1986 Welch’s Grape Juice
October 2018 – This was my first try with Welch’s. In reading my notes, I see that this one fermented dry, but the raspberry didn’t. It may be the preservatives level, or possibly the raspberry had unfermentable sugars. To quote the wise old owl, “The world may never know.”
Ingredients
| Fruit | six 12 oz cans Welch’s grape juice, one 12 oz can apple-grape juice |
| Water | 4 gallons |
| Sugar | 15 cups |
| Acid | 2 tsp citric acid |
| Nutrient | 4 tsp nutrient + 2 tsp energizer |
| Yeast | Red Star Epernay II |
Method
| Started | 08/28/1986 SG 1.082 |
| Racked | 09/04/1986 SG 1.000 |
| Racked | 09/13/1986 SG 0.990 |
| Racked | 11/16/1986 SG 0.990 |
| 2 cups sugar added | 11/16/1986 SG 0.997 |
| Racked | 11/29/1986 SG 0.996 |
| Clarified | 12/02/1986 SG 0.996 |
| Racked | 12/17/1986 SG 0.996 |
| Bottled | 01/15/1987 SG 0.996 |
Notes
| Yield | 25 bottles |
| Alcohol | 11.7% |
| Afterthoughts | Given that I wrote things in a tiny notebook, I was awfully sparse in details. I think that when I added 2 cups of sugar it was for sweetening and that I stabilized it at that time. But that doesn’t explain the SG not changing …
I tried different clarification agents and settled on bentonite as a favorite, so that’s probably what I used, although this is early enough that I may have used sparkaloid. |