can i use fresh yeast to make wine?

[nicola a]

i want to try making wine and i can get fresh yeast in abundance for free will this do the job

[Ryan G]

Any yeast will ferment some of the sugars that are present in grape juice, but the vast majority of yeasts out there will not perform well. Some will create horrible off flavors, some do not tolerate the acidic enviroment and you will end up with super sweet wine, etc. There are companies out there that do nothing but culture & sell yeast for beer/wine making and there are even specific strains of yeast for specific styles. Check out morebeer.com or northernbrewer.com to find some. White Labs, & Wyeast are the two main producers of wine yeast. And they are so inexpensive (~$6), getting free yeast really shouldn't dissuade you from using real wine yeast.

[oldgit]

Baker's yeast you mean? Yes you can but don't! It's not the same culture as wine yeast and will result in a very musty taste.

Buy the little packets of the proper stuff, it doesn't cost much.

[discostu]

don't use any yeast. you know when you look at grapes sometimes and they look like they've got some sort of condensation on them? well thats yeast, it's naturally present in the grapes so there is no need

[rann_georgia]

Yes, but it will kind of taste like bread. It also may not produce as much alcohol as the proper wine yeast would. There's literally hundreds of varieties of yeast, both for wine and beer that can be bought in small packets from local wine/beer making shops or on the internet for very little.

Wine isn't what it used to be. They add water, sugar and other many other things to make more of it cheaper.