Started a 7 day wine kit...

[Neuro]

I bought a red wine kit yesterday, made with Spanish Grape Juice concentrate, will make me about 21 liters of wine, I suppose that's about 5 US gallons. I decided to mix in some extra sugar and black currant juice from the garden for flavour and strength. I'll get it up to about 15% abv, according to instructions. Because of added sugar the fermentation should last 10 days instead of five. It started bubbling. Probably needs about a month in bottle after that to become drinkable...

The kit was about $30, wish me luck! :)

[Libertytree]

Excellent! I wish you luck Neuro. Is this your 1st time trying anything like this?

On another note...I like the new pic of the homestead, good to the the progression.

[Neuro]

Excellent! I wish you luck Neuro. Is this your 1st time trying anything like this?

On another note...I like the new pic of the homestead, good to the the progression.
I did black currant apple wine last year, which didn't turn out too good, hard to down it with a straight face kind of wine. Hopefully this one would turn out better.

For the homestead, yes the veranda patio improvement, make it a totally different house, further the solar panel 12V motor cycle battery system with led-lights really is an improvement in terms of living standard, candles and oil lamps are for sure very romantic but it is hard to do dishes in candle light, and forget about reading. Now we are going to make it reasonably burglar proof by putting wood shields in front of the windows and a metal bar door in front of the door. Next project for autumn, winter will be to build a guest house on one side if the house and a wine factory on the opposite side, as my grape plants (Cabernet Sauvignon) will start delivering next autumn probably, and in a few years I should get around 2000 bottles of wine harvest equivalent. I will have a mini-chateau in Troy! :)

[Glass]

keen to see how you go. I'd like to try one of these some time.

[Neuro]

It seems to turn out pretty well. I bottled the wine last week, and even my wife thought it tasted quite good, and she is quite picky with what she likes. After a few more weeks in the root cellar (now wine cellar), it should be excellent... Got about 5-6 gallons of wine which seemed quite strong in alcohol, so I added half a pound of sugar before bottling it... A few days prior I added a powder to end fermentation so it shouldn't start ferment again...

I bought another red wine kit same brand, which I started yesterday, this I didn't add any sugar too, just a liter (quarter gallon) of mushed black currants which I still had on the bushes, so it will end up around 12-13% alcohol, and shouldn't need any extra added sugar, further I started it with wine yeast that is slower, fermentation should take 3 weeks instead of 5 days. Of course I changed several parameters at once so it will be difficult to compare the results scientifically, but I'll expect it to be even better with the slower fermentation...