How do you make Balloon Wine

Instead of a baloon, buy an airlock and a bung. It will set you back all of a couple bucks - and they are reusable.

Don't use the balloon, you can make great wine with a 1 gallon jug, a plastic or stainless pail and an air lock. Check out Jack Kellers site,

and come back with questions ;)

Steve

Wow! I've been lerking here a month or so. (ever since I made my 1st and only batch of wine) and when I heard people talking about 'balloon' I thought they were talking about the glass carboys. We call them 'glass balloons' here.

Now I know that the posters mean it LITERALLY!

So they take a jug, dump some juice and yeast in it, and wrap a ballon around the opening.

OK now I got it.

Phil (feel>

The wine is coming along just fine, I am using a little over 3 lbs. of Blueberries, and the balloon is inflated to let me know that fermenting is active. When the balloon falls over I'll know it is time for the next stage. I'm learning as I go, so I don't know how is is going to turn out. Thanks Steve and Paul for the information, I now have some bungs, air locks and other stuff ordered for my next try at it.

Could it be that the balloon concept is to keep some CO2 in solution after the primary? That idea sounds like it might have merit, because the CO2 would get knocked out during transfer to secondary, which would give you a much needed CO2 blanket for the, most likely, less than full secondary. Would work for beer too Brian. Ken

I just put up a batch of blueberry to ferment. Picked about 10-10.4 lbs blueberries, cleaned, mashed, added sugar water, acid, nutrient, tannin, campdens, day later pectic enzyme, day later yeast (ec-1118)

It is now 48 hours after adding the yeast, and it is a very slow ferment. I stir every 24-hours, and can see very little foaming action on the top. If I wait and look at the airlock, I get a tripple bubble every 2 or 2 and half minutes. PA at the beginning was about

17%, must have been some really sweet berries. It's about 3-1/2 gals must, I hope to fill a 3-gal carbuoy when done.

Do blueberries start/continue slow? Any ideas what I may have done wrong? This is only my third batch of wine, I have a strawbery in secondary that is clearing up nicely, and a big batch of watermelon that is still bubbling away, but in secondary, still cloudy.

Greg

Bogus email in header, real is gwmusik*at*hotmail*dot*com

The baloon takes the place of an air lock. It was used before airlocks became so cheap and prevelant as they are now.

The deflating part comes into play when there is not enough CO2 being produced to keep the baloon full. Either it leaks out directly through the rubber or through a pin-hole that is usually put in the narrow part of the baloon that does not stretch too much. You still don't want the baloon to really old any pressure to speak of.

One problem with them was sanitation. Plastic airlocks and bungs have helped the hobby just by eliminating the infections caused by baloons.

Hope this helps!

Alex.

Reminds me of my parents growing up in the 70s. They use to buy a ballon wine kit they was sold in gift shops near us in Vermont. I believe you added frozen grape juice concetrate to a one gallon jug with a packet of ingredients that was supplied along with the ballon.

That's my understanding too, it took the place of an airlock and acted as a crude indicator of fermentation progress.

That's how my grandmother made small batches of a gallon or so. It was 40 year ago so I did not understand the process at all. Those wines were drunk young and unsulfited, most were country wines of tomato, concord, apple, etc. My grandfather used barrels for his wine, he made the bulk of the wine there. She followed Know Wons logic. When the ballon deflated it was pretty much done, just needed to settle down a bit with time...

Plastic airlocks really simplified winemaking at home, I have seen old glass ones and besides the cost, they had to be fragile. I think another option people used back then was the blow off tube idea beermakers still use, they attached a hose to the top of the container and draped it into a glass of water for a crude airlock, same concept.

Know Won, Once the wine is done fermenting rack it off the gross lees and keep it topped up, (full containers) you do not want your wine exposed to air.

Joe

container

concept.

that's more or less what I do. but the glass of water is an aquarium of plants and the CO2 feeds the plants.