Jonagold Home Wine
In this article I would like to share my experience of making an apple home wine from the Jonagold variety I picked up on the market in January 2019.
All in total 40 kg of Jonagold apples was purchased for £25.00, which is around £0.63 per kilo.
The Jonagold variety is of a very big size, about 10 cm in diameter, and according to Wikipedia
is a cross between Golden Delicious and Jonathan.
You can find more facts about this variety on the
Orange Pippin website.
Jonagold apples are of a noticeably large
First, the apples had been sliced, with all the seeds removed, so they would easily fit into my juicer.
Sliced apples ready for the juicer
During the juice extracting process a lot of foam was was created and in order to waste less juice I had to run it through the strainer. After the juice gone through the strainer, the hard mesh had been thrown away into the my compost bin. However, if you enjoy apple purée, you would collect it and store in your fridge.
Separating juice from the foam created by juicing the apples
This way 14 litres of juice had been extracted. And also, a full bucket of apples was left for home consumption. This means that from all 40 kg of the apples that I purchased, I would get around 17 litres of pure juice in total.
When I dropped the hydrometer into the pure juice before mixing it with the yeast and sugar, it showed 8% gravity. For the sake of an experiment I decided to create two different wines: 8 litres of sweet, and 6 litres of dry.
From all the 14 litres of juice 8 litres were mixed with 4 kg (or 20%) of sugar, plus 10 grams of wine Young's wine yeast. After the mix, the hydrometer showed around 19% gravity, as you can see on the picture below.
8 Litres of juice had been mixed with 4 kg sugar and 10 grams of yeast
In order to create a few litres of dryer wine, the other 6 litres of juice had been mixed with only 0.6 kg (or 7.5%) of sugar and with 7 grams of yeast. And the hydrometer in this syrup shows, as you can see, only 13% gravity.
The other 6 L of juice were mixed with 0.6 kg of sugar and 7 grams of yeast
The same 6 L of syrup measured with Stevenson hydrometer, which show approximately the same
value (13-14%) as the one on the picture above
This apple wine is the last wine of the 2018-19 season. That means I can now post my Moonshine Project file that shows the summary for the whole season.
The current state of my Moonshine Project file, sheet 2018-19
Of course, as the process progresses, I will post any updates to this file as well as to any further actions on this wine so that you can get a good idea of the whole wine making process, and how it is made, from the very beginning to the very end.
Update: 7 January 2019
After I set both jars of the syrup to brew, no brewing process was going on at all. I began to worry that my yeast could be out of date or something else could be wrong.
However, yesterday (4 days later) pressure has begun to build up inside both of the jars, and the bubbles have now coming out constantly since then at the speed of about 3 bubles per every 2 seconds.
It looks like, sometimes, one has to take the time and wait :) .
Jonagold apples are of a noticeably large
First, the apples had been sliced, with all the seeds removed, so they would easily fit into my juicer.
Sliced apples ready for the juicer
During the juice extracting process a lot of foam was was created and in order to waste less juice I had to run it through the strainer. After the juice gone through the strainer, the hard mesh had been thrown away into the my compost bin. However, if you enjoy apple purée, you would collect it and store in your fridge.
Separating juice from the foam created by juicing the apples
This way 14 litres of juice had been extracted. And also, a full bucket of apples was left for home consumption. This means that from all 40 kg of the apples that I purchased, I would get around 17 litres of pure juice in total.
When I dropped the hydrometer into the pure juice before mixing it with the yeast and sugar, it showed 8% gravity. For the sake of an experiment I decided to create two different wines: 8 litres of sweet, and 6 litres of dry.
From all the 14 litres of juice 8 litres were mixed with 4 kg (or 20%) of sugar, plus 10 grams of wine Young's wine yeast. After the mix, the hydrometer showed around 19% gravity, as you can see on the picture below.
8 Litres of juice had been mixed with 4 kg sugar and 10 grams of yeast
In order to create a few litres of dryer wine, the other 6 litres of juice had been mixed with only 0.6 kg (or 7.5%) of sugar and with 7 grams of yeast. And the hydrometer in this syrup shows, as you can see, only 13% gravity.
The other 6 L of juice were mixed with 0.6 kg of sugar and 7 grams of yeast
The same 6 L of syrup measured with Stevenson hydrometer, which show approximately the same
value (13-14%) as the one on the picture above
This apple wine is the last wine of the 2018-19 season. That means I can now post my Moonshine Project file that shows the summary for the whole season.
The current state of my Moonshine Project file, sheet 2018-19
Of course, as the process progresses, I will post any updates to this file as well as to any further actions on this wine so that you can get a good idea of the whole wine making process, and how it is made, from the very beginning to the very end.
Update: 7 January 2019
After I set both jars of the syrup to brew, no brewing process was going on at all. I began to worry that my yeast could be out of date or something else could be wrong.
However, yesterday (4 days later) pressure has begun to build up inside both of the jars, and the bubbles have now coming out constantly since then at the speed of about 3 bubles per every 2 seconds.
It looks like, sometimes, one has to take the time and wait :) .
