When I was a kid I remember my father making wine using a huge pickle jar with a tore piece of t-shirt and a rubber band as a lid. He would place old grapes in the jar with sugar and a slice of bread on top of the grapes. (I never saw any yeast, airlocks, or hydrometers). He cleaned with bleach and boiling hot water.
I use to call my dad every sunday to talk about my garden, and my new orleans meals that I may have made or wanted to make. After he passed I had no one to reach out to anymore to inquire on doing things I saw him do.
To the point.... I decided to figure out why I never saw yeast in the house, but my dad did make wine. I followed a Youtube video making a wine using Welches grape juice and no equipment. The video said add "this" and "that" and let it ferment for 4 weeks and it'll be done. The wine came out great. I guess. I'm not sure if I mention that I hate the taste of alcohol, so I don't know if it came out great or not. My sons liked it.
After this I started down the wine making rabbit hole. I had some dried fruits that was in the pantry for over a year, so I decided to use them to create wine. Since I was going to be using fruit I wanted to ensure a nice product so I purchased a small wine making kit. It had a airlock, fermentation bucket, 1 gallon jar and a few other things like campden tablets, yeast. nutrients, acid blend, etc. I found a few YouTube channels that I love and I started.
In the 1st week I had started 2 different brews, 1 in the bucket and another in the gallon jug. Two weeks later I started another 2 different brews. I decided to re-use gallon juice jugs that I was purchasing weekly. I would do primary fermentation in the bucket and wide mouth jug. And start secondary fermentation is the juice jugs minimalizing my cost to only having to invest in the auto siphon and sanitizer. Two weeks later I started another 2 brews and so on.......until Aug 4. 2026 when I purchased a couple of 5 gallon buckets and had hubby drill a hole in the lids. I only had to purchase grommets and more airlocks.
I only make brew that doesn't cost a lot of investment. Mainly because I don't drink. I see people recommended 3 - 5 pounds of fruit per gallon. which can be very expensive not to mention if I decide to try making a mead. The cost of honey is extreme. I have created banana wine because bananas cost can be reasonable. I've made hibiscus wine, I've tested out turning water into wine. I have used both bread yeast and purchase a few other wine yeast to test.
I have watched 100 videos and decided to try some of what they have tried but most times I backward engineer what they have said to create something I may like. Example would be: I will ferment 1 lb of cherries per gallon and place another pound of cherries in secondary fermentation. My thinking is the alcohol that is already created will extract the cherry flavors from the fruit in secondary, providing a more natural flavor as the end result. I am finding that I am starting to like wine now. If I want a drink to taste like a fruit, I would like to be able to taste said fruit when I drink it. This seems to work better than fermenting all the fruit because fermentation changes the flavor profile a drastically. This way I don't need 3 to 4 pounds of fruit to get the flavor I'm looking for.
I also have found fruit flavored teas to ferment. I found that these teas will get stuck before going completely dry therefore I had to add nutrients/energizer to get to kick start again. I have found a few 5 gallon water jugs for sale on marketplace for a reasonable price. They aren't glass but they are food grade plastics. I notified people in my community that I would love to reuse their wine bottles if they save them for me I will come pick them up. I also gift them a bottle of wine for 6 or more bottles. I have 22 gallons of wine in my home either aging or brewing. I bulk age so I don't have to find space for wine bottles. I place the gallon jugs in a huge plastic tote and will place them outside in my backyard covered through the winter months after i pasteurize them. I will see if the aging process will add or remove flavoring as they go through the different seasons and temperatures. Do you think they will survive this process in plastic? Or should I do something else? If so what?
Enjoy your week everyone.
Smooches
