer for 5 hours then the fridge overnight, there was a lot of junk in the bottom now so i siphoned juice out into another jug leaving behind the less, and I’m drinking it right now. Its much better after the siphon, less spicey and the after taste is more fruity. Im going to get a hydrometer today or tomarrow
Anyways at day 5 I opened the 3rd jug, went though the siphoning process again and cold stabilized, the extra day made a big different in taste, and it was a bit more alcoholic I think.
I still have one more jug to drink, been fermenting for over a week. And I’m going to make some other flavored stuff, like I just used this recipe with orange juice, and Welches white grape+raspberry.
at last in my second attempt i suceeded in making the wine, i reside in such a country were alcohol is banned , so whatever or however it tasted i could enjoy my week end with booze
After finally waiting for the distillers yeast to clear (About 1 month after it stopped bubbling) the wine looked good
I syphoned it out of the glass jug into the spring water jug I bought
The white welches juice made a nice nothing-tasting white wine
I added one can of raspberry concentrate to it and BAM it is awesome
About 18% alcohol (distillers yeast can get higher than typical wine yeast) according to my hydrometer.
It tastes absolutely great, and goes down smooth
it’s a little tangy and not too sweet, perfect
Racking and patience pays off in spades
Don’t be hard on jeanne you little twerps
Read her question. She isn’t asking how to make this retardedly easy wine. She’s asking can you use concentrate from the frozen isle to make wine, and the answer is yes. The 50 odd dollars you pay for getting the sack of concentrate is due to the region that the wine comes from and the superior wine that comes out of it. The concentrate wine will only make white, as even red concentrate has dye rather than having the skins left in as red wine concentrate does. Anyway, don’t pay attention to the prepubescent morons.
The other guy
your response was fine
See response 96
In retrospect, I should have said prepubescent moron
anyway, I tried to respond to all 3 of you in one string
But you had said why would concentrate cost 50$, and I half answered that.
I just really didn’t like how Daniel P. attacked her/him in his/her response
But yes, this was a good recipe, and any concentrate works
Seeing as you puffed out your internet-chest like a horny gorrilla, you sounded like a prepubescent moron. No matter if your balls have dropped or not, you’re still a twerp.
Her question was, believe it or not, not answered by either your stupid comment or this article.
Allow me to explain it to you; she was asking about conventional winemaking. This is not conventional wine making. She was asking if canned juices would work as well as fruit to make a quality homemade wine.
I’m sorry that you are so stupid Daniel.
Shouldn’t it be bubbling or some thing by now, or is the yeast dead?
ive read most of the blogs and learned alot in the past hourbut i have a question! Could you take the screw on lid of a milk jug and cut out a hole in it for a tube about the size of a dime maybe a little smaller and seal it with plumbers putty and then stick the tube in a glass of water? please comment or email me (bmx_four_ever@yahoo.com) thanks a billion
Question: My first batch has been setting for about 1.5 days now, and though it has started bubbling and has the balloon standing up straight, the bubbling is very light (almost like a carbonated drink) and I’ve seen no real major foam layer. Did I do something wrong?
Is that a sign of foreign bacteria or the yeast not having good conditions?
Warning to those still in the process of fermenting; DONT JUMP THE GUN. Let the wine clarify signifigantly before bottling. Two weeks is only a rough estimate.
Another warning; be careful syphoning it. I know it seems easy, but believe it or not using gravity to suck wine through a tube isn’t exactly a clean process. Expect to get a…how do I say…premature taste?
But I’m starting only with the vague memory of the grain, potatoe and fruit alcohol my step dad used to make to run the gas tractors on the farm,,,, he made it in a bucket?
Luckily I’m a fairly handy sort of gal and the less of my self sufficiency I can hand the govn’ the happier I am.
If anyone knows of a good website or has a functioning cooker that they teach me about,,,, I’d really appreciate it.
I’m also working on using a reclaimed oil heater for my cooking source… I work with alot of tractors and can get the old oil from them.
I can be emailed at gomulego@live.com
i used pineapple juice and slices of fresh nectarine that i mashed up before putting in the bottle.
i didnt use the balloon method though, i used tubing which ran from the bottle into a cup of water. all i did was cut a hole in the cap and put in the tube and sealed it with putty and it worked great. it bubbled up for about 3 days, i let it sit for another, then strained out the excess yeast through a coffee filter. there was a lot of residue so i figure it worked fine.
the final product is not the greatest tasting thing but it isnt half bad at all.
i only made one bottle, and so i used about 1 1/2 cups sugar and 3/4 packet of yeast.
you can really tell its very alcoholic, both in smell and taste.
it only cost me $1.50, because the only thing i needed to buy was yeast. so considering the how cheap and how alcoholic it is, i dont think you could get a better bang for your buck.
i would highly reccomend trying this and will be doing so again myself very soon. next time i will make more and use different kinds of juices. thanks for a great page.