How do I open a pressurized bottle of home-made wine?

Question

Good day.

I am an amateur without any necessary equipment to degas my brew. Last night, I forgot to check on it; now the bottle won't even bulge so I can release that unwanted pressure from the c02 buildup.

Any ideas on how to open my bottle without destroying it?

EDIT: It exploded. My goal was simple, to turn a bottle of welch's 100% Grape Juice into wine over a week. I first activated the baker's yeast using warm water and sugar and then put it in the grape juice. I put the juice in a closed metal canister, which was a terrible mistake. Do not put your brew in a closed bottle, it must have some sort of an exhaust where the c02 gas from the fermentation process can exit — an airlock.

Answer 1

Ah, yes... I see now how this went explodey.

If you are just taking juice dumping in bakers yeast and wanting wine, you can do this it is simple, won't taste great but will be wine.

I would advise using pop/soda bottles, and to for the first few days leave the top on very loose so the CO2 can escape when it stops bubbling, tighten the lid. Then give it a little shake and let the gas escape, do this 3 or 4 times carefully, then I would leave the lid on loose again for a couple more days.

Repeat the shaking and degassing, then put it in the fridge for a day or 2 to cause your yeast to clump together and drop to the bottom. Then decant off into bottles to store, or a jug to drink now.

If you are storing and don't know if fermentation is complete, use soda bottles, they are high pressure rated, and easy to 'burp'.

This will work and you will have wine, I have done this myself before with ginger wine, blackberry wine, and plum wine, I made wine we all got drunk. But, it was not good wine, we mostly mixed it with orange juice.

A couple of tweaks I would suggest though.

Get some wine yeast, a strain that has been selected for over hundreds of years for its winemaking abilities is far far better than bakers yeast.

Get yourself a demijohn and airlock and a length of tubing to siphon.

With these things, you are ready to make gallon after gallon of wine for the rest of your life.

Also get this book:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/First-Steps-Winemaking-C-Berry/dp/1854861395

Answer 2

There is a very simple way of doing this.

1. Ferment whatever juice you have to dryness in bottle different from the final bottle. 1 gallon glass jug would work. Use some wine yeast.
2. Transfer wine/hootch to a sparkling wine/apple juice bottle (Martinelli's are great for this). They can hold the pressure. Leave about 1.5" of head space
3. Put about 5 grams of table sugar in the bottle.
4. Put a crown cap on the bottle (you'll need a bottle capper for this)
5. Wait a minimum of 2 weeks.
6. Chill and open and enjoy. The longer you leave it in the bottle the better it will get.

Caveats: Using Welch's grape juice will give inferior results. Use the white juice instead of the red.