Welch's wine experiment, sugar vs inverted sugar vs dextrose. Taste test and final alcohol readings.

This is a follow up experiment that produced 10% alcohol wine. See my other posts for more details. Below are the final results.

Bottle 1

• 1/8 tsp Red Star Premier Cuvee yeast + 1/8 cup sugar
  Original Gravity = 1.07
  Final Gravity = 0.994 ( just under 10% alcohol)

Some hint of sweetness in the taste probably due to the fructose in the sugar. This one has the most balanced flavor of the three bottles. I would probably pick this as the winner. Keep in mind I don't like sweet wine and want a dry end result, it just tastes slightly more balanced and less sour.

Bottle 2

• 1/8 tsp Red Star Premier Cuvee yeast + 1/8 cup sugar boiled with 1/2 cup water and 1/4 tsp lemon juice for half an hour to break down the sugar from sucrose to fructose and glucose
  Original Gravity = 1.07
  Final Gravity = 0.994 ( just under 10% alcohol)

This one is more dry tasting than bottle 1 although all of them brewed out equally. It has a more sour taste, likely due to the 1/4 tsp of lemon juice added when boiling the sugar to create inverted sugar. This bottle is the worst tasting of the three bottles. I'm glad this is the worst as I don't want to waste time boiling the sugar so I won't be using inverted sugar again.

Bottle 3
-1/8 tsp Red Star Premier Cuvee yeast + 1/8 cup dextrose (glucose) topped up by 25% (dextrose is less dense than regular sugar so you need to add around 25% more to get the same dissolved sugar value.
Original Gravity = 1.072
Final Gravity = 0.994 ( just over 10% alcohol)

This one has a more mild and dry taste than the other two, slightly sour. I would rank it as number 2 but very close to number 1 depending on what kind of flavor you want.

The bottles were left in a warm, dark location with paper towel covering the top for 2-3 days then an airlock was added for the remaining 10 - 12 days or until they stop bubbling. Then moved to a refrigerator.

Final thoughts:

This is getting closer to what real wine tastes like. I wouldn't describe it as anywhere close to good but wine generally needs to age for the flavor to improve. This is a major improvement from the 6% wine in my earlier test without sugar added that just tasted sour.

Overall the recipe still needs more improvement. I am thinking that if I increase the alcohol level it may balance out some of the other flavors. I am going to do one more upcoming test and aim for around 14% using sugar and glucose as the two options. I am concerned that any juice with added acetic acid may not be suitable for wine making as it's just adding the ingredients that will cause a sour flavor or acetobacter bacteria to grow and produce vinegar. Not all juices come with this added as a preservative, some brands use citric acid and ascorbic acid. I don't believe these are contaminated at this point, it's just the residual sour flavor of the ingredients.

This next test will determine if Welch's grape juice is worth using or I should just move on to another brand. Welch's may vary their ingredients so it's worth always checking the ingredients on the bottle.

Please leave your thoughts and comments below. Cheers!