Hello,

I'm a new kid here, so please put up with me for a while.
My first batch of homemade wine from a kit ended up with 22 bottles
of, to my tastes anyway, pleasant tasting wine. Now I'd like to try winging
it with fresh fruit juice.
After putting up about 1.75 gallons of pomegranate jelly in 8 and 12
ounce jars, and another gallon of drinking juice frozen in recycled water
bottles, we are left with about 2 1/2 gallons of delicious fresh juice.
I've scoured around the internet for recipes, but none of them seem
satisfying to me. Especially the ones that call for a couple cups of
pomegranate juice, 2 gallons of water, and nine pounds of raisins. What's
with those raisins anyway!
Now, I can't find the recipe for generic fruit wine that I read a
couple months ago that suggested bundling up the crushed, pulp, seeds,
skins, and whatever in cheesecloth and putting them in the primary fermentor
like a bag of hops in a batch of beer. But that sounded interesting.
My target is to end up with 2 (or more) gallons of wine. My wife
suggests that it should be just short of a dry wine -- just a hint of
sweetness to it. With that in mind, I ask:

1. How do I assess the acidity of the juice to determine the proper ratios
of water, sugar, yeast, etc.?

2. What are those ratios?

3. What other stuff should I use (and when) like campden, sodium bisulfates,
and so one... or am I safe in following the schedule used to make the Zin
I'm drinking?

4. Will you share your favorite pomegranate wine with me?

And for final thoughts, will it be a problem if i use my six-gallon
primary fermentor to get this started and then take it down to a 3-gallon
carboy at the first racking? Since this will take about a year, according to
my reading so far, I intend to put up a dozen or more 187 ml bottles for
next year's Christmas gifting. Any problems with that?

Maybe I should have broken this down into several posts, but that might have
dragged the subject on much too long. Besides, I'm sure to have some
follow-on questions.

Sincerely,

Casey Wilson
Freelance Writer
and Photographer