white wine #1 with grape and pear juice

[fullmoonwinery]

hi all, i'm new around here. i've been making beer and wine from kits up to this point and everything is going well. except i'm running out of kits and my nearest home brew shop is 5000 miles away. so i'm starting to experiment with local ingredients, but imported yeast, finings, etc.

i plan to start a batch of wine #1 but i can't get white grape juice in the supermarkets for some reason. i can however get white grape and pear, 100% no additives, preservatives, etc. i figure the pears have to be a pretty good substitute for the apples in wine #1 but wonder if there is anything special i need to do if using grape/pear and not grape/apple? also, should i still add apple juice? what quantity of grape/pear and apple juice would you recommend? i can buy white table grapes in the supermarket, would it be worth adding some fresh squeezed grape juice to the mix?

thx steve

[lockwood1956]

I would try using just 1 litre grape/pear and 1 litre apple (the apple adds body)


less is more....if this isnt to your liking. up the grape/apple to 2 litres, but I suspect 1 litre will suffice.

Supermarket grapes dont seem to produce nice juice (here in the UK) however they may be ok where you are, I assume you have a hyfrometer but can you test for acidity?

if you are having to import yeast, you may wish to eek out your supplies

see here for methodology to make 1 pkt quality yeast last a long time

http://www.winesathome.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=908

you might want to talk to our friends at www.hobbywinesupplies.co.uk for your supplies, because as a member of this forum you qualify for a discount (might help offset some of the shipping costs)

hope this helps

regards
bob

[fatbloke]

cor... bleedin' hell

bleedin' 'ell, and there was me thinking that as UK based forums we did quite well with our membership in the US/Can/EU, but Thailand ?

now that's outstanding......

Welcome to the forums Steve.

Plus 5000 miles to the nearest HBS ? I suppose I'd better stop moaning when my nearest one (about 6 miles) doesn't have X in stock

regards

jtfb

p.s. I get a little envious of our membership in continental North America and the vast choice of different honeys available to them, but Thailand just makes my mind boggle as to what exotic honey might be available there for mead making ............

[fullmoonwinery]

thanks for the welcome and info. i'll start with 1ltr of each as Bob suggests; saves money too!

i buy a lot of stuff on ebay from seller the-bruhaus. US prices are quite a bit cheaper than UK because yanks love to print money and shipping is quite cheap also. yeast weights bugger all so no real issues there.

we have a lot of great fruits, stuff that doesn't even have English names and given time, i'll try them all.

we also have cheap palm sugar which i think would be a tasty alternative to refined sugar. i've used it in a couple of beer kits and it seems to work well.

if anyone on this forum is in Ko Phangan, come over to sample my stuff.

steve