[mmm420socal]

Hey guys, Im looking to try my hand at making some ghetto hooch...Aside from Pruno, I don't know much about home made wines.

I got a couple bottles of concord grape juice (100% juice), some sugar and some dry activated yeast...

I'm not trying to make real wine, just wanna see if I can get some kinda drinkable, alcoholic brew. I drink a lot of beer and I thought it would be fun to see if I could do it on the cheap, myself with wine instead.


Any SIMPLE 1-2 week recipes would be appreciated.


MMM

[mean mr.mustard]

Pruno!

I would recommend brewing beer as a start... work your way up. Take it from one who has: start simple and small!
If you don't want to make something that tastes good and the bang for your buck is what you want, then I might tell you to still moonshine (if it wasn't illegal, which it is)....

[Sleepy]

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmead!

do you want dry or sweet?

fizzy or flat?

start with 15 pounds of clover honey, water and yeast.

boil water and honey 15 minutes...add to more water to make 5 gallons...cool, and pitch yeast.

cleanliness is paramount!

how many carboys do you have?

meads will ferment a loooong time, secondary ferment is usually not enough...sometimes a tertiary fermenting period is needed.

expect it to ferment about a year.

the longer it sits in bottle, the better it gets!

there are lots of recipes on line, try google.

p.s. "on the cheap" = brew that tastes like sweatsocks

garbage in...garbage out.

[mmm420socal]

Originally Posted by Sleepy

p.s. "on the cheap" = brew that tastes like sweatsocks

garbage in...garbage out.

Thanks for the tips.... I just wanted to make some baloon wine

I do wanna try some mead however...


As far as distilling goes, its on my planned wish-list of future activities LOL...Distill out about 2gallons of lightning to last the year LOL

On the cheap = tastes like shit = gets you drunk...All alcohol tastes like ass to me anyway, I just wanted to see if I could make something alcoholic in my own kitchen, cuz I'm bored.

I'm 26, I can just go buy wine, LOL... But I wanted to see if I could make it, for fun.


Thanks for all the help!


MMM

[mean mr.mustard]

Well, I'd tell ya that the grape juice you have is probably carrying a preservative like potassium sorbate... that won't ferment because it'd kill the yeast.... like I said, the basics are called basic for a reason.... try brewing beer, then move up. The things you will learn, my, oh my, the things you will learn!

[Saint Simon]

Well it seems your in luck
this was posted on Overgrow a while ago and I copied it for safe keeping and it takes about a week.

For "better" tasting Ghetto Hooch
for a 1 litre bottle:
use 1/10 (yep .1) Teaspoon of yeast
use 4 Teaspoons (20 grams) of sugar
for every . 70 - .85 litres of juice

For any other size you'll have to find your calculator

Make sure all bottles and utensils are clean and sterile (THIS IS KEY)

Pour your Juice (100% not from Concentrate juice grape is prefered but its all about taste) into the bottle

add the Sugar and the Yeast, the order is not really important but I usually put the Sugar in first.

Once all the ingredients are placed in the bottle airlock it by putting a balloon or plastic bag over the mouth of the bottle held in place with either an elastic band or some sort of strong tape. Make sure no air can get in or out

Now that all the hard work is done take your bottle and put it in a dark area and is around room temperature.

Let this sit for 5 - 7 days depending on the potency you would like (Longer = Stronger) You will know it is working when the bag begins to inflate this is the yeast doing its job.

Once you are finished filter the Hooch through 2 or 3 Coffee filters into another clean bottle.

Place the bottle in the freezer over night to let it settle and you have yourself some cheap, easy, pretty tasty Ghetto hooch.

hope this is what you were looking for
- Simon

[btb103]

In my experience I've found that adding some brown sugar improves the taste and the amount of sugar is entirely up to you to decide what kind of wine you like. I've also decided that grape is terrible and I only use 100% apple cider... very tasty stuff.

[hyped4bu]

3 to 5 parts water to each part honey. You can bring it to a boil first for a clearer end product, but I think it tasts better un-cooked. I use a blender to mix the honey and water.

I would suggest using 3 or 5 gallon glass bottles to ferment because you can get cheap airlocks to fit the neck of the bottle (need a way to keep it clean like a bubbler/ airlock

Find a warm place to ferment it. I use the top of the refrigerator.

Lavolin Champaign yeast works well for mead.

Here is a link with a bunch of recipes
https://www.realbeer.com/spencer/cats...ap10.html#menu

[HotCha]

Mead is crazy. It's really hard to get consistent results, which is why you don't see much mead on the shelves at your local wine shop.

Start with the best quality, freshest honey you can find. Find a light colored honey like tupelo. 3lbs. per gallon of water is a good mix.

Avoid boiling if you can as this will drive off some of the volatile aroma compounds. The key to keeping your mead free of contamination is a big, active yeast starter and sanitary equipment and practices.

Initial fermentation should finish up pretty quickly. It's good to move the mead to a fresh carboy to get it off of the yeast sediment which can contribute off flavors to the mead.

When we say you're looking for your mead to be clear before you bottle it, we mean CLEAR. Clear like apple juice, crystal clear. All meads will do this eventually, if you don't want to wait there's a product called Sparkolloid that will clarify mead in less than a week if you follow the directions.

Make sure the mead has finished fermenting before you bottle it. Get a hydrometer ($10 at your local homebrew shop) and check the specific gravity to make sure fermentation has ended. If you bottle before fermentation has ended you can wind up with an amazing sticky mixture of booze and glass shards to clean up, not fun.

I recommend using plain brown beer bottles with oxygen barrier caps. The brown glass will protect the mead from the light and the oxygen barrier caps will allow you to age for a long time without worries. Beer bottles allow you to serve smaller amounts as well.

Mead can cause brutal hangovers, consume responsibly and drink plenty of water. I've seen pro drinkers wrecked by mead because they didn't realize the alcohol content was so high. We call it "wobble pop."

[jim_w]

On the cheap = tastes like shit = gets you drunk...All alcohol tastes like ass to me anyway, I just wanted to see if I could make something alcoholic in my own kitchen, cuz I'm bored.

If you just want something to get you smashed for cheap, make a sugar wash - all the yeast actually needs is sugar and some nutrients. A couple of tubes of tomato paste, some marmite and a bit of acid (I use tataric) will give the yeast enough nutes, then use roughly a half a pound of sugar per litre - two pounds per gallon. This will make a very strong but horible tasting wash. I distill this crap, but if you haven't got the resources to do that then just mixing it with a bit of fruit concentrate or something should make it drinkable.

Fruit and whatnot is nice, but not needed to make alcohol.

As others have said, cleanliness is paramount. Also important is dealing with gas flow - if you want your hooch to be reasonably strong you've got to let the co2 escape - just sealing the bottle with a balloon won't vent enough co2 to allow a decent amount of alcohol to be made. A fermentation lock is fairly cheap and you can seal one into pretty much any bottle cap with silocone or caulk.

Obviously the bigger the bottle the better - I use five gallon kegs (uk gallons - bigger than yours ;-P).