Wow, I’ve never had a young wine that didn’t taste like rocket fuel at that stage even with alc 11-12%. I was thinking you might be around 7-8% to have a wine drinkable that fast. Interesting…I’ll have to recalculate for a 1 gal. batch and try it out.
18% takes strong yeast, good nutrition, and a stable environment you must be doing something right. 
Yes, I’ve got Eight varieties in various stages of settling right now. I’ll try to take some pics tonight and post them back here tomorrow.
Something to remember; You don’t bottle on a time line, per say, you bottle according to the lack of activity in the carboy. If you’ve racked the thing ten times and you still have sllight bubbling, you aren’t ready to bottle yet. You must wait 'till all activity ceases, else you pop corks.
Or, you can bottle a little early if you are not going to store the stuff long. Use screw on lids and place the bottles in the refridgerator but don’t screw the lids on tightly, leave them a little loose to let the gasses escape.
John F, depends on how they are measuring the alcohol content.
Testy, you guys using a hydrometer, or some other method?
BTW, anyone in the Milwaukee area would like some ripe pears to make wine with, let me know. I’ve got a hundred pounds or so and there going to turn fast.
Along these general lines…
You can ferment just about anything with sugar in it. If it doesn’t have enough, add some! One of our favorite concoctions in college was to get a gallon of, say, Ocean Spray CranRaspberry Juice Cocktail. Pour off a glass, and add 2 cups of sugar, one packet of yeast nutrient, and a packet of champagne yeast. Fasten a Baggie over the mouth of the bottle with a rubber band, and let sit in a warm place for a week or so. The end result was a little number we called Leg Loosener. Flat guaranteed to turn a sorority girl into a raging sex bomb in two glasses. 
We generally use a hydrometer but have a LOT of trouble keeping them. They are fragile as hell and, since Saudi customs figured out what they’re used for, they’ve been confiscating them. You mention "other method"s. What might those be? I’ve never heard of another way to determine this. I could try some kind of distillation and see how much ethanol I got out of a given volume of wine but that would be a bit laborious.
Regards
Testy
Damn you!! I got caught laughing here at work. ::leg loosener::
We tend to have a very stable environment and the grape juice is quite good. In all honesty though, I suspect that you and I are measuring with very different yardsticks. I’ve been quite pleased and proud of a few batches and the rest are generally acceptable with dinner. Serving any of my wine in France would probably get you lynched. 
I have wanted to go down to the vegetable market and pick up several cases of grapes and start from scratch. Do you think this would be an improvement? Or would it simply be some hassle for little return?
Regards
Testy
Lots of labor for little return. The only time I would crush my own, in your situation, is if for some odd reason the market was suddenly full of Zinfandel grapes, or maybe Cabernet Franc. Otherwise stick to the juice.
For a variation, try adding raspberry juice to your grape juice before fermentation.
Nah, I’ve got no other method to test the alcohol content, just wondering.
I would try to get some fresh fruits from the market. Even cheapo grapes, just to see what the difference would be. If you can get your hands on some mango, kiwi, strawberry, or other somewhat exotic and juicy fruit, I’d give that a go as well.
What’s the labor? You can go through (wash, pick and select) forty founds of grapes in a couple hours. Not that much time considering the eventual reward.
Thanks, I’ll give that a try on the next batch. (tomorrow!) I added about 10% sour cherry to a batch once and that turned out well. The grapes around here are not what I think of when I think about wine grapes. Here, it is usually limited to white, seedless, and similar varieties. On occasion we do get some enormous, very dark colored grapes that are quite sweet. I have no idea what the name is.
Regards
Testy
Fruit is surprisingly easy to come by for being in the middle of a howling desert. I can get just about anything in the way of fruit. I’m not sure about the kiwis though. Can’t stand those hairy little buggers. Strawberry could be interesting but it might also be a bit too much like Boone’s Farm.
What about blackberry? Has anyone tried this? I see bags of frozen blackberries in the supermarket quite frequently.
Regards
Testy
You still have to crush and strain. If you have some kids who think stomping on grapes is fun, fine. If you have to do it yourself, it’s a pain, even using a press.
Fruit wines are fun to make, and easy. Have fun mixing and matching flavors. Strawberries are a good choice, although it takes a lot of strrawberries to get any appreciable amount of juice.
I don’t know what kind of grapes you have there but people say “table grapes” in the states don’t make very good wine. With that thought you might do a lot better trying other types of fruit, juice, and frozen concentrates (100% juice) if you have them. Also I’d try to get good yeast in the mail and ditch the bread yeast if possible.
Anybody reading along with interest might try a google search of “jack keller winemaking” where a lifetimes worth of information is free to the reader…thanks Jack!
John.
Thanks for the grape info and point well taken on the baking yeast. Baking yeast works but it does tend to cloud the wine and the alcohol content is not as high. We get champaigne yeast smuggled in occasionally and try to stretch it as far as possible. A much better product.
Regards
Testy
Culture your champagne yeast. Make a starter, just like you would do with sourdough bread. Put the yeast in a quart-sized container with water and some sugar. When it gets good and bubbling, pour half of it into your must, and put the rest in the fridge. Next time you make wine, let it come to room temperature, add water and sugar and let set until it starts bubbling. repeat as necessary. You can also recycle the yeast slurry from the bottom of your fermenter after you bottle a batch of wine. Rinse the slurry if you plan on switching flovors for the next batch.
As one who is trying to make this with ingredients available from the grocery store exclusively, is it possible to filter out the cloudiness (dead yeast?) with a coffee filter, cheesecloth or even rag?
Bruce’s Leg Loosener. Hmmm…
Bruce.
I understand exactly where you’re coming from. OK, several things that will help. You can use coffee filters but the process is excruciatingly slow. I’ve only done it once and never again. The second thing is the trick with the egg-white I mentioned somewhere above. This helps quite a bit.
The main thing that fixes this problem is patience, racking and careful siphoning. When you siphon from one fermenter to another, leave the last couple of inches where it’s cloudy. Don’t get greedy!
Do this several times, rack and settle and rack again. It may take you a week or even two to rack this stuff enough to get the dead yeast out of it. Usually three times will give you something quite drinkable and then you can enjoy a glass of “Chateau de Bruce_Daddy.”
Regards
Testy
Silenus
Thank you for the tip on culturing. I have re-used the mung in the bottom of the fermenter several times although it only seems to work about three times before it fails to ferment properly. I have not done the culturing bit but will try it. I’ve got a single packet of champaigne yeast in the freezer and will start culturing that tomorrow morning.
Regards and thanks
Testy
You don’t want an unsulfited wine to be exposed to air long enough to do the coffee filter dance. Much better just to rack it off the lees and let time/gravity do its thing.
The egg white fining works because the egg white has a slight negative charge and it attracts the positively charged particles and allow them to sink to the bottom. I’ve never tried it because I use a product called Sparkalloid that works great for me but you can’t find it at the grocery store. If your problem is a protein I think the egg whites might work better than if it’s something else. All things considered gravity is pretty effective at clearing if you have patience, you can even see “layers” develop.
Even if you were not interested in waiting for the wine to be clear as a bell I’d consider racking it until it’s clear enough rather than risk oxidizing it with the coffee filters.
Watch what you’re doing with some of that stuff - my dad is quite the expert at wine and beer… but back when I was 10 or so I’d seen a kit for Ginger beer next to the beer supplies and convinced him to buy it. I don’t know what was that different about it, but a few weeks later we were alerted to a problem with the popping noise of dozens of stubbies exploding under the bathroom counter.
My mom got them outside wearing rubber dish gloves, an apron and my brother’s toy plastic motorcycle helmet. Good times.