first attempt at wine making!

[MKG]

Oh dear - far, far too much sugar!! But don't worry too much about it. If all of the sugar ferments out (that's the 3.3 lbs - 1.5 kilos - plus the sugar which was already present in the Ribena, it's going to be over 15% ABV. It may not get there - the yeast may pack in at about 12 to 13% and leave you with a sweet wine. But the whole point is that Ribena, in common with all cordials, makes a LIGHT wine - best suited to about 10 or 11% ABV. It'll still be an alcoholic beverage, but after your first taste, you may feel that it would be better to drink it diluted with a little lemonade, soda water, etc.

As a general guide, the conveniently packaged 1kg of sugar (i.e. one pack) per gallon is just about the ideal for most purposes (unless, like Phil, you have an extremely low alcohol tolerance ).

Mike

[thatgirlemma]

1kg bags of sugar :) i dont mind wine with lemonade so its all good :) whoop
xx

[phil55494]

I practice raising my alcohol tolerance frequently, I'm sat in a pub with a beer right now :-) The first batch of wine I made needed cutting to improve the taste. Having done more wine I'm getting better at it (never been a problem drinking the stuff)

[thatgirlemma]

why do people not tell you to put that much in then?! grrrr xx

[gregorach]

Depends who you ask - I've always seen 1kg recommended as a fairly standard amount of sugar, but then I'd never heard of Ribena wine before I came here...

[thatgirlemma]

right....its dawned on me i dont even know what im looking for to happen! should i be seeing lots of bubbles bubbling up the airlock or one once in a while? i dont think anything is happening anyway!
xx

[thatgirlemma]

what would happen if i put another tsp in just for good measure :p
xx

[MKG]

Depends (as usual )

If the first lot was dead, the second spoonful will start it off. If the first lot wasn't dead, the second spoonful won't make any difference.

Tell you what - why don't you give us the recipe and tell us exactly what you did to make it up? Then we can see if there's anything wildly wrong. The things to look for (usually) are ...

a) Initially, nothing happens.
b) After a day or two, the top of the liquid takes on a scummy/foamy appearance (but not always!).
c) Bubbles will start, slowly at first and then accelerating - sometimes to the point where that foamy appearance turns into the real stuff and overflows if you've overfilled your fermentation vessel. The liquid will turn cloudy.
d) The foaming will die down and the bubbling will continue at a steady rate for 10 days/2 weeks/1 month depending on temperature, whether the yeast is in a good mood and whether yesterday had a Y in it.
e) The bubbling will slow down, sometimes to the rate of one per hour. At some point around here, you'll notice a deposit building up at the bottom of the vessel. Eventually the liquid will clear. You have wine.

There are a million and one variations on this theme, a lot depending upon exactly what was done to make up the wine in the first place - so do tell

Mike

EDIT: One thing a lot of beginners fall foul of - are you sure that the airlock really IS sealing the demijohn? Give it an extra push just to make sure. If it isn't properly sealing, the gas will simply go around it and you'll see nothing via the airlock.

[thatgirlemma]

Well by the sounds of it it has worked then- a and b have happened :) whoo hoo. First nothing happened- check. Now after two days theres some foaming stuff on the top and i actually sat and watched it (lol) and the bubbles where every 30 seconds (roughly...). Its in the air cupboard at the minute si maybe thats why its started getting its groove on :D
What i did is...boiled the ribena, added ALL that sugar :p and then let it cool down (probably not enough) and then put it in the demijon still warm (should of let it cool down fully i think) then put half a lemon, yeast an nutrient. Jobs a gooden. Its my first attempt, next time ill do things different...but thats what learning is all about isnt it?!
Thanks for everyones help...its nice when people know what they are doing and try to help others who do not! this should happen in "real life" more often
xx

[Carltonian Man]

On the first batch of Ribena I made, bought it up to the boil then simmered it for ten minutes to drive off the preservative; it fermented fine. The next lot I bought up to the boil then removed it from the hob to cool. This batch took a lot longer to start fermenting and it took ages to ferment out. The finished results were about the same.
If yours does seem to be taking ages to ferment out Emma, maybe try it before it’s finished. Sometimes this type of brew can be quite entertaining as a sparkly alcopop Pour it straight from the demijohn though; don’t be tempted to bottle it until it’s fully finished.

[thatgirlemma]

lol i love that little drunken bubblely head smiley- lol!! A sparkly ribena alco pop sounds good to me :D so, how do i know when its done? When the bubbles stop? I do have one of them hydrometre thingys but i dont know what im looking at :\
xx

[MKG]

At this stage, the hydrometer will tell you just about nothing at all - they're only useful if you take measurements before you add any yeast. And "finished" is a fine quality of argument. In broad terms, it's finished when the bubbles have stopped and any sediment (which, in your case, will consist of yeast cells) has dropped to the bottom of the demijohn, leaving an absolutely clear liquid above it. OK, it's finished but ...

... then you have to rack it. All that means is getting the liquid off that deposit. That's normally done with a siphon tube, and (depending on your chemical attitudes) usually with the addition of a bit of sodium metabisulphite, or Campden tablets, to stun any remaining yeast and to prevent oxidation. You don't HAVE to use that if you're careful. As you only have the one demijohn, you need to siphon the wine into a clean bucket, clean out the demijohn well, and then return the wine to the demijohn - top it up with tap water, as you'll never, ever, get all of the liquid off that yeast deposit (and don't make the attempt, otherwise you'll have it all to do over again). Put the airlock back on the demijohn, because - you never know - that "finished" wine might not be that finished.

If it stays in that demijohn with no further activity for (how patient are you?) a couple of weeks, then it's probably safe to bottle - but only in this kind of weather. If this was the depths of winter, I'd tell you to leave it in the demijohn until the next spring. Mine never gets to that stage - it gets served straight from the demijohn. Before I joined this forum I was a teetotaller - would you believe it?

Anyway, if you've bottled it, you might call it finished (and with a Ribena wine, there's no advantage in calling it anything else). But when you move on to make wines from, say, real elderberries, you'll need to mature it for a while - a year, maybe three years - before you can say it's really finished.

All in all, it's finished when you say it is - it's your wine, after all. The only stipulation is NOT to put the stuff in glass bottles before you're sure it's stabilised (bang, crash, stained ceiling). If you're going to use PET bottles (recommended) you don't have to worry so much.

Mike

[frozenthunderbolt]

At this stage, the hydrometer will tell you just about nothing at all - they're only useful if you take measurements before you add any yeast. And "finished" is a fine quality of argument. In broad terms, it's finished when the bubbles have stopped and any sediment (which, in your case, will consist of yeast cells) has dropped to the bottom of the demijohn, leaving an absolutely clear liquid above it. OK, it's finished but ... Mike

Use this: http://homedistiller.org/wash-sugar.htm calculator should give you a rough idea of your ISG so you could then figure out the percentage using you hydrometer.
You also have the option of adding campden (potassium metabisulfate) tablets and potassium sorbate once it has reached an alcohol level you like. leave it a week and then you should be fine to carefully rack and bottle it.

All in all, it's finished when you say it is - it's your wine, after all. The only stipulation is NOT to put the stuff in glass bottles before you're sure it's stabilised (bang, crash, stained ceiling). If you're going to use PET bottles (recommended) you don't have to worry so much.

Mike

I wouldn't store in PET bottles longer than a month or two - after that they go loose and floppy - leading me to suspect the alcohol breaks down the plastic a bit

[MKG]

That last bit's very interesting, FTB - I haven't found that at all. Where do you store the bottles?

Mike

[frozenthunderbolt]

In a cool room - darkish - as in, not direct sunlight, but not in real dark - might have a bearing on it?