Thursday, July 28, 2011

Making Ghetto Wine on the cheap

Hi all,

Just documenting and sharing something I've spent very little of my time on lately.

After seeing a product advertised online that allows you to make ordinary juice alcoholic in just a few days for $10 a piece (without the juice to do it with), I figured I could do the same thing only cheaper.

What I did was buy some grape juice (the supermarket sold X2 2.4L bottles of assorted sorts of juice for $6), and some blu-tack...I already had an airlock from a home brew kit I purchased years ago.

What I did then was poured out some juice to allow some head space (during fermentation CO2 is released and it bubbles/froths up) and added whatever sugar I still had left around the place (around 1 cup I suppose), activated some ordinary bakers yeast buy adding a little lukewarm tap water and putting it into the grape juice and shaking the bottle to mix it together well. I then cut a small hole into the lid with a knife, just big enough for the bottom stem of the airlock to fit through and screwed this back onto the bottle. I then sealed this up air tight with a bit of blu-tack...and that's it!

After 4 days it was still bubbling away, I got toey and decided to check the alcohol content (with an alcometer I also had from the brew kit) and it registered around 5.5% alcohol content! Wow, impressive. Considering it was still bubbling away I decided to keep it going until it slows down significantly. I am not a big drinker, I just wanted to go through with the concept. After fermentation has completed I plan on putting the batch into the freezer to make the water freeze and pour off the alcohol. I'm hoping for an end product that is about 14-16% alcohol/vol. Then I guess I'll clean the kitchen sink with it, or give it to an alcoholic friend that doesn't mind how it tastes...

Feel free to share :D

Here's a picture for you of the grape juice on it's journey to becoming some cheap, ghetto wine :)

15 comments:

  1. Not drinking it yourself sounds like a waste of good booze lol.

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  2. I dont think I would drink that. lol.

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  4. That's pretty cool, few years ago I was wanting to get into home brewing but never got around to it, plus I don't really drink so it would have been kind of waste.

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  5. My father-in-law down here has a still that he uses to make pineapple liquor. I've never been able to brew my own booze however due to my fiancée's hatred of alcohol. So I just grow my own herb instead (it's decriminalized down here).

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  6. I won't have to buy beers no more.

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  7. pretty interesting dude :p
    keep it up

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  8. Hope you don't get blind deinking this XD

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  9. How does it taste when it'd done fermenting?

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  10. My husband I were just talking about doing this the other day! I want to know how it tastes too!

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  11. I think it tastes...kinda sour. It tastes like any other cheap wine you'd buy. Perhaps a little "heavy" because of the yeast I used, and it's cloudy because of sediment...kinda like pale ale.

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  12. awesome! I cant wait to see how it goes, I want to do this for myself.

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  13. If I was one to drink, I would totally try this.

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  14. haha ghetto! very nice.. will try

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  15. Hello, I have been making "ghetto wine" for a while now and find you don't even need grape juice.

    Just:
    a jug any will do just put more sugar and yeast if its a larger jug.

    yeast a spoon full or two will do.

    water (lukewarm not to hot but needs to be warm to activate yeast.)

    A ballon

    The ballon is for a air lock pop a few holes into it with a needle. get rid of the milk jugs lid in place of the ballon. also I would leave the jug open to the air for a day or so as the yeast likes that for reproduction then put the ballon on to put the yeast into alcohol making mode. The holes in the ballon are for CO2 which is a bi product of yeast eating sugar.

    MAKE SURE YOU PLACE THE WINE IN A DARK WARM PLACE TO PROTECT THE YEAST!


    and for taste kool aid mix and sugar works great.

    Yeast eats the sugar and "pisses" alcohol so add more sugar and youll get more alcohol.

    Most yeast will die around the 15% alcohol volume level and I would recommend waiting until you dont hear fizzing any longer before drinking for best result.

    and as for it being thick you let it settle the dregs and use a hose to siphon off the wine into another jug leaving the dregs (dead yeast) I make a gallon of good potent wine for all of 35 cents, and it doesnt taste half bad!

    It only takes around a week to get a decent batch! well worth it if you ask me!

    Also if you need it stronger like the author said you can let the water freeze and pour off the alcohol and drink it like that or make a still from a coffee perculator and some copper pipe in a coil for it to condense in and let it drip into a jar, Since water freezes before alcohol and boils at a higher temp than alcohol extractin one from the other isnt to hard and you get a better and stronger more refined end result.

    And if your afraid of blindness know this, this is drinking alcohol not denatured. and the only danger is in contamination which can be avoided by being clean and pasterizing the wine with low heat on a stove.

    I hope this helps and if you have questions you can email me at Gregorym29@gmail.com anytime : )



    Cheers!
    Greg.

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