After about a month, I finally bottled my turbo apple wine (made with
turbo yeast). It will need some aging, but I just drank a glass of the
stuff (nice and clear) and although it doesnt taste much like apple it
has a pasable taste and quite a kick. This was my first attempt at a
wine and I didn't go all scientific. The next batches I go for - a
concord grape and a watermelon - will be more measured and detailed.
Anyway, I am pretty drunk right now. Bye bye.

I would recommend adding a bottle of apple flavoring to your fermented
wine before you bottle it in order to give it a better flavor. You
lose a lot of the flavor when it ferments. Even with hard ciders I've
found that the flavor is weak.

mdginzo wrote:
> After about a month, I finally bottled my turbo apple wine (made with
> turbo yeast). It will need some aging, but I just drank a glass of the
> stuff (nice and clear) and although it doesnt taste much like apple it
> has a pasable taste and quite a kick. This was my first attempt at a
> wine and I didn't go all scientific. The next batches I go for - a
> concord grape and a watermelon - will be more measured and detailed.
> Anyway, I am pretty drunk right now. Bye bye.

Finally bottled it? Didn't you just ferment it?

I, like many other people, bulk age all my wines for around a year
before bottling.

As far as adding flavoring, well that is up to your palate.

Dorothy, I started fermenting it some 6 weeks ago and the thing stopped
fermenting. I did stabilize with sulfite.

I am a novice winemaler and this is my first attempt so bare with me.
I tasted it and although it didn't taste "great", it had quite a kick
to it so even if I didnt use the hydro.vino meters I know it's got
alcohol in it. IT sure isn't sweet (I like dry wines). It certainly
is not still fermenting and has no CO2 in it. So, I bottled it after
it cleared and stowed it away. Will open next Christmas and see what's
what.

Now, I have some Cnsord grape juice in the fridge waiting for the
Campeden to take effect. I will check with a hydrometer for a starting
SG and all that jazz and take good notes.

The thing is, I am using turbo yeast for the moment and it seems to
ferment pretty qucik and so far the taste isn't bad.

I think what I need to do is stop using the turbo and use my winemaking
hobby as a way to learn patience

I am also about to start a watermelon wine and due to all the trouble
with that stuff spoiling before fermenting I will definitley use the
turbo.

Sorry, I read Droopy as Dorothy!

Droopy as Dorthy? wow. That DID have a kick to it. :*)

mdginzo wrote:
> Sorry, I read Droopy as Dorothy!
>

>Droopy as Dorthy? wow. That DID have a kick to it. :*)

Yeah, and I was sober by the time I wrote that post!

I'm not sure if the turbo yeast is getting you any stronger apple wine
than regular yeast as the limiting factor for the alcohol % in apple
wine will usually be sugar, not the yeast's tolerance to alcohol. I see
from searching back that you added some sugar to the apple juice but I
still think you probably ran out of sugar at a fairly low alcohol %
(for wine anyway, maybe not hard cider). Any idea what the alcohol %
was?

Miker, not sure what the abv was in this instance, but I did add quite
a bit of sugar, upwards of 3 cups for the gallon. When I drank it it
was pretty dry. I added some apple flavor and some wine conditioner on
rop of that. Like I said, this was an unscientific experiment for a
first serious try. I am going more scientific with my concord grape
and the wetermelon next.

3 cups per gallon is not all that much..that is less than a pound and a
half per gallon, so you raised the OG only from somewhere in the 1.040
-1.060 up about 0.069gravity points. You are looking at a wine that
had an OG of about 1.110-1.130?

That is not EXCESSIVE although on the high side for wine. You could
have fermented that dry with any number of regular wine yeasts
(Champagne, montrachet) and even some of the brewing yeasts
(nottingham).

One think you have noticed for sure is that when the alcohol gets high
like what you should have (14%-15% ballpark) is that the flavor of the
fruit is overwhelmed and you need to backsweeten the wine considerably
to overcome the hotness of the wine. That is why most people only make
wines with an OG of up to 1.095 or so. To preserve the fruit
character.

If you want fruit+alcohol+sugar you can easily make schnapps using
grain alcohol and fruit juice concentrate.

I have tried the 24 hrs turbo yeast twice, great fun, watching teh
hydrometer, slowly going down in 24 hrs, from 1.110 to 0.98.
Though takes about a week to 10 days to settle for first racking.
Going to try one of the other turbo yeasts, maybe the strong one (8kilos
sugar to 20 litres solution), though experimenting with just boiled rice
this time, will add citric acid, after fermentation for kick.

Mike

"mdginzo" > wrote in message
ups.com...
> Miker, not sure what the abv was in this instance, but I did add quite
> a bit of sugar, upwards of 3 cups for the gallon. When I drank it it
> was pretty dry. I added some apple flavor and some wine conditioner on
> rop of that. Like I said, this was an unscientific experiment for a
> first serious try. I am going more scientific with my concord grape
> and the wetermelon next.
>

Will turbo yeast process the starch in rice?

You may need to amylase, koji, or malt treat it first.