vimto wine help

[GazzerP73]

My first vimto wine (cheeky vimto sounds a bit chav) has finished fermenting and is ready for racking.

The brew is roughly 4 to 4.5 litres so i need to make it up when it goes back into the DJ.
3litres of apple juice makes up the bulk of it.

Do I have to top it up with apple juice or cooled boiled water when it is racked into the DJ??????????????

many thanks for any help
regards
Gaz

[GazzerP73]

well..I was pushed for time so Ive topped up with apple juice

time will tell
Gaz

[winka]

I think that the apple juice will start it fermenting again. I know when I topped up my TC with apple juice it restarted for a few more days, then I racked and bottled. So expect a bit of activity.

Cheers

Also, would you mind sharing your recipie, Id love to try this

[Geezah]

3.75l apple juice
0.75l vimto cordial
800g sugar (makes it about 10% abv add or deduct 100g per 1% abv)
tsp of wine tannin or 1 very strong mug of black tea
tsp of citric acid
tsp of yeast vitamins or a crushed vit b1 tablet
tsp of wine yeast

simmer the vimto cordial for 20 minutes to kill of the sulphites and allow to cool
get all the ingredients except for 0.75l of apple juice into a DJ and leave @ 21c for 10 days ( after the primary vigourous ferment has died down (about 4 days), add the remaining apple juice)
rack to secondary and allow to clear
rack to another dj prior to bottling, put a cap on the bottle and shake like hell several times over the next 2 hrs to de gas the wine.
Bottle and enjoy.

[danbrew]

Isn't that a touch on the acidic side of things?

[Geezah]

it offsets the artificial sweetners in the cordial

[danbrew]

Fair enough, might give it a go, think I'd prefer it to ribena...

[GazzerP73]

Thanks for all the advice.

The method & recipe I used is pretty much the same as above.
I added the apple juice after racking on to a CT, there was no SF.
There was a good settle out so I racked again and added pectolase.

Its hard to say if its clearing, there is no more sediment, I have noticed small white specs floating near the top that wont settle....any ideas what this could be?

cheers
Gary

[irv]

my vimto wine seems to have stalled (or maybe not started) fermenting.
i boiled it for aprox 20 min, added apple juice,sugar, cold tea and a squeeze of lemon.

i started it with some yeast i cropped form from an ale, i think safale s04. but it didnt seem to be be doing anything, so after two weeks went and bought some wilkos wine yeast, re-hydrated it and chucked it in. that was two weeks ago, still nothing,
the gravity at moment is 1080. i cant remember the OG, but don't think it was much more than 1080.

any ideas? it still tastes like cordial. there is no mould, which is maybe surprising considering the amount of times i have had the lid open to peer in, which makes me wonder if there is still a good quantity of anti-yeast preservatives.

[lord.president]

Young's super compound wine yeast chomps through anything. Maybe you haven't boiled the Vimto long enough and there's still chemicals in it killing the yeast?