making my first really crappy wine

There are lots of posts on using Welches white, it's Niagara. If you want to make mead a quart of honey is about 3 pounds and 12 pounds per

5 gallons total batch will make a dry mead at between 10 and 12% ABV.

Don't forget to not fill the bottle, if you fill it up it will make a mess when it ferments. Fill about 3/4's full max.

Joe

Banana wine. When they are on sale you can make wine for about a buck a bottle.

Recipe adjusted to make us of non-wine store components (except for the wine yeast, which is just necessary).

4-5 lbs bananas (at 30 cents a lb = 1.50) 1/2 lb white raisins (1.30) 2 cans lemonade (1.50) 1.5 lbs sugar (.70) wine yeast and water up to 4 liters (.50)

Let the bananas get to the overripe state, chop them up add the rest of teh stuff and ferment for 3-4 days. Strain let sit in secondary for a month, rack, let sit for 2 months and bottle. 5 bottles for 5.50. Of course you can make it cheaper by leaving out all the concentrates and using citric acid powder if you want. IT will be thinner and less vinous though. If you want to go really cheap ferment koolaid with breat yeast.

There's a recipe in the Joy of Home Winemaking that uses frozen apple juice and frozen lemonade, water, sugar and yeast. My sister has my book so I can't remember all the details. but it looked cheap and easy.

This is the address to The Joy of Home Winemaking website. It has the apple juice recipe on it.

yeah....I filled it all the way to the top, but I put the jug in a bucket luckily. When I woke up my room smelled like grapey bread, and was very very glad my apartment carpet isn't purple now.

~ ay

Joe is right. Go to Jack Keller's site and use his recipe for making wine from Welch's frozen Niagara grape concentrate. It does not taste like the grape juice. (I don't like it either) It tastes like a decent white wine and it is ready in 3 or 4 months. Can be made for less than a dollar a bottle.

Ray

use wine yeast, and don't "activate"

Ah yes - a bathroom sign that could go in many of our rec. rooms:

If life is a waste of time, and time is a waste of life, then let's all ge wasted together and have the time of our lives.

Sorry I could not help that one. Bilb, you gave a good lead in to it.

Ray

nice poem :)

~ ay

ok. so my wine is slowing down on the bubbling. Should I wait until no more small bubbles pop up or take it out a little sooner? I don't have an air lock. I just used a balloon with a pin hole on the top of the tequila bottle i used to ferment in.

Very low tech, but I'm a poor college student just starting up this hobby.

~ ay

If you are after the buzz not the wine then don't bother racking or anything else. It is not going to bulk age without an airlock anyway. It will oxidize under a balloon. Save your money and buy some long straws. You and your buddies can sit around and suck the wine off the top as it clears. After a bit of sucking you can suck the wine off the bottom before it clears and not notice the difference. I have been to parts of the world where that is exactly how they do it. Actually it is not as bad as you might think. ... Well actually maybe it is. ;o)

Ray

an ingenious one, at that :))

I hope you used real wine yeast and not bread yeast or beer brewer's yeast That'd be a crying shame.

Since you've now got the bug, you might consider investing the have an air lock. I just used a balloon with a pin hole on the top of

um....probably going to be a crying shame. Used regular ol' yeast. I've got an air lock somewhere back at my mom's place. Just have to go dig it up. I just fermented the juice....concentrate. The tequila bottle was just left over glass I had left over. It was 1.5 liters. It was full up to the smaller neck. I'll probably do what the previous post suggests...just get some friends and drink it. I don't think this stuff will be worth the rack.

The dead yeast I just throw away? And the campden tablets I can get from a wine supply store or can I get those from the grocery store?

I'd like to say thank you to all the people who have helped me during my lil' adventure. I'll probably post later this weekend about the taste. ~ ay

my hunch is you were pretty sloshed when you posted that, and that's ok.

forget Camden tabs if you are just going to drink the alcohol.

more money saved.

tell your profs to go f*ck themselves because the shit they are teaching won't earn you a dime.

I guess my profs are going to cry then. wow that was harsh, heh.

~ ay