I happened to see a bottle of Welch's® concord grape juice at the supermarket that caught my attention. It was mostly pasteurized concord grape juice with some other grape juices (all from concentrate) fortified with vitamin C and a smidgen of citric acid to brighten the taste and, get this ... no preservatives! That means you can make wine using that grape juice! And you can make wines from their red grape juice and their white grape juice, which is mostly juice from white niagara grapes. I put my recipe for the white niagara grape wine into Food Nirvana and it is similar to this recipe.

In the old days preservatives like potassium sorbate were used to keep the public from being able to make wine from fruit juices ... but the current world of insistent, pure food customers has actually, for once, done us a favor!

So I made the wine. I am very pleased and I am providing the detailed (and somewhat technical) recipe below for your use and enjoyment, plus some technical discussions to teach you the rudiments of making wine. The wine tastes fine and it contains about 13% alcohol. It cost about $2.17 per 750ml bottle. And now? Now that this method is proven to be good I've ramped up the quantity I make to 2 1/2 gallons (a case of 12 bottles of wine) in each batch. Just remember to check out the grape juice bottle ingredients carefully if/when you buy the juice to verify that you have 100% grape juice and that no preservatives were used. Else, all you get after all the work is old, yeasty, overly sweet grape juice! Yuck!

As purchased ($4.79 per 2 quart bottle), the Welch's® concord grape juice is advertised as having 9.9 ounces of sugar in 2 quarts of juice. Old time winemakers like me know that the ideal amount of sugar for making wine varies from 2 to 3 pounds of sugar per gallon of "must" (a winemaker's term for juice plus other ingredients) that will become wine via yeast fermentation. Well, this wine is only supposed to be sweet in a minor way, so you can taste the unique grape flavor, so if you do the arithmetic you will see that the total amount of sugar used in the recipe below is just 2 pounds per gallon ... or in this case, 1 pound per two quarts of grape juice ... more than half of which was provided by the nice folks at Welch's® (or so they say, more detail follows below). The cost of the added sugar, if you buy it via Walmart® in a 25 lb. bag, is 25 cents, or maybe a bit more!

If you happen to buy a device called a hydrometer (about $25 via Amazon®) you can measure sugar content in the grape juice with fairly high accuracy, and that is a good idea for the sugar content of any grape juice may vary from bottle to bottle. In any event, if you get a hydrometer you want your final sugar content before fermentation to be shown on the scale as 24 degrees Brix (or a few degrees higher if you want a higher alcohol content [above 12.5% to 13%] in the wine), which means 24 grams of sugar within 100 grams of grape juice, or, using a different accompanying scale, Specific Gravity of 1.100. Note that the grape juice, as purchased, showed a sugar content of 15 degrees Brix. The scary part was that initial adjustment of the sugar content to achieve 24 degrees Brix only elevated the degrees Brix to 22.5. More follows ...

Another device that is truly nice is a refractometer (about $25 via Amazon®) that measures the degrees Brix, the SG (Specific Gravity), and from which you can often get a close estimate of the percent alcohol in your completed wine. The refractometer will be used to assure the correct sugar content of the sweetened grape juice (24 degrees Brixor higher) ... it will show the specific gravity, and by measuring the residual sugar at the end of fermentation it provides you knowledge of how much sugar was converted into alcohol ... also how likely the wine is to be sweet, neutral or dry. Well, the refractometer, just like the hydrometer, showed the degrees Brix to be 22.5 instead of 24 after adding the indicated amount of sugar to the must. Read on ...

I had to add one extra ounce of sugar to the 2 quart volume of grape juice to get the degrees Brix up to 24. That worked. Both the refractometer and the hydrometer agreed with each other precisely. But why was this necessary? The reality is the stated amount of sugar in the grape juice cannot be accurate. Perhaps they were adding sugar based on the sugar content of an earlier batch of grape juice, all batches of which depend on the ripeness of all the grapes used in a given batch. Now, that is why we use instruments to know more accurately what we have, and eliminate confusing results that might happen any time, as we test the wine for any batch after fermentation. Ergo, if the percent of alcohol in the wine is significantly lower than what should have happened, then what was the cause? The point ... make a small but important investment in measuring equipment so you are not part of a poor return guessing game each time you make wine.

One last point about degrees Brix ... it is a measure of all dissolved solids in the must, not just the sugar. In general the non-fermentable dissolved solids in the must (acids, minerals, etc.) are about 2.5% of the total dissolved solids, which is mostly sugar, so the true degrees Brix corrected for non-sugar solids has roughly 2.5% less sugar than that indicated by the refractometer. A similar offset applies to the Specific Gravity measured using a hydrometer. Brix to SG conversion = 4 x Brix/1000 +1.

Be sure to use clean, freshly washed equipment (as listed below) to avoid bacteria and wild yeasts. You can buy the wine air lock and rubber stopper at any wine arts store, or online at Amazon® or Ebay® or other commercial web sites. Ditto the plastic tubing. The rest of the items you already have at home. If not, you best buy all the wines you want to drink and forget this recipe.

On checking the pH (acidity) of the grape juice, sugar and yeast mixture for my trial batch of wine, I found it was 3.5 ... which was fine for the wine being made. No chemical additions were necessary. You do have to check the pH as yours may be quite different and you may need to add up to 3.8 grams of potassium carbonate per gallon of juice at the start of fermentation. Why check? The pH of the grape juice I used for my "second" batch of 2.5 gallons was 2.85, which means the grape juice, as purchased, was not consistent in level of acidity, and that means the final wine may taste acidic if you don't adjust the pH, and acidic tasting wine is not pleasant. For the record, natural grape juices contain a variety of organic acids (like tartaric, malic, etc.) that work just fine in producing an ideal pH for making wine (most of the time... sometimes we have to convert malic acid into lactic acid to reduce total acidity in white wines like chardonnay) ... provided the grapes are ripe with optimal sugar content.

Now, how can you measure pH without spending a lot of money for a pH meter? They can cost anywhere from $100 to $300. The answer is cheap yet effective paper strips that measure pH that, again, you can easily buy cheaply via Amazon®.

Here is an end of the recipe type of variation that is quite special ... General directions for carbonating the concord grape wine to make it a sparkling wine. My method requires the equipment and the procedure that is described in Food Nirvana in the recipe for Lemon-Lime soda. Be sure to read it. Once you master making the wine you definitely want to make some of it into sparkling wine. What a fine treat!

Okay ... no more background talk ... let's get started ...

Ingredients: (small 2 quart batch, yields 4 ounces more than 2, 750ml bottles of wine)

2 quart bottle of Welch's® concord grape juice (with no preservatives)

1 gram of Red Star® Premier Blanc active dry yeast for winemaking (or alternatively, 1/2 tsp. of Fleischman's® active dry yeast normally used for baking)

6 ounces of white sugar (weigh it using an electronic kitchen scale) ... or, whatever turns out to be necessary via measuring instruments discussed above

Potassium carbonate (get it via Amazon®, cheaply. You may or may not need to add this chemical to adjust grape juice pH in any given batch)

Tartaric acid powder (via Amazon®. Optional. Used for pH adjustment if the must is too alkaline [pH higher than 3.75])

Equipment:

A kitchen scale that can measure in tenths of a gram, or, you might buy an inexpensive milligram scale via Amazon®.

Empty, clean 2 quart bottle with a screw on cap

Wine air lock in a 1" diameter (small end) single hole rubber stopper (#8 size)

Flexible plastic tubing for siphoning (42" long, 1/4" ID)

8 ounce canning jar with lid and ring

2 clean 750 ml wine bottles with screw on caps

1, one gallon glass or plastic pitcher

Directions:

Pour two and one half cups of the grape juice into a Pyrex® or similar glass one quart measuring container. Pour the rest into a one gallon pitcher.

Add the 6 ounces (or more a bit later after you measure the "real" amount of sugar in the must) of white sugar to the one quart container and stir/mix until it is dissolved. If necessary to assist getting the sugar to dissolve, warm the mixture briefly in the microwave oven. Then stir until the sugar is dissolved.

Add the sugar syrup to the juice in the pitcher and mix it well. Then use your hydrometer or refractometer to check the degrees Brix or the Specific Gravity. If the degrees Brix is less than 24, or the Specific Gravity is less than 1.100, then figure out how much additional sugar you need to add to the pitcher, and do so with stirring.

Pour 8 ounces of that mixture into the 8 ounce canning jar, seal it with the lid and the ring, and keep it in the refrigerator until it is used later. The main reason for doing this is the volume of the grape juice plus the added sugar will be more than two quarts, so it won't all fit into the plastic bottle at the same time.

Add the yeast to the remaining grape juice and sugar mixture, mix it in, cover the pitcher with plastic wrap and let it sit for one hour. Side notes: The typical amount of yeast to be used, as recommended by the producer, is about 5 grams for making 5 gallons of wine. I chose to increase that amount to 1 gram for two quarts of wine, but 1/2 gram might work okay. Sometimes a product called yeast nutrient, which is diammonium phosphate, is added to stimulate the yeast to reproduce quickly. You can read about that in lots of Internet articles on winemaking. But do not use yeast nutrient when making this wine, for excess yeast activity will overflow your fermentation setup with foam and make a mess.

Stir the mixture and pour all of it into the grape juice bottle.

Measure the pH of the "must." Use either a pH meter or paper pH strips (cheap). If the pH is lower than 3.00 then adjust the pH via a small (very small, less than a gram) addition of potassium carbonate to obtain a final pH of about 3.25. Start with 0.3 grams/quart and mix well and recheck the pH. Continue checking the pH and adjusting if necessary, but do not exceed a rate of 3.8 grams of potassium carbonate per gallon of must, or in this example a maximum of 1.9 grams for 2 quarts of must.

Okay, now you know what to do if the starting pH is too low. But what if it is too high, like 3.75? Fermentation will increase the pH naturally and you want the final pH to be no higher than 3.5, or the wine may become spoiled during storage via bacterial growth. The answer is to add some tartaric acid powder to the starting must until you get the pH down to about 3.25. Yes, you can easily buy the tartaric acid powder cheaply via Amazon®, etc. But add it in very small increments, fractions of a gram, with stirring and remeasuring pH to arrive at your goal without going too far.

Let's proceed. Wet the rubber stopper, put the air lock/rubber stopper into the top rim of the grape juice bottle snugly and fill the air lock reservoir half full with water, then put on the air lock plastic cap.

Let the "must" ferment for 7 to 10 days in a room 70 to 78 degrees F, in a relatively dark place. When the fermentation is about done there will be very slow bubbling of expelled carbon dioxide gas in the air lock. Wait until it is bubbling at a rate of about 1 bubble per minute before continuing to the next step.

Rack the wine using the plastic tubing and the empty 2 quart bottle. That means siphon all but the dead yeast cells on the bottom of the grape juice bottle into the 2 quart bottle, minimizing exposure to air by keeping the ends of the plastic tubing under the surface of the liquid in both containers. When you have siphoned most of the wine there will be an ounce or two of leftover liquid mixed with the dead yeast cells and all of it is to be discarded. Rinse the dead yeast cells from the grape juice bottle, ergo, clean it with hot tap water.

Put the reserved (refrigerated) canning jar of grape juice and sugar mixture into the grape juice bottle. Then add the siphoned wine from the 2 quart bottle, again by careful siphoning to avoid air exposure as much as possible. Fill it up only to within one inch of the bottom of the air lock. Then pour any excess wine into the 8 ounce canning jar, put the lid on it and put it into the refrigerator.

Wet the rubber stopper and put the air lock back into the top of the grape juice bottle.

Let the wine finish fermenting for five to ten days (until there is no longer bubbling in the air lock), then again rack the wine as before, siphoning the wine into the 2 quart bottle. Then add the remaining wine from the refrigerated 8 ounce canning jar.

After cleaning the grape juice bottle, siphon the wine back into it close to the top and seal the bottle with the original bottle cap.

Let the wine rest for one week and check to see if it should be racked again. That means if any film of dead yeast cells is seen from the underside of the grape juice bottle it must be eliminated via another careful racking. Also check the pH of the wine. If it is in the range of 3.25 to 3.50 it is perfect. If it is lower than 3.25 taste it and decide if you want to add some potassium carbonate to increase the pH to no higher than 3.5. If the pH after fermentation is above 3.50 you should add some tartaric acid powder to reduce the pH to the range of 3.25 to 3.50 to avoid wine spoilage during storage.

Let the wine rest in the refrigerator for two weeks to clarify. It should clarify nicely, with any formed particulates (like potassium bitartrate) going to the bottom of the bottle (there may be none). If the wine remains cloudy (mine did not) you can/may filter it many different ways ... the choice is up to you. I have a filter system that uses a tank of carbon dioxide gas to gently push the wine through a fine filter (0.45 microns) and then into wine bottles. You shouldn't need to filter the wine, but if you decide to do it you can use the Internet to identify various chemicals used to clarify wine and instructions for how to use each one, like plain unflavored gelatin.

Bottle the wine in the two 750 ml wine bottles using the plastic tubing/siphoning and pour any leftover wine into the 8 ounce canning jar. Screw the caps on the wine bottles.

Determine the alcohol content by using a few drops of wine from the canning jar and the refractometer. How? Read the SG scale of the refractometer and if it is even slightly above 1.000 you can subtract the ending SG from the starting SG and multiply by 131. For example, if the starting SG was 1.100 and the ending SG is 1.001 then the alcohol percentage is 12.97 ... but if the refractometer shows an ending SG of 1.000 or a Brix of zero then you need to check the SG more accurately with the hydrometer as it is likely to be down in the range from 0.980 to 0.999, which the refractometer will not display, and you will need to use one of the bottles of wine, slightly decanted, temporarily to perform that test. So let's assume the ending SG is 0.990 ... then the percentage alcohol is 14.4. An alternate method that is generally accurate if the fermentation is approximately complete is % alcohol by volume = ((starting SG - 1) times 1000) divided by 8, so if the starting SG is 1.100 the % alcohol is 100/8, which is 12.5. But that is only an approximation as the true ending SG is not used in the calculation.

Taste the wine from the 8 ounce canning jar. You deserve to enjoy/sample what you have made, even if it hasn't aged.

You can store the wine for a month or so but I suggest using it within a few months. I recommend refrigeration to support any further precipitation of potassium bitartrate. Also, our crude method of siphoning the wine exposed it some to oxygen in the air, so it won't last for long in the best shape. Alas, both bottles of wine from my first batch were consumed within a week! And then I ramped up the amount to 2.5 gallons (five bottles of grape juice) using a glass carboy, which yielded 11 bottles of wine. And I got 12 bottles in the batch after that. Friends got some, and my sweetheart loves the wine, so I guess I'll have to hide some for my own use!

If you want you can chill the wine, or, serve it at room temperature. We enjoy a slightly sweet wine like this one both chilled and at room temperature.

Drink! Yes, this is very good wine! If you want to become sophisticated and professional after this experiment then read the full Food Nirvana article for Wine Making. For example, you might guarantee that no residual fermentation can occur after bottling by adding a small amount of powdered potassium sorbate to the wine before bottling it ... 0.8 grams per gallon for this wine, and twice that amount if adding sweeteners to a wine after fermentation. As before with the other chemicals, that chemical can be purchased cheaply via the Internet. I also recommend buying a good technical book on winemaking to teach you principles instead of simply following recipes. I use Philip Jackisch, "Modern Winemaking", Cornell University Press, 1985.

Enjoy! After all, it is only $2.17/bottle (or maybe a bit more) ... and that is very inexpensive for a delicious wine. My sweetheart Peggy says it qualifies as a fine wine.

Maybe you will want to gift some nice wine to close family or very good friends.

Doing this recipe was pretty easy, wasn't it? Fun too, not to mention inexpensive. Now that you know how easy this is, why not make a larger batch? Buy a 2 1/2 or 5 gallon glass carboy (buy two of whatever size you choose [think about why]) and have at it. They are not expensive, and they will last forever if you handle them carefully. And glass, unlike plastic, will not provide any surface cracks that might harbor bacteria or wild yeast.

A final thought ... if you decide to make wines often then it is very useful to maintain a notebook with measurement information for each batch made, plus environmental conditions, so that you develop a fine sense of how small changes in ingredients or procedure or even room temperature affect the final product.