Schmadd's Dry Concorde Experiment

[Honest_Liberty]

Greetings everyone,

I'm a big fan of context, so I'll keep it as brief as possible, but this is an on-going saga of my love for concorde wine:
As a young slovak/polish/heinz 57 growing up in central PA (my family being from western PA), I grew up loving concorde grapes. My mothers dad (Papi) used to make wine out of the concordes they grew in their backyard but typically consumed the wine within weeks after fermentation (at least that is how my parents, aunts and uncles fondly remember it. It appears I share my Papi's love for making alcohol. When I ventured out to Colorado and finally got settled after a few years, I discovered that many people give away their grapes. Well, a bit of research and an old bull friend gave me a rough recipe. This was the beginning of my love affair with concordes. MIND YOU, I am FRUGAL when it comes to making alcohol. So if you are frugal, and enjoy the fruits of your labor simply because you did it, then I think you will appreciate where I'm going with this.

My first batches were fermented on the skins and all. I just blended up all the grapes in a blender, added water and a ton of sugar (about 15 lbs for a 6 gallon batch) and bought some high alcohol tolerant yeast. It came out sweet, like concorde syrup but good god it was a hit! It was HOT, and I couldn't keep my hands off it. It was kindly termed the Dirty B*tch. I still pine for that nasty, dirty girl. Anyway, I don't make it like that anymore.

The next few years I ameliorated to keep as much flavor but reduce adicity and tannis, and hopefully produce something tasty. This is when I discovered the beauty of a blush, dry concorde. It reminds me very much of a vhino verde (regards tartness), with only a hint of that sweet, yummy concorde flavor I had grown to love. Typically I will gather about two 6.5 gallon pails, crush the grapes, add hot water and let them sit for a few hours, then add to a press and strain to ferment the juice, after adding metabetasulphite (sp?), adding enough sugar to reach ~12% abv. I have discovered that I enjoy these wines between 9.5% and 12.5%. So, here I am in March 2018 as I was unable to harvest this september. I just finished the last bottle of my 2016 harvest and I got to thinking..I want to experiment.

I purchased (4) 32 ounce, Just Concorde brand, not from concentrate, organic pasteurized grape juice. I'm not sure about the pasteurization but that is part of the experiment. I wanted to make a very light, dry wine, so my original intent was to only add 2 additional gallons of water and enough sugar to bring to 10%. What I discovered was the color was still so deep purple that I just added 8 lb's of sugar and 4.5 gallons of Reverse Osmosis water that comes out of my 7stage filter we just bought. I figured there is enough nutrients (unless pasteurization ruined them) in the juice that I didn't bother with checking ph. Call me Brett Favre, I am a gunslinger and I don't much care about perfection on my test run. I can sort that out as time permits.

My original gravity was 9.5% and with the champagne yeast I know it will ferment good and thorough. I started this saturday night and it is currently going strong and steady in my bucket. With a wine like this I intend it to be ready by mid July, and if it is too harsh then I may wait until September. I'll likely save 5 bottles for next summer to see how the additional year ages.

So, hopefully this has enough flavor to be worth it. If not, I know I can always up the juice count. However, when I tasted it the flavor was still quite powerful so I'm hoping this will be sufficient for final flavor. All said in done in raw ingredients, the juice cost $22 and the sugar cost ~$4.00. Yeast was $2.25 or something. If you want a good, simple, easy, non-wine snob summer wine...I think this will be a winner. and for $1.12 per 750ml of wine, that is right in my hillbilly wheelhouse


Look for this recipe to morph and be fine tuned over the next 3-4 years. This is my passion so I'm going to really fine tune this as I know what to expect once I learn how this new method stacks up against fresh grapes. The good news is that this allows a non-seasonal wine making to offset the annual seasonal harvest, and it is super cheap. Not as cheap as only spending $5 on sugar with a harvest.

Also, eventually I'm hoping to turn this into a brandy recipe but I haven't seen anyone distill concorde wine

[zapata]

My family has made welches frozen concentrate wine forever. Since before there was a Welches or even electricity much less freezers at home if you believe some of them. (they aren't that good at either math or history) They seem to like it hot and sweet, probably around 18% and sweet like candy. I guess it's alright for some jacked up koolaid wine kind of thing. Knowing them they probably actually use generic grape juice concentrate and pay for it with food stamps, but call it welches to sound "fancy".

I have made a welches wine much lower abv and much less sweet, and put some time into it and it was fine. Near good even.

Now I have had some of my families brandy made from their welches wine. It was good. Better than their corn shine, and we as a family have been making that since before god was born. If those rednecks can make a decent brandy from welches, I'm sure you can make a good one from your fancy organic juice. I gotta say though, if you're really frugal, skip the organic, skip the name brand, skip the not from concentrate and just get the generic frozen grape juice. Almost any other way and I'd be looking at cheap wine kits instead.

[Honest_Liberty]

Thanks sir, so you don't think there will be a discernable difference in quality between unadulterated juice and the concentrate?

[Shine0n]

Possibly but not too likely that much you'd care. D47 will get you dry at 12% without stressing the yeast imparts some fruity esters of its own and I personally think it would go great with concord grapes.

You could always use enough juice concentrate so that you wouldn't have to use sugar at all as it takes away from the overall flavors and that will minimize the amount of water you have to add which also takes away from the flavors.

As for a brandy, make enough wort to do 4 runs. Strip 3 and use the last of the wort to mic in the low wines for a spirit run. I betcha that will make some fine spirit.

[Single Malt Yinzer]

Western PA born and raised. I can remember the jugs in the basement of concord grape wine with the grapes still in them. Once they fell you could drink it. I would assume it was pretty horrible but provided a good punch.

[Honest_Liberty]

Yinzer! My family is from Windber and St. Michael
I hated it when I was in my early 20's, then decided to move to a big city, Denver, and now I wish I could go back and live near Bedford or Breezewood or somewhere maybe more remote. I dunno, this metro living sucks. Convenient, but just... Wrong.

As far as the wine, I'm not looking to go dark. Light, crisp, just a touch of grapey goodness. You know, my favorite wine has always been Concorde, and I love a good dry white or a nice Pinot noir. For me, making my own hillbilly wine just suits me. Hopefully I'll find a nice harvest this year.

As far as the concentrate, I'm going to investigate this because even knocking back the added water to 2 cans instead of 3 would net me a stronger wine than buying the juice straight up, and for half the cost. Wow. Ok. My next batch will certainly be with concentrate to test this.

[Honest_Liberty]

Folks, this recipe is a dandy! I just sampled the finished fermentation product, and even with all the yeast and particulate, this looks to be very promising. It fermented out below zero, .995 if I recall. I'll have to double check, but it is still slightly sweet? Or at least not so dry it's almost sour like usual. Light, subtle flavor, beautiful pink hue. I'm excited to see how this ages.

[Honest_Liberty]

I attempted to posta photo but couldn't get the size below the limit. My phone photos are over 2MB each!

[Bushman]

I attempted to posta photo but couldn't get the size below the limit. My phone photos are over 2MB each!

If your using an iPhone or iPad check out the app SimpleResize.

[Honest_Liberty]

I'm using an Android device. I attempted to download another app and it wouldn't load.

I have to say though, this recipe interests me enough to attempt frozen canned Welches and make a brandy. I don't know good the final product would be after aging but it seems like a cheap enough endeavor, worth experimenting. Do brandy producers stop the ferment early for residual sweetness?

[zapata]

No, ferment dry, sugar won't carry over to distillate.
Try https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... otoresizer" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
For Android resizing. Just make the bigger dimension to 800 pixels and it should fit here.

[Honest_Liberty]

so I'm confused then. I had a really nice brandy and it was sweet, unlike most bourbons and ryes. Not even in the same stratosphere, and I think bourbon is pretty sweet. Additionally, why then does my SF whiskey have a sweetness to the final product? That fermented out dry actually, which is making me think my hydrometers are not accurate? I dunno, but that molasses sweetness definitely carries over in the final flavor. It is very smooth, but maybe I'm doing something wrong?