So, you just read an article on the internet about how to make wine from grape juice and sugar. The article tells you to use a balloon and a jug of milk and some yeast.
BUT, all the articles leave out the real secret to making wine from juice concentrate.
acid content
That’s how it is. Store-bought frozen grape juice concentrate has about twice the acid content of grapes from the vineyard. If you make wine from the juice, it will certainly be wine.
But it will taste just like grape juice, complete with the power to frown. Yes, it will have alcohol, but then again, it won’t taste like the wine you’re used to. As noted above, it will have a grape juice flavor with a little kick and that’s about it.
So what to do about it? Simple: Neutralize the acid before putting the yeast.
As I said before, there are hundreds of articles and recipes for making wine from frozen concentrate. I won’t go into that here. What I’m going to show you is how to bring out the grape flavor without all that sourness.
Typically, there is about 7/10 of a gram of acid content per liter of concentrated grape juice (after it has been diluted with water). Your goal is to reduce the acid content by about 50%. In other words, you need to neutralize about half of the acid before you start fermenting the wine.
There are two easy, home-made ways to do this and both work quite well without buying expensive chemicals.
The first is a simple over-the-counter antacid. Any generic brand will do. What you’re looking for is one that has no flavor and its only active ingredient is calcium carbonate. Calcium carbonate neutralizes acid (that’s why they call it “antacid”).
You should add, as a general rule of thumb, 500 milligrams per 1.3 liters. That’s about 3.5 tenths of a gram per liter, enough to neutralize about half of the acid. While this is by no means scientifically accurate, it will get the job done. Just crush the tablets and drop them into your juice and mix it up.
The second easy chemical to find is baking soda – sodium bicarbonate.
Many wine experts don’t recommend this as it might add a salty taste to your wine, but hey, we’re making wine from frozen concentrate, right? I promise you, you won’t try it.
Measuring is a bit more difficult here since baking soda comes in a box and most people don’t have any sort of measuring tool. Here’s a sweet little tip: just put 1 teaspoon per gallon and stir it up. It will neutralize enough of the acid to make a big difference in flavor when it’s in the bottle.
Now that you know a HUGE inside secret, go buy all the frozen concentrate at the store and get to work!
