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READY IN 42+ days

Homemade Wine

Read Reviews (80)

"This is an easy recipe for homemade wine. You can choose whatever flavor you like but my favorite is the red. You will need a sterile milk jug, a large latex balloon and a rubber band to complete the project. This Wine is a bit stronger than regular table wine. Its great for cooking as well as drinking." — MSGYPSYLEE

Ingredients Edit and Save

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Sugar and Sweeteners

Original recipe makes 1 gallon Change Servings

1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
4 cups sugar

1 (12 fluid ounce) can frozen juice concentrate - any flavor except citrus, thawed
3 1/2 quarts cold water, or as needed

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Directions

Combine the yeast, sugar and juice concentrate in a gallon jug. Fill the jug the rest of the way with cold water. Rinse out a large balloon, and fit it over the opening of the jug. Secure the balloon with a rubber band.
Place jug in a cool dark place. Within a day you will notice the balloon starting to expand. As the sugar turns to alcohol the gasses released will fill up the balloon. When the balloon is deflated back to size the wine is ready to drink. It takes about 6 weeks total.

Kitchen-Friendly View

PREP 5 mins
READY IN 11 days 5 mins

Footnotes

Use a frozen juice concentrate without added sweeteners for best results.

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Reviews More Reviews

Most Helpful Positive Review

Nov 14, 2006

Although this recipe is a good one IT FAILS TO MENTION SOME VERY IMPORTANT FACTORS, which i find my be the reason to some of the reviews saying it taste horrible and such, the first thing the recipe fails to mention is that you have to poke holes into your ballon so that the carbondixocide being produced can excape yet keep air from getting in the second and most important is that the recipe ends on the note "then after 5 weeks or the ballon is not getting bigger anymore its ready to drink" WRONG!! well kinda.. it is ready to drink but with the exception it will be nasty like most reviews said.. see you need to ethier siphon the stuff out or filter it.. you dont want the dead yeast and suger on the bottom of the bottle that has settled or you will probly give it the bad review like others did.. all you want is the yeasts (aka alcohol) oh yeah alcohol is just yeast pee pee incase you didnt know hehe so enjoy ;) anyways do that and expect it to be GREAT!!!

—Newyear498

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Most Helpful Critical Review

Jul 24, 2007

There is a reason that wineries possess expensive, specialized equipment to produce their product: making good-tasting wine is a delicate process. Needless to say, this recipes covers the essentials of the process and produces a product that does indeed suggest wine. I must make one suggestion though, dissolve most of the sugar in boiled water. At the beginning of my experience with this recipe, most of the sugar fell to the bottom and did not react as well with the yeast as when I'd boiled it.

—eslyter

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85 Ratings

Dec 05, 2007

I made this using white grape raspberry, white grape peach, and grape. The grape raspberry and grape peach are really good (and strong!) but the grape is by far the best. I used 6 cups of sugar and the result is a very sweet wine, which is what we like. I used yeast made especially for wine and I boiled my water and sugar to make sure all the sugar dissolved. After 5 weeks I poured through coffee filters and transferred wine to another container for a couple of weeks before bottling. This is the perfect wine to use to make Sangria.

—JqSmith

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Mar 26, 2007

I've never made homemade wine before, but this recipe turned out to be really awesome. I plan on making more.

—hunter17

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Dec 29, 2006

This was a most exciting adventure. The wine seemed to be stronger when I used real fruit that I put through a juicer. It had a definite kick. Using the old glass gallon jugs seems to work better and give a "not so plastic" taste also. It was awesome. A wonderful New Year to come :).

—JRabbit

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Oct 12, 2006

This recipe works very well. My wine aged in about 4 and a half weeks. This tastes just like storebought wine except with an added kick. Very recommended recipe. I kept mine stored in an armoire at room temperature and it turned out phenominal.. yes I'm drinking it right now! A+++!!

—Kyle

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Feb 26, 2007

I found a recipe like this in a local newspaper...I cut the sugar back to 3 1/4 cups and my recipe is done in 21 days...I made it twice and it is really good..

—Nonna

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Jan 28, 2004

Have to say, this sounds exactly like the recipe me and my friend made in high school. I remember it SMELLED just like wine. However she had told me that the baloon had gone all the way up and I asked her what she did and she said put the lid on the milk jug..... I knew that that was an oops! She called me that day after she got home from school and was frantic... come help me clean this up! It had exploded in her bedroom closet. What a mess. The whole house reeked of wine! (That may have been the same day her Mother found a pack of cigarettes!) Now, 23 years later I am going to try this recipe again!

—Julie

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