Welch’s Grape Juice Wine Making
180 days agoI like Welch’s Grape Juice. Made from Concord Grapes, they taste much better than the rest of the packaged grape juice I have tried before. Yes, it taste a tad sweeter but overall I really like the flavour, definitely stronger than the rest. And they claim there is no added sugar as it is 100% grape juice, which is weird since they are made from concentrates. They also claim that within 2 hours of the grapes being picked, they are turned into the concentrates which supposedly locked in the goodness. I would definitely prefer the juice to be fresh instead of in concentrates. The way they make concentrates is most likely from high heat where all the water is being evaporated off, leaving only the thick syrupy sugars and what-not. I think this process damages the flavour and of course some of the vitamins and nutrients.
Anyway, I bought a bottle of Welch’s Grape Juice to make some wine. Yes, wine is made from grapes (or from the juice of grapes). Actually what you need is any type of juice (that isn’t too acidic), you should be able to make wine from it. Add some yeast and you will soon get wine as the yeast eats the sugars and produce alcohol. But if you are looking for premium fine wines, you won’t get it from packaged fruit juices. But if you are looking for some decent wines, actually the wine made from Welch’s Grape Juice is quite decent. This is according to homebrewers who have made their own wine before.
You see how cloudy it is? This is the result of the yeast producing carbon dioxide. Yes, those are the yeast floating in the wine/juice mixture as carbon dioxide is being produced. I did add about a cup of sugar into the juice so as to pump up the alcohol volume to that of a normal strength wine (12-14% ACV). However, once the sugars are all eaten up and the yeast settles on the bottom, it will become clear again. You can see the difference in the colour from my previous wine made from Berri Dark Grape Juice.
I will be posting the taste test after 3 months. Yes, it will take that long for the wine to be decent. Some commercial wines take like years to mature so 3 months is nothing. What happens is once the simple sugars in the juice has been consumed by the yeast, only the more complex sugars are left. And this is what makes a wine taste good – those complex sugars will be eaten by the yeast slowly and they will produce more complex flavours in the wine. Those simple sugars only produce harsh alcohol, which isn’t going to taste great. Of course aging does not work all the time, it depends on the grapes and whatever sugars are in there. But since Welch’s grape juice is pretty strong stuff, I think it should do well with some aging. Hopefully.
[...] a clean container. Look at how clear the wine is now. If you have read my previous post about this Welch’s Grape Juice wine, you could see how cloudy (or murky even) the wine was in the beginning. The yeast, whatever [...]