On Jul 27, 11:12 am, braafn8r > wrote:
> I just recently started this wine based on Jack Keller's recipe and
> since there are many posts on the topic I thought I would share my
> experiences with making this one. I'll start by stating that this is
> the first wine I've made, I've been brewing beers for 10 years, making
> wine is much different than brewing beer.
>
> I started with two 11.5 oz cans of welches white grape raspberry 100%
> juice concentrate and added 3 cups of white table sugar, yeast
> nutrient, and yeast energizer, no pectic, no acid, I mixed all that up
> with the sugar dissolved in a quart of boiling water for a total
> volume of 5 liters, the starting gravity was 1.084, I rehydrated and
> pitched one packet of Lalvin K1-1116 yeast which according to lalvin
> has tolerance of 18% which I read after I pitched and got concerend
> that it would end up way too dry since I was looking for something
> semi-sweet. After 8 days I racked to secondary and took an SG
> reading, it was 0.990, since I was curious I tried some like I always
> do with beer at every racking, it was yeasty, and quite hot, but the
> finish was very fruity a little tart and a tad sweet, I know it's got
> at least 2 months to go, but from what I tasted after 8 days, I'm
> pretty excited about this wine, it's dry but fruity and sweet enough
> to my tastes, of course you have to get past the yeasty smell and the
> hotness of the alcohol first which I'm assuming will tame down as time
> goes on, I'll continue to post my progress as I do additional rackings.

Ironically, I too, liked the sound of a white grape rasberry so I used
that for one of my first attempts at winemaking. I have used Jack's
recipe on my first four 1-gallon batches, white grape/rasberry being
the 3rd gallon I mixed. My experiences parallel yours almost to a T. I
bought a TA titration kit and have had to use acid blend to get it to
a .70 from a .55 or so at which each of my batches started. This may
be my imagination but before adjusting the acid level the wine tasted
thin and more like fermented yeasty hot water.

My starting SG was 1.1 and it was .98 after 4 days; have not checked
it since. I, too, thought it was tart and yeasty and that it had lost
some 'body' so I added 1/2 cup of juice concentrate and racked it
again with air lock; there was no new activity that I could discern
other than perhaps some trapped gases; it would foam slightly when
moved. Anyway, when I racked for storage it tasted very good other
than the 'wildness' of being new wine.

BTW, I believe this is my first post to this group however I've been
lurking for almost two years now and I think this is one of the most,
if not the most, civil groups I've seen on Usenet.

Thanks for letting another newbie chime in!

STLMike