Brewsy Starter Recipe

Hello and WELCOME to the Brewsy community! 🎉

This is our general starter recipe, which you can use with any kind of juice or Brewsy Reserve. After we walk you carefully through your first Brewsy, you'll be able to ace any of the 500+ recipes across our website and app.

Here are the first couple steps:

1. Download our app! We just released the new FREE Brewsy App! With over 5,000 hours in software development time, we built this incredible app as a gift to every Brewsy winemaker.
   
   Chat with fellow winemakers (bye-bye Facebook!), design and share recipes, find amazing creations, and look out for special app-only deals.
   
   
   Download free now:
2. Join our community
   
   One of the best parts about Brewsy is the community! Join our groups and meet thousands of other winemakers.
   
   We have two groups: the First Pour Club for beginners and Club Brewsy for advanced Brewsy brewers as well. Join First Pour Club to start, and then join Club Brewsy when you're ready to take your winemaking game to the next level.
   
   When you're asked for a secret code, just type in BREWSYCREW21.
   
   
   Join Our Community

Starter Recipe Instructions (Store-Bought Juice)

Want to watch the process in action instead of reading about it? Watch right here, or scroll down for written instructions.

starter recipe ingredients

☐ 1 gallon of juice (If this is your first time, we recommend cranberry juice!)
☐ 1 brewsy bag
☐ 0.5 - 3 cups of white or cane sugar
☐ 1 airlock + stopper

Note: If your juice contains high fructose corn syrup, or the ingredient "potassium metabisulfite", add 2 days to fermentation time. Also, avoid any juices with the ingredient "potassium sorbate" (rare).

Part I: Preparation

Everything you need to know to get your Brewsy ready to go — takes less than 10 minutes!

1. Gather everything you'll need
   All you'll need is a brewsy kit, some sugar, and some juice. We highly recommend cranberry juice for your first time – any kind will do (even white cranberry blends are awesome).
2. Pour your juice into your gallon jug
   If you don't have a gallon jug, don't worry! You can buy a plastic 99¢ gallon jug from the grocery store (recommended) or you can just use your original juice container (even if it's less than a gallon) to make your wine. Any food-safe plastic that stores a beverage is safe to use with Brewsy.
3. Choose how sweet you'd like your wine to be
   
   Now, you get to choose the final sweetness of your wine. Luckily you've got options — you can choose from bone-dry to extra sweet. Or somewhere in between.🍷🍭
   
   Just open the drink designer, put in a bit of info about your juice, and it will tell you exactly how much sugar to add & how much juice to pour out.
   
   drink designer
4. Pour out some juice (if needed) and add your sugar
   If you don't already have a lot of empty space at the top of your container, the drink designer will tell you to pour some juice out. That way, when things get foamy during fermentation, the juice won't overflow (your clean countertops will thank you in advance).
   
   Then, add your sugar and shake that baby up!
5. Add your Brewsy bag
   Always add one whole Brewsy bag per container. Even if you're not using a gallon of juice, the packets shouldn't be split up — you need to guarantee that your wine gets all the nutrients in your Brewsy bag that will make it taste delicious!
   Then, close the cap and shake it all up again for a good 30 seconds. Lots of shaking helps activate the yeast — and it turns out that shaking one gallon of juice is also a pretty good workout.
6. Add your airlock
   Detach the rubber stopper from the plastic airlock, and squeeze the rubber stopper into your jug's bottleneck. Then, stick the plastic airlock back on.
   After that, fill the plastic airlock up to the "FILL" line with water. Snap the hole-punched lid back on the top of the plastic airlock, and you're good to go.
7. Name your creation
   What's a wine without a name? (P.S. — bonus points if you come up with a more creative name than what we did here).
8. Put your soon-to-be wine in a warm, dark place
   
   An attic, closet, or near your water heater are all good places. The ideal temperature is 75°F to 85°F. (The fermentation will take longer in cooler temperatures).
   Don't worry if you don't have a super warm place to keep your wine — the yeast generate their own heat, so if you can insulate your bottle well with a big blanket or towel, it will still work great.
   
   If you keep your house at a toasty 55°F and are concerned about making sure your wine stays warm enough, check out these tips.

Part II: Fermentation

Find out more about the science behind fermentation here:

1. Let your wine hang out in its warm, dark place
   
   Your yeast have woken up — and now they're about to do some serious, important work. AKA — eating all that sugar you put in earlier and converting it to bubbles.... and alcohol, of course.
   During fermentation, you might notice movement in your airlock, carbonation bubbles in your juice, and different (read: maybe strange!) smells. Don't worry — it's all very normal.
   
   If you have time, swirl your bottle once a day to keep things a-movin'!
2. Wait 3 - 5 days
   
   Now it's time to play the waiting game. If your fermentation environment is warm, wait 3 days, then taste-test. If temperatures are a bit cooler, wait 5 days.
3. Taste-Test
   
   Pour just a tiny bit of wine into a glass. It won't taste amazing just yet (the taste is going to improve a lot in the next steps), so just pay attention to the sweetness for now.
   
   If it tastes dry enough for you, move onto the next step.
   
   If it tastes too sweet, let it ferment in the warm place for 3 more days, then repeat the taste-test to be sure it's dry enough for you.
   
   In general: the longer your wine ferments, the more dry it will become.
4. Replace the airlock with a loose-fitting lid
   Once you've double checked to make sure your wine tastes dry and alcoholic enough for you, it's time to stop the fermentation.
   
   Take off the airlock, and place the hole-punched lid on top of your bottle (a loosely-fitted cap will also do the trick).
   
   ⚠️⚠️Be sure never to tighten the cap. Carbonation will still build up while your gallon jug is in the fridge, and we definitely don't want any carbonation bombs!⚠️⚠️
5. Put your wine in the fridge
   Once you've made sure that cap is on loosely, pop your jug in the fridge and say goodbye for two days.

Part III: Cold-Crashing + Racking (aka — removing all the solids in your wine)

See these steps in action here:

1. Let your wine sit in the fridge for 2 days
   During this time, the cold in the fridge makes all the solids (yeast + nutrients) from your brewsy bag precipitate towards the bottom of the jug. You'll see a cloudy layer of solids at the bottom start to build up.
2. After 2 days, rack your wine (aka: pour your wine off the sediment at the bottom)
   
   While pouring, try to go slowly, so that the sediment at the bottom doesn't mix in with the rest of your wine.
   
   When you get to the bottom where it starts to get cloudy, stop pouring and discard the cloudy wine and sediment — you won't want it in your final wine!

Part IV: Tasting (!) and Aging

1. Give it a try!
   Your brew is finally ready to try now — so pour a glass out and celebrate your latest delicious accomplishment!
2. Make adjustments
   
   Too sweet? Too tart? Needs carbonation? You fix all of that — and way more — in our help center for all things wine, cider, and mead.
   
   Making adjustments is a very common part of the winemaking process, and almost all professional wineries do it, too. It's another way to customize your wine so it's exactly how you like it.
   
   
   See it in action here:
3. Store your brew
   
   Your Brewsy is going to get way better with age!
   
   Because your Brewsy doesn't have any preservatives or stabilizers, we recommend storing it in the fridge.
   
   Continue to keep the cap on loosely to let carbonation escape, and have a glass whenever you feel like it! ‍
4. Rack your wine again
   
   After a couple days, some sediment will start to build up at the bottom of your container again. You can rack your wine again to get it even clearer!
   
5. Optional: prep your wine for room-temp storage
   
   If space in your fridge is tight and you'd like to store your wine outside of the fridge, all you need to do is rack your wine a few more times. Check out our full guide to room-temp storage here.
6. Enjoy!
   Wine tastes better when you made it yourself ☺️
   
   Share your creation with our community of winemakers in the First Pour Club and Club Brewsy and spread the winemaking love!
   
   Cheers!