Author Archives: Erroll

Produce Department Chablis

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Welch’s wine? While you’re at the grocery store, head over to the freezer section for some frozen grape juice concentrate. Then try my Welch’s wine recipe and see how it compares.I’ve always wanted to make wine from grocery store grapes. It’s not that I’m expecting greatness, but that I’m really curious. Grapes were on sale for $0.88/lb. One variety was Thomson Seedless, the others were just called “red” and “black”. They were all seedless, and they all tasted the same to me. I ended up buying roughly equal amounts of all three, 20.34 lb total, to make wine with. Here’s how I did it:

Ingredients

About 20 lb (9.2 kg) of seedless table grapes
1 tsp pectic enzyme (approximately 2.3 g)
sulfite to 50 ppm (equivalent to 1.5 campden tablets)
sugar to SG 1.090 (about 0.375 lb or 170 grams in my case)
Premier Cuvee yeast

Sort and destem, then extract the juice

After discarding the moldy ones and destemming the rest by hand, I had 19.4 lb (8.835 kg) of grapes.

Red, green, and black seedless grapes half-filling their own 2-gallon buckets

There’s more than one way to juice grapes. I’ve used grape crushers and bladder presses when I bought wine grapes. I’ve crushed cherries with my feet when I made cherry wine. I’ve even built a simple press out of three plastic buckets. This time I ran my grapes through a juicer that I’ve been meaning to try.

Juicing the grapes with a Juiceman 210

It worked pretty well, though I did have to stop and clean the filter screen a few times. I ended up with about 5.44 quarts (5.15 liters) of juice which works out to one gallon from 14.25 lb of fruit (one liter from 1.7 kg). That is almost exactly what I got from Riesling grapes when I used a crusher and bladder press (one gallon from 14.29 lb of fruit).

Measure the sugar and acid

Up to this point, I kept each batch of grapes and their juice, separate. I was curious if I’d notice a difference in flavor or yield. I also wondered how much color the red and black juice would have. Well the yield was nearly identical and they tasted the same to me, but the red and black grapes did yield colored juice. This may end up as a blush or rose if that color persists in the finished wine. It would have been a little tedious to ferment them as three separate batches, so I combined them and added the sulfite and pectic enzyme. Next, I needed to measure the sugar and acidity, to know what adjustments to make.

Red, green, and black grape juice each half filling a 1-gallon jug

It was easy enough to draw a sample and measure the acidity. The pH was 3.35 and the TA was 7 g/L, as tartaric. Dry white wine musts are normally 7 – 9 g/L TA and 3.1 – 3.4 pH, so no need to adjust the acidity.

The suspended solids in the juice were going to make it difficult to measure the sugar. To get an idea of how much sugar there is, I measure the specific gravity with a hydrometer. Suspended solids in the juice will raise the SG, making it look like the sugar content is higher than it really is. So I decided to let the must sit overnight. This would let the pectic enzyme do it’s work and allow many of the solids to settle out. With luck, I could get a clear sample and get a meaningful SG reading.

I always worry about my must when I have to let it sit for any length of time. Yes, the sulfite will protect it, but I’d feel better if the yeast were busy. Having them dominate a must, and ferment to dryness quickly, is a great defense against spoilage organisms. So I decided to make a starter. I didn’t follow my own careful instructions, here, rather I just added the rehydrated yeast to 0.5 cups (120 ml) of must and let it go overnight.

Measure and adjust the sugar

By morning, the starter was happily bubbling and I checked in on the must. It’s not as though all the solids dropped to the bottom and I had a gallon of crystal clear juice to sample, but with some care I was able to coax 0.5 cups of clear pink juice into my test jar. The SG was about 1.078, and I’m aiming for 1.090. So I need to add sugar. How much? The short answer is that 0.375 lb (170 grams) of sugar dissolved in just under 0.5 cups (100 ml) of water (boil and cool the sugar water to keep out the nasties) will bring the SG up to 1.090. You can use this formula to calculate how much sugar water (2 parts sugar, by volume, and 1 part water) to add to your own must:

x = ( V * (TG – SG) ) / (1.310 – TG)

where x is the amount of sugar water, in liters, to add
V is the volume of must, in liters (5.15, in my case)
TG is your specific gravity target (1.090)
SG is the current specific gravity of your must (1.078)

If you’re wondering where the 1.310 came from, it’s the specific gravity of sugar water. So make sure you use 2 parts sugar (by volume) to 1 part water or the above formula won’t work. In my case x was equal to 0.281 liters. To make the math and the measurements easier, I rounded that to 300 ml. That means I needed 200 ml of sugar, which weighs about 170 g, dissolved in 100 ml of water.

I added the sugar, pitched the starter, and noticed vigorous fermentation in hours. Wine from produce-section grapes! Who knows how it will taste, but pretty cool, huh?

Update 7/27/2009 – Sugar additions the easy way!

If you’re put off by the math I used to adjust the sugar, check out my new Wine Recipe Wizard. I wanted to make sugar and acid adjustments easier by just having you type in the volume of juice you have, your hydrometer reading, and (optionally) your titratable acidity. Then just type in what you want the sugar and acid to be and the wizard will tell you what to add. I hope this helps – let me know if you have trouble using it.

Update 11/15/2009 – Disappointing

I don’t think I ever had high expectations for this wine. I never imagined comparing it to an aged Premier Cru Chablis, but I was hoping for a nice table wine. I didn’t get that. The wine is balanced, there are no faults, but there is no flavor either. I’m starting to think about how to improve the procedure, but until that stroke of genius hits, I had to say that wine from grocery store grapes is bland.

Update 12/3/2009 – Save it by making mulled wine?

When produce department grapes give you something bland, make mulled wine! I’m hoping that traditional mulling spices like cinnamon and clove along with citrus zest will add some life to this wine. This will be my first time making mulled wine, so I’m excited!



Easy To Make Wine From Grocery Store Grapes

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Why make wine from table grapes?

Grapes from the produce section of the grocery store are meant to be eaten fresh, and you shouldn’t expect them to make top notch wines from them. Still, I’ve always been curious about what sort of wine they would make. The green seedless grapes that are so common are called Thomson Seedless. A local grocery put Thomson seedless and two other seedless grapes, identified only as “red” and “black,” on sale for $0.88/lb. Here was my chance to satisfy my curiosity and get a good deal. How could I pass that up?

How do you make wine from table grapes?

These grapes, Thomson Seedless and other two, are large compared to most wine grapes. Which means that, pound for pound, they have much less skin than wine grapes. I could go into the geometry, but I’ve been sipping some of my wine tonight and trying to commit mathematics right now could get really ugly. Trust me on this – large grapes means less skin. So these grapes wouldn’t be suitable for red wine, which gets it’s flavor and tannin from the skins. Also, some of these unidentified “red” and “black” grapes might be American or hybrid grapes, which may have a “foxiness” or other undesirable flavors to them. Making a white wine from them could help minimize or avoid these off flavors.

So it’s best to approach this sort of wine as a white (or blush or rose depending on how much color the “red” and “black” grapes contribute). I decided to buy about 20 lb (around 9 kg) of these grapes, roughly equal quantities of each, and juice them. After testing the sugar and acid, I would adjust the juice appropriately for a white wine. That means a titratable acidity of 7-9 g/L (it will drop during fermentation to about 5-7.5 g/L) and a pH of 3.1-3.4. It also means enough sugar for about 12% alcohol. I’m inclined to make a dry white, but these grapes might produce a bland wine. As the wine matures, I may decide to sweeten it if I think it needs a little help.

This should be an easy and fun wine to make, and I started making it today. I’ll explain how over the next day (or few days).



Don’t Judge A Wine By It’s Color

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My sister only drinks red wine, and when she came to dinner the other night she brought a lovely bottle of Oregon Pinot Noir. It was really nice of her, and we all enjoyed it, but I wonder if a tiny part of her reason was to avoid being “stuck” with the whites I wanted to showcase.

I opened a bottle of mead that I made in the style of a dry white wine, and for some it was the first mead they had ever tried. I can’t really describe what mead tastes like. I wondered about that for a long time, then I finally decided to make some and find out.

Next came a rhubarb wine. I make this every year from rhubarb that I grow in my backyard. It was dry, like the mead, and had the lightest color of the three. Rhubarb was one of the first “country wines” I ever tried, and it opened my eyes to a whole new world beyond grapes.

My 2005 Riesling rounded out my trio – very dry and acidic, but balanced, and it had a great flavor. She asked for a bottle to take home with her, “I didn’t think I liked white wine, but I like Erroll’s white wine.”

I love red wine, but I think a lot of people are missing just how great white wine can be!

Making A Yeast Starter

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Why make a starter?

You can get good results from wine yeast by just sprinkling a newly opened packet directly onto your must. There are times, however, that you really ought to use a starter. Yeast become active and start reproducing much more quickly and reliably in a starter, so in difficult (for the yeast) situations, like trying to restart a stuck fermentation or if you doubt the viability of your yeast (because it’s been sitting on a shelf for years, for example, or you ordered it during a freak heatwave and it may have gotten cooked in a delivery truck somewhere), a starter is worth the effort. You may also want to make a starter if you need your yeast to dominate the must quickly. Maybe you don’t like to use sulfite or you had to leave your must sitting for longer than you expected before you could pitch your yeast.

Some people use starters routinely. This is probably unnecessary, but it doesn’t hurt.

How do you make a starter?

First, you should rehydrate your yeast according to the directions on the package.


Rehydrating Yeast


In the photo, I’ve sprinkled the yeast into a quarter cup (about 50 ml) of warm water and let it sit for five minutes. Coming out of dormancy is stressful, and a lot of yeast cells die. Warm water, with no additives like nutrient or sugar, is the least stressful way to do it and results in the largest population of live yeast.

While you’re waiting, dissolve a tablespoon of sugar (12 grams) and a pinch of nutrient in a cup 2.5 fluid ounces (75 ml) of water. Once your yeast is rehydrated, add it to the sugar water. You should see signs of activity in less than an hour.


After 30 minutes, bubbles appear on the surface of the yeast starter. They are predominantly in the center and cover about 25% of the surface.


In about four hours, it should be active and foamy and you can add it to your must.


The yeast starter is four hours old now and bubbles cover the surface.


You can let it continue for a up to a day, but there is probably no advantage in it. Any benefit from additional growth will be offset by having your must sit around with no yeast in it. If you do want to let the starter grow for a while, maybe because you made the starter before you prepared your must, then keep an eye on it every few hours and add sugar water, 1 tablespoon (12 g) sugar to each half cup (120 ml) if activity subsides. If you made the starter to restart a stuck fermentation, it’s better to add must to the starter, in a new fermenter, gradually.

Update 7/13/2010 – Changed the recommended sugar concentration

My original recipe for a starter was about 5% sugar, but I now use 10%. That’s about two tablespoons (24 g) of sugar to each cup (240 ml) of water. The yeast will have something to chew on either way, but 10% sugar is about halfway to the 20% or so common in wine musts. That makes it less of a drastic change. It means the starter might take a little longer, and can be left a little longer, before pitching.

2005 Riesling

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Oz Clark, in his Grapes and Wines, called Riesling the wine critic’s favorite grape. I can see why. I just tried some of my 2005, and it’s marvelous.

A wineglass, half filled with Riesling, and a full, corked bottle of 2005 Riesling.


I made it dry (the final gravity was 0.990, one of the lowest readings for any wine I’ve made) but even 9 g/L of acidity didn’t unbalance the wine. To make it, I bought grapes from my local homebrew shop. I was able to use their equipment as part of the purchase, so I took home two partially filled carboys of juice. I added pectic enzyme and pitched the yeast, Red Star Premier Cuvee. Other than that, all I added was time. Not many people think to age white wines, but some do very well, and Riesling is the queen of aged whites. These Washington grown grapes, available at retail, probably aren’t the sort to make a wine that will improve over decades, but I look forward to tasting it as it ages over the next year or two.

Tomato Wine: First harvest

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It’s a modest beginning, but a beginning nonetheless. Yesterday’s 6.5 oz (175 grams) of Gold Nugget tomatoes began a harvest that I expect to last into September. I’ll be gathering the fruit often, maybe every day, and storing it in the freezer. Currently, the freezer has unimportant things like food in it, so you might think it would be no problem to just store the harvest in there. No, the lady of the house has informed me that the meat, bread, and other non-fermentables are staying. I was as shocked as you must be, but what can I do? There is just no reasoning with her, so it looks like I’m in the market for a chest freezer.

Honey Prices: Getting more expensive

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Prices up 10%

Last month, and since the beginning of May, my local Costco sold 6 lb (about 2.7 kg) jugs of honey for $7.99. Those 6 lb jugs are now fetching $8.79, a 10% increase. I think Costco’s price for clover honey is a good indicator of honey prices in the US for three reasons: clover is the largest selling variety, Costco turns its inventory rapidly, and their margins are consistent. So changes in the wholesale market show up right away in Costco’s retail price. Here are other prices I keep an eye on:

Costco: $1.47/lb – $8.79 for a 6 lb jug
Sam’s Club: $1.53/lb – $7.64 for a 5 lb jug
Miller’s Honey (clover): $1.45/lb – $87 for a 60 lb pail – unchanged from May
Miller’s Honey (wildflower): $1.08/lb – $65 for a 60 lb pail – unchanged from May

To soon to say if it’s related to Colony Collapse Disorder

I’ve been keeping a close tab on prices ever since I heard about Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), the mysterious problem that has destroyed whole colonies of honey bees. I wrote here that I didn’t expect a supply squeeze from CCD, and I don’t have any new information about US honey production now. So I can’t say if we’re starting to see CCD affect honey prices or not. That 60 lb pail of wildflower form Miller’s looks tempting though.

Update 3/9/2009: Honeybees hang in there

The 2008 Honey Report indicates that managed colonies in the US fell by only 6%. Honey production and per colony yield rose. It’s looking more and more like Colony Collapse Disorder is not a catastrophe.

Making Wine From Grapes With (Almost) No Equipment

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Don’t buy the expensive equipment

I buy wine grapes through my local homebrew shop in 100 lb lots, which is enough to make five or six gallons of wine. They take customer orders, arrange to buy the grapes from growers, and provide the use of their equipment. They will do all the work, so I can just show up with two empty 5-gallon carboys and go home with two 5-gallon carboys partially filled with juice. I like making wine, though, so I usually roll up my sleeves and go to work. I lug boxes of grapes to the crusher-destemmer, turn the hand crank to crush the grapes, put the crushed grapes into the press, collect the juice, then go home with two 5-gallon carboys partially filled with juice.

Reds can be alluring, but whites are easier

Red wine is all about the skins and, unlike kits, you can ferment a must of crushed grapes (in which case you’ll be taking home a primary fermenter full of crushed grapes rather than carboys of juice). This is a great way to make red wine, but there is a problem when it comes time to press. My local homebrew shop will let you use their press, for no additional charge, but you have to bring your fermenter back to the shop to do it. That’s a hassle I’d rather avoid, so I usually buy white wine grapes.

An easy way to make it good, and a hard way to make it better

Red or white, it’s a good way for amatures to make wine from grapes. Crusher-destemmers and presses are expensive, so the use of their equipment makes this a good deal. And making wine from grapes is easy; I’ve made very good white wine by just pitching yeast into the juice, with no adjustments at all. It’s an easy process with good results, but it also reinforces my decision to grow (some of) my own. I can’t help wondering how these grapes were grown. Were they harvested at their peak or at a convenient time for the grower and retailer? How much time had passed from harvest to crush? If the wine is good, how much better could it be if I harvested the grapes at their peak, processed them, and pitched the yeast all in one morning? My bonsai vineyard may produce enough grapes this year for me to find out!

Good Looking Grapes

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It was only six weeks ago that hoplai beetles were attacking the flowering grape clusters on my Leon Millot vines. Here is how those grape clusters look today.


Leon Millot Grape Cluster


The Leon Millot (above) aren’t the only vines with good looking grapes. The Pinot Noir (below) is coming along nicely.


Pinot Noir Grape Cluster


I should be seeing verasion soon!

Cherry Wine Recipe: Sugar and acid

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Too much acid, but I don’t dare neutralize it

I pressed the cherry wine four weeks ago, and looked in on it yesterday. It’s had time to settle, and the clear wine has a lovely dark color. It tastes tart, though, and when I measured the total acidity (TA) I could see why. It was 11 grams/Liter, as tartaric, and in a dry red wine it ought to be more like 6 or 7 g/L. Usually TA and pH move in opposite directions; if your TA is high, all that acid pushes the pH low. This time, however, the pH was 3.76, which is higher than the 3.2 to 3.6 optimal range for red wine. The problem with a high pH is that it makes a wine vulnerable to microbes, and it may not age as well. You can remedy a high pH by adding acid. If the TA is too high, you can neutralize some of the acid, as I did recently with my oregano wine. But how do you deal with too much acidity and a high pH?

So I’ll bring the wine into balance by sweetening it

The high TA affects the taste, so the way out of this dilemma is to improve the taste without affecting the acidity. That way, I can fix the acidity problem without making the pH problem worse. We know that acids can make a wine taste tart, but there are other influences on a wine’s taste. Tannins provide bitterness, while sugar and alcohol provide sweetness. A wine tastes best when none of these influences overpower the others. Such a wine is said to be in balance. You can actually think of it as an old fashioned balance scale, with tannin (bitterness) and acid (sourness) on one side. Sugar and alcohol, both providing sweetness, would be on the other. My cherry wine is out of balance, with too much acidity. Since I don’t want to make a fortified wine, my best bet for bringing the wine back into balance is to add sugar. To do this, I need to wait until the yeast is dormant. Then I can stabilize the wine with sorbate, which prevents the yeast from fermenting the added sugar, and sweeten.

But I have to wait until the yeast goes dormant

To determine if the yeast is dormant, I looked at the specific gravity. It was 1.007, which indicates some residual sugar. Either the fermentation had stuck or the yeast is still (slowly) fermenting. I can’t say for certain, so I’ll rack the wine now, which will get it off the sediment, and recheck in a few months. If the SG hasn’t changed, then I’ll know the yeast is inactive. If, on the other hand, the yeast was still going, it will likely finish at a lower SG in those months. Either way, I anticipate stabilizing and sweetening then. Waiting a few months will also let me repeat the TA and pH measurements. A high pH and a high TA is out of the ordinary, so I’d like to double check. Right now, I’ve got some racking to do.

Update 2/23/2009: More options for high pH – high TA wines

I’ve run into the same problem again, and I’ve given it some more thought. Sweetening to bring the wine into balance solves half of the problem, without making the other half worse, and that’s an improvement. I may have found a way to solve both halves of the problem by using phosphoric acid. I talk about that in a new post about solving acidity problems.

Update 5/25/2009: A happy ending


It’s in the bottle and worth the effort – an enjoyable red wine and I would recommend it to anyone interested in this approach.