Just not working

[sweethomeal]

I have tried 4 batches of wine each time following the instructions but "tweeking" a little to try and get desired results. First batch was with home grown pears, juiced. I added the juice, 2 cups of sugar and 1/8 tsp of the yeast. I let it sit for 9 days since my old farm house is a little on the cool side. It looked and tasted like syrup. I let it sit a few days longer and it became slimy. Dumped it and started over. Same type juice, less sugar and put it on a plant heat mat. Tried it after 8 days, not as sweet but still thick and slimy, yuk. Tried one more batch with 1 cup of sugar, 7 days sitting on mat, 3 days in fridge, volcano eruption trying to open, still sweet and slimy.

Thought maybe it was my pear juice so bought some Ocean Spray no sugar added grape/pom juice. Used half of the grape/pom and half my pear juice in one bottle and straight grape/pom in the other. Only added 1 cup of sugar and 1/8 tsp yeast, let it sit on the low heat plant mat for 7 days but after 3 days in the fridge still couldn't get cap off without a volcano eruption. Put back on mat for 3 more days, back in fridge for 2 days, still same volcano (by the way all of my attempts have had this happen), finally babied the frigin cap enough I could pour a little for taste and both were disgustingly sour and yep the pear one still thick but now sour.

Unless someone can tell me what the hell is going on, these are going in the trash. I've wasted enough juice and sugar to have bought good wine by now.

[saramc]

I hate to read that you are not having any success with your E-Z Caps. I would like to trouble shoot for you, but need to clarify the size of your batches. Are you using 2L containers? And you added 2 cups of sugar to the fresh pear juice and that went in ONE 2L container?

Some of the most difficult wines to ferment are those made from naturally acidic fruit such as: pom, cranberry, grapefruit. And then fruits like blueberries and cranberries have something in them that is related to the benzoates that are commonly used as preservatives in many food/beverage items we consume today.

While I await a response I would like to say that I have made MANY MANY batches of wine and cider using the E-Z Cap. And I enjoyed it so much I became an amateur winemaker. The processes are completely different, the wait time is unbelievable and I am thrilled to have E-Z Caps for a quick, tasty wine while I wait for my homemade "real" wine to age for a year or longer. (not making fun) Don't give up on your E-Z Caps, try this recipes, if you will?

Remove 1 cup of product from a 64 oz container of OceanSpray BlueberryPomegranate or GrapePom (skip the No Added Sugar variety, buy the basic one) & place it in a microwaveable container that will hold at least 2 cups. Add 1/4-1/2 cup of sugar to the 1 cup of juice and microwave for 2 minutes on 70% power. Stir well and continue to process in 30-second increments at 70% power until the sugar is completely dissolved and then add 1 tsp lemon juice (or 1/4 tsp lemon juice concentrate), stir well. Pour 1/3 the remaining juice into your fermenter (the 2L bottle), carefully pour the invert fruit syrup (that is what you made with the table sugar-fruit juice-lemon juice) and then pour the remainder of the OS juice into your fermenting container. Add your E-Z cap yeast per package directions, apply the E-Z cap and wrap the bottle with a dark towel or place in a box with a towel draped over the top. If you have a warm spot in your kitchen, place the bottle there, but keep it shielded from light. My kitchen temp is currently 68F and my EZ wine is ready to transfer to the refrigerator within 48-72 hours. If you don't have a warm spot, don't worry about it, just allow a few extra days for the ferment to reach your target taste!
I release the pressure at least once every 24 hours (once every 12 hours is even better) by gently opening the EZ cap. Take care not to agitate the bottle prior to opening the cap, otherwise you may experience a geyser. Also, ALWAYS release the cap in small increments, just like opening a bottle of soda pop with a twist off lid that has been dropped---better to be safe than sorry. Fortunately the way the cap is developed the pressure is relieved automatically AS LONG AS THE CAP IS CLEAN AND THE PRESSURE RELIEF OPENING HAS NOT BEEN GUMMED UP BY SUGARY JUICE. It is important that you TASTE your wine at least once a day, and a good pattern is 24-48-72-96hrs, etc. That way you can transfer the wine to the refrigerator as soon as you can taste that the wine is at, or almost at, the level of sweetness you would prefer. I know the wine is getting close when I see foam starting to develop on top of the wine...it will start as a little patch and then eventually get bigger and bigger. Don't forget that the wine WILL continue to ferment, albeit SLOWLY, when in the refrigerator UNLESS you stabilize the wine with sorbate and sulphite (discussed in another thread today).
Your wine is also carbonated, bubbly, due to the dissolved CO2 present in your wine. If you would like the wine to be "still" aka non-sparkling, and you know this from the get-go, simply do not tighten the E-Z cap when you put it on the bottle, leave it loosely applied, secured but just loosely applied. This WILL NOT affect the ferment--the yeast need oxygen in order to ferment. When you transfer to the refrigerator use the original bottle cap for your 2L container and secure it loosely--the CO2 that will continue to be produced needs a way to escape; if you tighten the cap the CO2 absorbs into the wine and you get bubbly. If you forgot to leave the E-Z cap loosely applied on your wine as it was fermenting on your counter, don't worry, just loosely cap the bottle when in your refrig--the CO2 will eventually escape. Just remember that any time you leave a bottle of wine not securely capped you are exposing your wine to oxygen and this can cause the wine to get that brown tinge to it; but odds are the wine will be consumed pretty quickly so it really is no big deal. (Don't worry while your E-Z cap wine is fermenting, the action of the ferment alone will protect from oxidization)

I like the OS BlueberryPom so much that I am taking a few bottles of it to an amateur winemaking group club meeting in a few weeks to see what they think. I will not be disclosing, until the end, that the wine was made via E-Z caps because the group thinks that E-Z Caps are bogus. They do not know that I have them. I plan on taking this as a sparkling wine. And I suspect I will receive the "best wine of the night" award! My 22-year old son who just got out of the military loves this wine so much he went and bought 5 gallons of juice from the local grocery store after he found it on mark down for less than $1 per half-gallon.

[ezcaps_phpbb3_import2]

"I will not be disclosing, until the end, that the wine was made via E-Z caps because the group thinks that E-Z Caps are bogus. "

Funny that you should mention that. You may have noticed that they aren't for sale at many wine shops. I used t have a salesman who tried to get them in the shops and he usually got turned down. Eventually he started taking EZ Cap wine he made to show how good it was. After agreeing that it tasted great, one shop owner still declined to carry the product because "how am I going to sell hundreds of dollars of winemaking equipment to somebody if they know they can get similar results for just a couple of dollars."

I had hoped that they would be more forward-thinking than that, maybe more people would go in and buy expensive wine making equipment to make specific type of wines like merlots, etc once EZ Caps demonstrated how easy it is to make wine- eventually becoming like you, using both.

[sweethomeal]

I can't thank you enough for your encouraging post. You went to a lot of trouble to spell this out for me and I certainly appreciate it. I will definitely follow your suggestions and recipe. I want this to work so badly that it has been shear frustration. One question, when I have loosened the cap at any point, fermenting or out of fridge the gunk on the bottom rises up and would come out the top if I didn't quickly tighten the cap back. If I ferment with the cap loose, will this still happen when I try to taste it?

I do use the 2 litr empty soda bottle.

Once again thank you and good luck with your show. I'll keep you posted on my results with your recipe.