# I made wine from store-bought grape juice **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** wine\ **Created:** [October 2, 2018, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-made-wine-from-store-bought-grape-juice/822296 "2018-10-02T02:52:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2018, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-made-wine-from-store-bought-grape-juice/822296/1 "2018-10-02T02:52:35Z")
Congratulate me and tell me that I am God. Because I am - in my own mind anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Lendervedder](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_lendervedder/32/8488_2.png) [@Happy\_Lendervedder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Lendervedder)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2018, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-made-wine-from-store-bought-grape-juice/822296/2 "2018-10-02T03:16:05Z")
So now you’re drinking prison wine \*and \*you’ve got a God complex. Super. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2018, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-made-wine-from-store-bought-grape-juice/822296/3 "2018-10-02T03:19:58Z")
It’s only prison wine if you make it in the toilet… ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2018, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-made-wine-from-store-bought-grape-juice/822296/4 "2018-10-02T03:30:15Z")
That ain’t wine, that’s hooch. And weak hooch at that - regular grape juice is around 16° Brix, compared to 21-25° for a typical red wine. Have you drank any yet? ---
**Author:** ![Gray\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c0e974/32.png) [@Gray\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gray_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2018, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-made-wine-from-store-bought-grape-juice/822296/5 "2018-10-02T03:48:41Z")
Congratulations. As much wine as I’ve drunk, I’ve never taken the plunge to make it myself. Helped other people to make theirs, but never any of my own. Did you add sugar? What yeast did you use? Did you use any sulfur/campden tablets? What did you ferment the must in? How does it taste? Worth the effort? ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2018, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-made-wine-from-store-bought-grape-juice/822296/6 "2018-10-02T11:06:40Z")
> [@TroutMan](#): > > That ain’t wine, that’s hooch. > > And weak hooch at that - regular grape juice is around 16° Brix, compared to 21-25° for a typical red wine. > > Have you drank any yet? Actually, it was surprisingly strong - much stronger than I imagined it would be. I didn’t take a gravity reading so there’s no way to know other than how wobbly I felt, but relative to other wines I’ve drunk, it had to be right up there in terms of ABV. I’m guessing at least 12% - maybe up to 15. But that’s on par with other wines I’ve had. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2018, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-made-wine-from-store-bought-grape-juice/822296/7 "2018-10-02T11:10:22Z")
> [@Gray\_Ghost](#): > > Congratulations. As much wine as I’ve drunk, I’ve never taken the plunge to make it myself. Helped other people to make theirs, but never any of my own. > > Did you add sugar? What yeast did you use? Did you use any sulfur/campden tablets? What did you ferment the must in? > > How does it taste? Worth the effort? Sugar and wine yeast, but no campden tablets. I would have used campden had I been patient enough to bottle it for a few months, but I pretty much just drank it right after 2nd fermentation was complete. In fact I’m not 100% sure that it was 100% completely done fermenting. I used the original grape juice containers for primary (10-14 days) and then transferred it to a carboy, where it fermented about another 10-14 days. It tasted surprisingly good. A little sweeter than the wines I’m used to buying at the store, but especially after it aged a little in the fridge, it tasted almost like real wine. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2018, 11:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-made-wine-from-store-bought-grape-juice/822296/8 "2018-10-02T11:23:43Z")
What juice did you use? Has anyone here made wine from Concord juice? I have not been able to find Concord wine _per se_ that is not sickeningly sweet and was wondering if anyone’s pulled this off. Although I have had other fox wines such as Muscadine and Niagara and I have had some good ones of those. ---
**Author:** ![kk\_fusion](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kk_fusion/32/15276_2.png) [@kk\_fusion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kk_fusion)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2018, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-made-wine-from-store-bought-grape-juice/822296/9 "2018-10-02T11:41:54Z")
I’ve just made wine from what I believe to be Concord grapes growing over my driveway. Kid stomped them in an old bathtub. I added absolutely nothing to the juice, just left it out to ferment for four weeks. It tastes definitely alcoholic, with no residual sweetness. Like young wine that needs to be stored for a couple more months, which I am going to do. ---
**Author:** ![Arkcon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Arkcon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arkcon)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2018, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-made-wine-from-store-bought-grape-juice/822296/10 "2018-10-02T12:21:27Z")
I made some Concord wine using store-bought juice and some wine yeast lees left from some other wine. It was … tolerable. I fermented as much as I could with no need for added sugar. The taste was OK, I didn’t notice “foxy” - a common historical complaint using Concord grapes. The flavor was thin, but I could have a glass with each meal and it went well with lighter meat dishes. I didn’t expect something so thin in flavor would age into something spectacular. I often used frozen white grape juice – those are Niagara grapes, to make a white wine. Its as nice as any “two-buck-Chuck”-type you’ll find anywhere else. With a residual sweetness, most people will enjoy it socially. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2018, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-made-wine-from-store-bought-grape-juice/822296/11 "2018-10-02T12:52:19Z")
Every wine I’ve ever made has been mildly disappointing when done, usually too alcohol-forward. So, I bottle and cellar it a year, then _boom_ it’s amazing. ---
**Author:** ![swampspruce](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/swampspruce/32/261_2.png) [@swampspruce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/swampspruce)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2018, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-made-wine-from-store-bought-grape-juice/822296/12 "2018-10-02T14:05:59Z")
My first homemade batch of wine was a 50/50 blend of 4 cans Welch’s Grape and 4 cans Grape Raspberry jiuice from frozen concentrate. We added yeast and let’er go. My buddy had the equipment so this was all done in kit fermentors and secondary in glass carboys with us filtering it in the end. Final results were drinkable but as noted above very light. It worked as a Sangria base and as wine spritzes but on it’s own was meh. I’ve done a bunch of [Winexpert kits](http://winexpert.com/) since then and they have yet to disappoint. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2018, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-made-wine-from-store-bought-grape-juice/822296/13 "2018-10-02T14:29:06Z")
Heh. When I was a teenager, we made balloon wine from Welch’s frozen concentrate and bread yeast. Tasted fine, got us drunk, cheap. Three out of three. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2018, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-made-wine-from-store-bought-grape-juice/822296/14 "2018-10-02T15:10:32Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > Every wine I’ve ever made has been mildly disappointing when done, usually too alcohol-forward. So, I bottle and cellar it a year, then _boom_ it’s amazing. I don’t make wine myself, but I have a friend who is kind of fanatical about it, with his own grape destemmer, heavy-as-shit-bolted-to-the-cellar-floor manual grape press, and god knows how many fermentation vessels. We usually end up pressing about $1000 worth of wine grapes every year (in the fall, there’s a few outdoor markets here in Chicago for a couple weeks where you can get all your California grapes for making wine.) Point is, even starting with that, from the grapes themselves, the wine tastes, well, maybe not terrible, but definitely rough for the first six months at least. By 9 months it seems to mellow out, but everything he does, we like to keep it a year to settle. Then, it is quite wonderful wine something I’d expect to pay around $10-$15 a bottle for (well, except for the one year where the entire batch got contaminated somehow, and he ended up with a lot of expensive vinegar–well, it wasn’t even usable for vinegar [I tried] as whatever got in there was not plain ol’ _acetobacter_ or some form of _lactobicillus_). ---
**Author:** ![scabpicker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scabpicker/32/8268_2.png) [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2018, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-made-wine-from-store-bought-grape-juice/822296/15 "2018-10-03T01:58:00Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > Heh. When I was a teenager, we made balloon wine from Welch’s frozen concentrate and bread yeast. Tasted fine, got us drunk, cheap. Three out of three. Hehehe, I had a girlfriend that liked to experiment with any old juice - apple, pineapple, grape. I think she tried orange, but I don’t remember if I drank it. It all tasted hot and strong by the time she got done with it. It actually kind of hurt to drink the pineapple. We found that I looked old enough to never get carded, anyway, so we just started to buy our alcohol ready-made. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2018, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-made-wine-from-store-bought-grape-juice/822296/16 "2018-10-03T02:00:56Z")
> [@kk\_fusion](#): > > I’ve just made wine from what I believe to be Concord grapes growing over my driveway. Kid stomped them in an old bathtub. I added absolutely nothing to the juice, just left it out to ferment for four weeks. > > It tastes definitely alcoholic, with no residual sweetness. Like young wine that needs to be stored for a couple more months, which I am going to do. You got some wild yeast, I reckon. Hard to pick that up in the city air, but near plants, flowers, vines, vegetation, foliage…probably able to kick that process off on its own. I had to go to the store to get wine yeast. More than once I was convinced I had fucked it all up by not starting the yeast in warm water, giving too much head space, and so forth. Someone told me that juice from concentrate allows you to get away with things you can’t with natural juices. I have no idea if that’s true, but he said the preservatives allow you to skip steps, get away with it. ---
**Author:** ![Mikemike2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mikemike2/32/305_2.png) [@Mikemike2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mikemike2)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2018, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-made-wine-from-store-bought-grape-juice/822296/17 "2018-10-03T03:45:15Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > Actually, it was surprisingly strong - much stronger than I imagined it would be. I didn’t take a gravity reading so there’s no way to know other than how wobbly I felt, but relative to other wines I’ve drunk, it had to be right up there in terms of ABV. I’m guessing at least 12% - maybe up to 15. But that’s on par with other wines I’ve had. Eww. In high school, I saw a wine kit that was basically powdered kool-aid, sugar and yeast. Even then I was too discerning to try it, lol. I think you are confusing wobbly drunk with wobbly poisoned. I have made wine from the good quality real juice kits, and I agree it takes at least a year of chilling to take the edge off. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2018, 10:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-made-wine-from-store-bought-grape-juice/822296/18 "2018-10-03T10:04:43Z")
> [@Mikemike2](#): > > Eww. In high school, I saw a wine kit that was basically powdered kool-aid, sugar and yeast. Even then I was too discerning to try it, lol. I think you are confusing wobbly drunk with wobbly poisoned. > > I have made wine from the good quality real juice kits, and I agree it takes at least a year of chilling to take the edge off. I’m tellin ya, mate, it was surprisingly good. Initially, the coloration was a little dense and cloudy. It wasn’t aesthetically appealing at first, but it began to lighten up a shade. The taste was a little sweeter than the red wines that I prefer to drink (I usually prefer dry wines like cabs and merlots), but it was very drinkable. After a few days in the fridge, it actually began to look and taste more like a regular wine, but sweeter and a little stronger. It could have definitely passed for a dessert wine. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2018, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-made-wine-from-store-bought-grape-juice/822296/19 "2018-10-03T11:10:36Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > You got some wild yeast, I reckon. Hard to pick that up in the city air, but near plants, flowers, vines, vegetation, foliage…probably able to kick that process off on its own. Artisanal Brewers do this all the time with beers. Even big Brewers (Samuel Smith in the UK IIRC) will open panels in their roofs to allow wild yeasts to fall. Strange Roots Experimental Ales In Pittsburgh (formerly Draii Laag) inoculates some of their sour beers this way, collecting wild organisms from specific locations (a park or concert venue for example).