Introduction: Making Fruit Wine Cordials With Different Fruit and Various Alcohol Levels and Sweetness.

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About: I am a part-time hobbyists biotechnologist with a photonics background. I also have a YouTube channel too. I work full time now.

Here I am making Fruit juice wines I am made (Grape-apple) wine, Orange-Lemon-Apple Wine, Grapefruit Cherry Rasin Apple Wine, and Cranberry-Raspberry wine.

Methods were quite similar in fermenting and cleaning the 3.75 L of fruit juices with white sugar and adding wine yeast.


Depending on what method you use you can get Sweet or Bitter wine (Dry wine). Each method is slightly different. You can also use these Cardinal wines in food (Cooking wine) it has that advantage too.


Disclaimer: Do not drink large amounts of Homemade wine and do not try this if you are underage or have any issues with Alcohol. Unclean dirty bottles and wine can lead to bacteria which can lead to food poisoning if ingested. Clean sterilized methods must be followed to prevent Potentially Lethal bacteria infection with your wine. Do this by making wine at your own risk too.

I know some wines can take years to make but I want to keep it to 3 to 4 weeks to 2-month period for my wines.



Warning:

The amount of Methanol that is produced is very small almost negligible compared to the Ethanol and Normally methanol production is not an issue However if you add (Pectin) it can allow higher concentrations of dangerous or deadly Methanol to be produced.


Normal fruit juice does not have a lot of Pectin so this should not be a significant risk. However, here is a link about Pectin and methanol production.

  1. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35940771/
  2. https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/methanol-pectin.38313/

As said it prob very low and as long as it is not added artificially to your wine or your not making it from scratch it not an issue.

Supplies

These are a few Pictures of what you need to make Wine.

  1. 1 Gallon or 3.78 L Fermentation bottle with lid and Airlock.
  2. Tide soap to clean the bottles.
  3. Water (Hot water) to wash them.
  4. No.6 Rubber stoppers.
  5. Wine Yeast Preferably C118 yeast.
  6. Fruit Juices See above.
  7. A scale (digital) to measure the sugar and yeast. 1000 g Jewelry scale or Smaller Pocket scale.
  8. Graduated cylinder with Alcohol buoyancy meter. Check Amazon.
  9. Optional an IR non-contact Thermometer.
  10. Aluminum foil to keep fruit flies from potentially entering the airlock in your wine fermentation bottles.
  11. A flashlight so you can check on turbidity and yeast floating (Up and down) in the 3-4 week Period.
  12. White Sugar. Do not use anything but white sugar others clump up and may change the desired flavor.
  13. Potassium Sorbate is a yeast preservative when you are done making the wine.
  14. Clean funnels.
  15. 500 ml or 1 L wine bottles with a swing cap that creates a tight seal.
  16. Paper towels to clean up some of the mess including any spills.
  17. Alcohol (Medical grade with No methanol) or 40% Alcohol (Vodka, Gin) Add a bit of soap to clean bottles.

Optional chemicals. (However, as I say the concentration of them must be incredibly low or it could ruin your wine.)

  1. Sodium thiosulfate or Sodium metabisulfite. Can create an awful sulfur smell and taste in your wine.
  2. Sodium benzoate. The risk with acidic fruit juices is Benezene can form which increases the risk of cancer.

Step 1: Making Orange and Grape Apple Wine.

It is very important once you get the Fermentation bottles to clean and rinse them with soap and water. Add Dawn Soap and then (a few sprays) then rinse 6-8 times until you see no soap bubbles. Now it is safe to use. I took Orange juice and Grape Apple juice and kept them in the fridge. They have no preservatives so they are Ideal for making Dry wine.

The only thing to note is that they are Pasterizured. So after opening them they must be drunk within 10 days.


Warm up the Yeast to 15 degrees C and the Fruit Juices to 14-15 degrees C an IR non-contact thermometer is very handy for this. Shake the fruit juices and add by scale 3-4 grams of Wine yeast and a Cup of white sugar (Nearly 454 g). Do this for the Orange juice wine and the Grape-Apple wine.


A note the quality of this wine suffered a bit since the fruit juice was added too quickly and too much yeast all at once added it made a 5% alcohol Grape-Apple wine and a 9% orange wine. It still tasted good but i considered it a dry wine.

Also, the wine was allowed to sit for 2 months for the Orange and Grape WIne whereas the Grapefruit and Cranberry wine sat for 3-4 weeks Less than 1 month normally.


Here is how to make Grape wine I adapted from this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8VpKEY4NRw&t=626s


Finally when we added the sugar, and wine yeast, and shook it up to prevent the Yeast from being stressed (Lack of oxygen produces Hydrogen sulfide, which will ruin your wine). We then add to the airlock tap water and close the lid and put aluminum foil around the top of the airlock.


Then i waited 2 months but I think I should in the future if i do this again add the yeast slowly so that the alcohol concentration rises and only wait a max of 3-4 weeks.

I poured the fruit juice with a probe and got 0% alcohol as I should have since it has no yeast to produce alcohol that is what the alcohol probe said. I measured the alcohol concentration 2 months later. I agitated the samples too much introducing some unwanted oxygen.

The Alcohol was for the Grape-Apple 5% alcohol and the Alcohol for the Orange wine was 9% alcohol.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0I4ZF1tZT0

Step 2: Making Sweeter Wine (Cranberry and Grapefruit Wine) Type.

For the Cranberry wine, I put After washing out the bottles with Hot soap, Water, and even some Denatured ethanol to clean it and allow the alcohol to evaporate. away (Taking no chances with possible contamination) Rinsing with hot water, etc, and soap.

A pure brand of Good Cranberry wine with no preservatives was used. I poured them into the bottle (fermentation bottle) and shook them up to give a lot of air to the yeast. I added around this time 3.5 L of fruit juices (Cranberry and Cranberry Rasberry) with 2 cups (900 g)of milled crushed white sugar.

I poured in the 3.5 L of fruit juice (Cranberry mix) and Poured in the sugar then I put on the no.6 rubber stopper and shook the juice carefully for a few minutes. Then I added 1.5 g of yeast then and shook it up with the no.6 stopper firmly in the hole.

I would use the funnel to pour the yeast and check on it in 2 weeks. Initially, the yeast would not grow I think I added too much sugar so I added 3.0 grams of Wine yeast and waited a few weeks. It started working nicely. The temperature of the fermentation bottle was 22-24 degrees C. Fermentation slightly increased the temperature and a slight turbidity was noticed due to the high presence of sugar and yeast.

Usiing a turkey baser pipette 200 ml sample into a clean graduated cylinder 250 ml and place the clean alcohol probe and thus read the final reading. Quickly pour the alcohol afterwords back into the fermentation bottle.

Use an alcohol probe to measure the alcohol content before and after the wine is made. I skipped a few corners with using funnels I recommend a device that pumps alcohol from a pump and tube and it is easy to get on Amazon. Prolonged oxygen can convert Ethanol into acetic acid. This may have happened with the orange and grape-apple wines.

I strongly recommend a tube and pump to pump the wine into tubes when it is ready and avoid this Mistake. I bought a pump for that purpose for the Cranberry and Grapefruit wine.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKjJqHA2yd8

And of course Cranberry or Cranberry fruit mix.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFjYnLGrWFE

Step 3: Stocking the Wine.

I have no picture of the Wine pump and tube but for the Cranberry wine and the Grapefruit wine it was used and I think it potentially avoids the formation of small amounts of acetic acid by air converting ethanol into it. I strongly recommend it for use when you make alcohol.


Altho I don't think this was a big issue with the Orange or Grape apple wine it was the quality of fruit juices and acidity.

How to Rack wine I did this with the Cranberry and the Grapefruit wine only.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b72yfymnFlc


500 ml and 1 L wine bottles with caps were used and 5 g of Potassium sorbate was added to each of the wine fermentation bottles to slow down the growth of the wine. You could actually use Sodium Benzoate or Sodium metabisulfite but if u add too many of these chemicals Especially Sodium metabisulfite you could make your wine taste like Sulfur due to excess sulfur dioxide (SO2) so it is not recommended.

Also if the wine bottles are temperature-proof and can be heated to 80 degrees C then you can pasteurize your wine. However, it is not recommended to do this unless you know your bottles are heat-resistant. An explosion could occur which is very dangerous.

Do this at your own risk and ask if the bottles are resistant to heat do your homework before trying this. I cannot give good enough INFO on this to say it is 100% safe. In my opinion, it is only Optional.

Step 4: Theories of Why My Wine Was Dry and Sweet.

I am not entirely sure but I think too much yeast was added to the Grape-apple wine and when oxygen was introduced it stressed and "Maybe" killed or slowed down the growth of the yeast. Yeast is cannibalistic and will eat other yeast when their sugar supply runs low.

The tasting of the Grape-Apple wine and Orange wine was almost like a fruit beer-type wine. It is hard to say but a Wine Cordial is the Best description for this.

For the Grapefruit mix wine and Cranberry Rasberry wine, I think it was sweeter and tastier due to several factors. The yeast was not added at once but in small little portions. I had initial trouble getting the wines, especially the Cranberry wine due to 900 g of sugar to grow so I decided to add the yeast in small proportions.

This was a brand new Idea i bought Wine yeast for other projects and they did not work so I was like what can i use wine yeast for Obviously making Cordial wines? I am glad i got into this.

You could back-sweet your wine with Stevia or another type of non-fermentation sugar (Alcohol sugar). Xylitol may give it a minty flavor and use Sorbitol or Erythritol. There are some risks with alcohol sugars so do this with caution.

The wines I make are simpler and take less time. If you want to wait longer you will need a different method than this. The cranberry and grapefruit wine were quite good and there was nothing wrong with the Grape-apple and Orange wine either it was a bit dry tho.

Cardinal wines can be used if they are sweet enough to make good cooking wine. I am also planning to make Cranberry Passionfruit wine with 15% alcohol (900 g of white sugar).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOF-VI_oFTk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SP2gdkwFano