My friend came from Canada and would like me to make ice wine. Is there a particular grape to use. I make scuppernong wine quite well in NC. Do you have an ice wine recipe you could provide me with.

Sue – NC
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Hello Sue,

I’m not sure if I can answer your question directly. That’s because making ice wine is more of a process. It’s really not made using an ice wine recipe, per se.

Ice wine is traditionally made from grapes that have been kept on the vine on into the colder winter months. The grapes are crushed and presses while they are frozen. Since it is only the water in the grapes, not the sugar and flavors, that are frozen, what releases during pressing is a concentrated juice with plenty of sugar and flavor. A majority of the water in the grapes is left behind in the wine press along with the pulp and skins. The result is a wine with lots of flavor and aroma.

As you might expect, ice wines normally come from the cooler regions of the world: Germany, British Columbia, etc. where this freezing occurs early and readily, but in North Carolina you can simulate this to some degree by freezing grape in a freezer and then crushing and pressing them very quickly, before the water in them has time to thaw and incorporate back into the juice. For example, you could try doing this outside on one of your coldest days. Pull the grapes out of the freezer and work quickly. This is what is at the heart of this wine, not an ice wine recipe.

Ice wine is made from a variety of different wine grapes such as: Riesling, Chardonnay, Gewürztraminer, Chenin Blanc, even Cabernet Sauvignon, etc. All these grapes are wine varietals where 100% of the juice is used with no sugar or water added, regardless if it is made as an ice wine or not. That is one of there reasons there’s really not an ice wine recipe.

In the case of Scuppernong grapes where sugar and water is often added to cut the tartness of the grape, coming up with an ice wine recipe using them can be a little tricky.

If I were to approach a Scuppernong ice wine for the first time, I would freeze, crush and press as discussed before. Then I would add a sugar/water mixture to the wine must until I knew the acidity was diluted to a decent range. This can be done with an Acid Test Kit. Take an acid reading of your freshly pressed ice juice. The directions that come with the Acid Test Kit will give you the optimal acid level for your wine.

The water/sugar mixture should be made up of 2.5 pounds of sugar (5 cups) for every gallon of water. Hopefully, you do not need to add too much, since this is counterproductive to having the grapes frozen in the first place.

Once you have the wine must set up, the process is just as you have done in the past when you’ve made your grape wine. Add wine yeast, yeast nutrient and let the fermenting begin. No acid blend or wine tannin are need since plenty of both are coming from the ice-ed grape juice.

Realize that if you have some other grapes available to you besides Scupernong – some grape varietals, the icing process would be a lot more effect since no water would need to be added back to cut the acidity of the juice. This is as close as I can get for you to an ice wine recipe.

You may also want to consider making wine from an ice wine ingredient kit. These kits have already had the freezing, crushing and pressing all taken care of for you. You do not need to worry about adjusting the acidity, or anything like that, either. Just follow the directions that comes with the ingredient kit, add the additional packets when called for, and you will have an ice wine with plenty of flavor and a big bouquet.

Happy Winemaking,
Ed Kraus
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Ed Kraus is a 3rd generation home brewer/winemaker and has been an owner of E. C. Kraus since 1999. He has been helping individuals make better wine and beer for over 25 years.

I cannot find anything on how to make pumpkin wine. Can it even be done? If it can how do you have a pumpkin wine recipe you could send me?

Bryant T. — KS
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Hello Bryant,

Yes, it is pumpkin time and time for using a pumpkin wine recipe. I thank you for such an appropriate question for this time of the year.

I do not have a pumpkin wine recipe on our website, but I do have one that has been in our archives for years. It’s the best pumpkin wine recipe we’ve ever used. It’s a spiced recipe that is pretty darn easy. I remember making this many years ago. As I recall, it was pretty darn good.

This is a 5 gallon pumpkin wine recipe. If you want to make less, just cut all the ingredient proportionately, except for the wine yeast. You always want to use a whole packet of wine yeast – more if you’re making more than 5 gallons.

Spiced Pumpkin Wine Recipe
(5 Gallons)

• 16 lbs. Pumpkin (flesh only)
• 3 lbs. Raisins (chopped)
• 4 Cinnamon Sticks
• 11 lbs. Cane Sugar
• 4-1/2 Tbsp. Acid Blend
• 1 Tbsp. Yeast Energizer
• 1 Tsp. Pectic Enzyme
• 1 Packet Lalvin K1V-1116 Wine Yeast
• 5 Campden Tablets (before fermentation)
• 5 Campden Tablets (before bottling)

To start this wine recipe off you will want to prepare 16 lbs of pumpkin flesh. Scraping it away from the pumpkin’s outer shell should be enough to break it up sufficiently, but if you do have any hunks, you will want to chop them up. The raisins should be coarsely chopped, as well.

Add all the ingredients to 5 gallons of water EXCEPT for the wine yeast. Only add 5 crushed Campden tablets at this point. The other 5 will be added later, when you are bottling the wine. This should be done in an open fermenter. Leave the fermenter open. Only cover with a thin towel, nothing more, for 24 hours. This is to give time for the Campden tablets to sterilize the wine must, then dissipate into the air. After 24 hours, sprinkle on the packet of wine yeast, and you are on your way to making some great tasting pumpkin wine.

Here’s where you can find all the wine making directions you will need to complete this pumpkin wine recipe. Just follow through, step-by-step, and in time you will have a clear pumpkin wine that will be clear and ready to bottle. If you do not have any equipment, you might want to consider the “Your Fruit!” Wine Making Kit.

Bryant, thanks again for the timely question. Let us know how this pumpkin wine recipe turns out for you. As I remember it was very enjoyable and perfect for the holidays.

Happy Winemaking,
Ed Kraus
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Ed Kraus is a 3rd generation home brewer/winemaker and has been an owner of E. C. Kraus since 1999. He has been helping individuals make better wine and beer for over 25 years.

Which one of your wine making kits would I buy to make a basic Apple Cyser recipe? And a list of other ingredients needed. Thank you Janet

Name: Janet N.
State: CA
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Hello Janet,

Without a doubt you will want to get the “Your Fruit!” Wine Making Kit for making apple Cyser. This wine making kit has been designed for beginning winemakers that will be using their own fruit instead of a wine concentrate – in your case, the apple juice. It works great for making wines from strawberries, blackberries, cherries, peaches, watermelon… the list is endless. And yes, it will work great for making an apple Cyser recipe.

This starter wine making kit includes all the essential wine making ingredients you will need to make almost any fruit wine. The wine yeast, nutrients, sanitizers, etc. It also comes with two wine making books. One of them containing 100 wine making recipes; the other contains great insights to making homemade wine. A complete list of what’s in the wine making kit is on our website.

Coming up with an basic apple Cyser recipe is easy. Sense apple Cyser is basically an apple mead, essentially what you are doing is making an apple wine recipe, but instead of adding the sugar it will call for, you will be adding honey in its place. So basically, you can take any apple wine recipe and turn it into an apple Cyser recipe.

Because honey is not all sugar – it has some moisture or water in it – you will need to add more honey by weight than the wine recipe calls for in sugar – usually about 20% more. In the case of our apple wine recipe, you would want to take out the 5 pounds of sugar called for, and replace it with 6 pounds of honey. This is all that is needed to turn it into an apple Cyser recipe. Apple blossom spun honey would be idea but is usually cost prohibitive at 6 pounds. Barring this, clover or wild flower honey will work fine.

Apple Cyser Recipe
(Makes 5 Gallons)

• 5 gallons of apple juice
• 6 lbs. of honey
• 2 tbsp. Yeast Nutrient
• 1/2 tsp. Pectic Enzyme
• 2-1/2 tbsp. Acid Blend
• 1tsp. Tannin
• 1 Packet of Wine Yeast: EC-1118
• 10 Campden Tablets (5 prior to fermentation and 5 at bottling time)

You can follow the wine making directions on our website or the directions that come with the starter wine making kit.

And that’s how to make apple Cyser. Get the “Your Fruit!” Wine Making Kit; convert the apple recipe into a basic apple Cyser recipe and follow the wine making directions. Also realize that you will have some left over wine making ingredients for making future batches of wine. This could be use to make another apple Cyser recipe or some other fruit.

Best wishes, and happy wine making,
Ed Kraus
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Ed Kraus is a 3rd generation home brewer/winemaker and has been an owner of E. C. Kraus since 1999. He has been helping individuals make better wine and beer for over 25 years.

I have about 2 gallons of homemade Concord grape juice in canning jars. This juice isn’t clear and contains pulp but doesn’t contain any preservatives. Can I make wine with this and if so how??

Name: Cindy
State: GA
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Hello Cindy,

Absolutely, you can make homemade concord wine with your canning jars of concord juice. I also wanted to take the time to provide an easy and delicious recipe for this wine below.

The first thing to understand is that in the case of making wine with concord as the fruit, you will want to use 100% juice to make the wine. No water will be added. So the most homemade wine you will be making with the concord wine recipe below is 2 gallons.

The second thing to understand is that the fact the juice is cloudy or has pulp in it is not a problem at all. In fact, it could be considered a good thing, as the pulp will allow you to get more body from the concord juice and into the wine. The cloudiness and pulp will clear just fine through the fermentation process.

How To Making Homemade Concord Wine
You will want to add to your 2 gallons of concord juice the following:

CONCORD WINE RECIPE:
1 Cup Cane Sugar
2 Tsps. Yeast Nutrient
1/4 Tsps. Pectic Enzyme
1/4 Tsp. Grape Tannin
2 Campden Tablets (crushed up)

Wait 24 hours. During this time keep your container of wine must covered with no more than a thin towel. On the next day you will add the wine yeast:

Wine Yeast Lalvin RC 212 (to be added 24 hours later)

The above is based on a 5 gallon concord wine recipe listed on our website:

Homemade Concord Wine Recipe (5 Gallons)

This above information on how to make homemade concord wine is enough to get you started, but to continue on you will want to follow the home wine making procedures at the following link, below. These directions assume you are dealing with fresh fruit, but that’s okay. You can still follow them for making your wine with just the concord juice:

How To Make Homemade Wine

Hope this information on making homemade concord wine helps you out. If you need more help, please contact us. And when it’s done, please let us know how your concord wine turns out!

Happy Winemaking,
Ed Kraus
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Ed Kraus is a 3rd generation home brewer/winemaker and has been an owner of E. C. Kraus since 1999. He has been helping individuals make better wine and beer for over 25 years.

Do I need to leave on the skins with my gold muscadine must, as I do when I make purple scuppernong must? Or do I need to ferment without as most white wine recipes do when making muscadine wine. Love the advice we receive here. Always great. Thanks for your time and knowledge.

Frank V. – TX
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Hello Frank,

Thanks for the kind words and a great question about making muscadine wine.

It is possible to make a white homemade muscadine wine with or without the pulp and skins. It is mostly a matter of personal taste, but it is also an important decision because the resulting wine will be very different in each case.

If you use nothing but the juice from the muscadine grapes to make the wine you will produce a wine that is lighter-bodied, crisp, and refreshing. It will have a straw color. The wine will mature fairly quickly, meaning it will usually be drinkable in a matter of weeks.

One important consideration when making muscadine wine from juice only is that the white muscadines will need to be crush and then pressed with an actual wine press, otherwise you will be leaving a lot of grape juice behind in the pulp. The juice will need to be squeezed from the pulp to avoid this significant waste.

If you leave the pulp in the fermentation, the body of the wine will be much fuller and heavier. The color of the muscadine wine will be more intense and closer to a gold color than a straw color. It will be less refreshing, but more rich and earthy. It will have wider array of flavors, adding complexity to the wine. Leaving the skins in the fermentation can make a considerable difference.

If making a white muscadine wine with the skin and pulp, there may be more care required to get the wine to clear. It will also take longer to age into something you’d want to drink. I could take the better part of a year for the wine to come around.

Once the pulp and skins are removed from the fermentation, it would be advisable to press them to maximize your output of wine. However, in this case it is not not as critical a before because the fermentation will have broken down the pulp to a point where a significant portion of the juice will have be extracted.

My personal opinion is that when you are making muscadine wine at home you should take a middle-of-the-road approach.

Most red wines are fermented on the pulp for around 5 to 7 days. The more days the pulp is in the fermentation, the fuller the body. Wineries use the numbers of days to partially control the body of the wine they are producing. In a sense, they are sculpting the character of the wine.

This sculpting is used occasionally when making white wines, too. One that comes to mind is Sauvignon Blanc. It is not unusual for the skins and pulp to be in with the juice for the first day, just to extract more of the grape’s body.

This approach can be used when making muscadine wine at home, only I would leave the pulp in for 2 or 3 days and then remove the skins and pulp and then press. Make it a short primary fermentation. By doing this you should end up with a white muscadine wine that won’t take a year or more to maturate, but will still have some nice flavor and body that will make the wine enjoyable and interesting.

Having said this, it is your wine. If you are look for a crisp and refreshing muscadine wine, leave the pulp and skins out of the equation altogether. If you’re looking for a big, full muscadine wine with lots of flavor, but may take a year or better to age out, keep the skins and pulp in the fermentation for 7 days.

Frank, I hope this is the information you was looking for. We also have a recipe for making muscadine wine, if you need one. It also has directions on how to make the muscadine wine. If you’re not sure what you want to do, just do something. You’ll end up with a wine regardless. And, you’ll have the experience of making a muscadine wine.

Happy Winemaking,
Ed Kraus
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Ed Kraus is a 3rd generation home brewer/winemaker and has been an owner of E. C. Kraus since 1999. He has been helping individuals make better wine and beer for over 25 years.

My question is related to making both Muscadine and Scuppernong with 100% pure juice. I have an opportunity to obtain 100% pure juice for both products with a Brix range between 22.0-23.0.

I have always utilized real, whole fruit in all my batches and I am not sure if there are recipe differences when using pure juice. Do you have a Muscadine recipe or a Scuppernong recipes that I could follow utilizing 100% grape juice? Are all the wine making ingredients the same? Do I add water or more sugar considering the Brix is in the ideal range?

I really appreciate your assistance.

Best Regards,
John and Cathy H.
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Hello John and Cathy,

Most fresh Muscadine or Scuppernong wine recipes you will find typically call for both water and sugar in addition to the juice/grapes:

• Water: to lower the higher acidity typically found in these grapes. If you use straight Scuppernong or Muscadine juice, you will most likely end up with a wine that is too tart.
• Sugar: to bring the potential alcohol of the wine back up to a decent range. Because you added water to dilute/lower the acidity of the juice, you will need to add sugar to bring the potential alcohol level up to a descent range: 10% to 13%.

However, these wine recipes can only guess as to what are the optimal amounts of each. My suggestion to you would be to purchase two items to help you bring everything into optimal balance:

• Acid Testing Kit: This kit will allow you to test the acidity level of the Scuppernong or Muscadine juice. The acidity relates to the sourness/sharpness of the wine verses the flatness/lifelessness of the flavor. The acid testing kit also comes with directions that will tell you what the optimal readings are, so you can calculate how much water to add to the juice, if any. I would shoot for an acid reading of around .65%.

• Wine Hydrometer: This priceless instrument is what tells you what the brix reading is of the juice. Your supplier has already given you a brix range of 22 to 23, but these numbers will change if you have to dilute the grape juice with water to lower the acidity. The wine hydrometer will tell you what the new brix reading is and help guide you back to a brix range of 22-33 when adding sugar back to the wine must.

As for the rest of the wine making ingredients, you can follow the wine recipes on the wine recipes page of our website. There you will find a Muscadine wine recipe and a Scuppernong wine recipe. Basically, add the following for every 5 gallons of wine must:

• 5 Tsps. Yeast Nutrient
• 3/4 Tsp. Pectic Enzyme
• 1 Tsp. Tannin

The wine yeast recommended for the Scuppernong is the Lalvin type: K1V-1116; for the Muscadine the Red Star type: Pasture Blanc is recommended.

What About Fresh Muscadine And Scuppernong Grapes?
I would also like to point out that the above information can be applied to making wine from actual Muscadine a Scuppernong grapes. Just crush the grapes then take a reading with your gravity hydrometer and acid test kit, and take it from there.

Happy Wine Making,
Ed Kraus
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Ed Kraus is a 3rd generation home brewer/winemaker and has been an owner of E. C. Kraus since 1999. He has been helping individuals make better wine and beer for over 25 years.

I am interested in blending a fruit wine with blackberries, blueberries and Concord grapes. Can you give me any input on a formula to use for 5 or 6 gallons. I’ve been ordering from Kraus for over 6 years and have had a lot of fun. Thank you for your input.

Name: Guy K.
State: PA
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Hello Guy,

This is a question we get from time to time, and one I don’t mind answering again because it’s such a fun subject. A big part of the enjoyment of making your own wine is the ability to experiment and play around a little bit.

Guy, there are two ways you can go about making blended fruit wines:

• The first is to make all the fruits into wines, separately. Then blend them together before bottling.
• The second way is to find a wine recipes for each of the fruits you want to blend. Then combine them together  into one recipe that includes all the different fruits.

Making each fruit into a wine separately has some disadvantages. It’s more work. It’s a lot easier to make on 5 or 6 gallon batch than making three 2 gallon batches. You would be making three odd-sized batches. Not many home wine makers have the fermenters that are the right size for these smaller-sized batches.

But blending fruit wines together after they have been made separately has one big advantage. You can blend the three wines together in any ratio you like. This will allow you to optimize your wine’s flavor. You can decide at bottling time how much of each individual wine to use. A series of taste-testings can help in this respect. You may decide on a ratio of 20-50-30 instead of 33-33-33.

Making all three fruits together as one batch is a lot less work, but you are stuck with the ratio of fruit you used when starting your wine. Your wine will turn out either way, you’ll just have less control of the final product.

To make all three fruits together you need to have a wine recipe for each fruit. In your case, you need a blackberry wine recipe; a blueberry wine recipe; and a Concord wine recipe. Most of the wine recipes you’ll run across will be for 5 gallons. You could throw everything called for into one big fermenter and make a 15 gallon batch. Or, you could use one third of each wine recipe to make a 5 gallon recipe.

Cutting the batches down in size is a fairly straight-forward thing to accomplish. If you have three 5 gallon wine recipes, just use 1/3 of each ingredient called for in each of the three wine recipe to make a new 5 gallon wine recipe. It’s as simple as that.

If more than one type of wine yeast is recommend among the three wine recipes, just pick one and go with it. Do not try blending wine yeast.

Regardless of which method you choose for blending fruit wines, the most important thing is to have fun. Having blind taste-testings with friends to help you figure out your blending ratio can be a blast. Or, come up with your own exotic blend of fruits that makes a punch of a wine — one you call your own. Either way making blended fruit wines is a blast.

Happy Winemaking,
Ed Kraus
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Ed Kraus is a 3rd generation home brewer/winemaker and has been an owner of E. C. Kraus since 1999. He has been helping individuals make better wine and beer for over 25 years.

I am about to make my first batch of Prickly Pear Wine. One of the lovely people at your company e-mailed some information and a wine recipe, but I seem to have misplaced it. I have five gallons of prickly pear juice in my freezer that I will use for the wine and other wine recipes this year.

The five gallons of juice I have in the freezer came from approximately 105 pounds of fresh fruit from the Sonoran Desert area in Arizona over a three year period.

Can you please send me the prickly pear wine recipe again and a guideline about using the juice versus the fresh fruit? I have everything but the additives like wine yeast, sulfites, etc.

Thanks!
mrs. “t”

Name: Tammy T.
State: Arizona
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Hello Tammy,

Sounds like you’ve got things lined up and ready to go except for the prickly pear wine recipe, itself. Sorry to hear you lost it, but that’s no big deal. I’ll just give it to you again, down below.

Any of the wine recipes you run across will list the fruit or produce in pounds or chopped volume. That’s just the way it is, and so it goes with the wine recipe below. It calls for 3 quarts of prickly pear, chopped.

You mentioned that 105 pounds of prickly pear resulted in 5 gallons of juice. Now all you need to know is how much 3 quarts of chopped prickly pears weighs and divide that into the 105 pounds to calculate how much of the juice you need to use.

Prickly Pear Wine Recipe
(1 Gallon)

3 Quarts – Prickly Pear (Chopped)
1-1/4 Cup – Raisins (Chopped)
2 Pints – Water
2 Pounds – Cane Sugar
2 Teaspoons – Acid Blend
1/4 Teaspoon – Pectic Enzymes
3/4 Teaspoon – Yeast Energizer
1 – Campden Tablet (Crushed)
1 Packet – Wine Yeast (Premier Classique)

You can follow the directions at the following link to our website: How To Make Homemade Wine

Happy Winemaking,
Ed Kraus
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Ed Kraus is a 3rd generation home brewer/winemaker and has been an owner of E. C. Kraus since 1999. He has been helping individuals make better wine and beer for over 25 years.