Welch's Wino Winale, (Fri 22feb)

I decided to do a little experiment because I was curious and discovered other's experiments while bored at work:

I made a gallon batch of ghetto hooch using welch's concord grape concentrate, sugar, lemon juice, and Nottingham ale yeast (purported to handle high gravities).

The recipe consisted of:

1 gal spring water
2 cans of 100% Concord grape concentrate (Welch's)
2 cups of sugar
1 packet rehydrated Nottingham yeast

1. Rehydrated yeast at 95F for 15, then added splash of cooled must (see below) and let sit for 15 more minutes

2. Boiled sugar with 1/4 gal water and juice of two lemons (sub for acid blend; for balance)

3. Added frozen juice concentrate and 1/2 gallon water

4. Pour back into empty jug

5. Cooled with ice bath

6. Added rehydrated/primed yeast

7. covered with paper towel and rubber band

Update: shit is fermenting along. I'm gonna let it go until the foam subsides, and then secondary it in two half gallon glass growlers for a couple months. And then hopefully drink it without puking.

UPDATE (Fri 29feb): The gravity after a week is at 1.022, yielding what is now a sweet carbonated wine-cooler like beverage. I have put it in two half gallong growler to secondary for alot of months, we'll see how that goes.

UPDATE (Mon 10mar): The wine has now cleared to a ruby red color. The gravity is ~ 1.0 and it tastes very dry, carbonated, and yeasty.

UPDATE (Mon 17mar): Gently transferred the wine in both jugs off of the yeast, attempted to minimized splashing and pouring of yeast. Then I cleaned and sanitized the jugs and poured the wine gently back into them. I didn't use any racking equipment because I don't have any, because I don't really use carboys when brewing beer. I will probably do this maybe once more in another month to continue to get yeast to drop out.

UPDATE (Mon 21apr): Transferred of lees again to further clear wine. Probably the last time before I drink it in a month or so.