I've made a few batches of wine in the past year and now I'm trying to help a buddy get started in making his own. I've made mine 5 gallons, but he is wanting to make a 30 gallon batch. He said thats how his mom made it when he was a kid, but she's passed now and he's not sure how to do it. I've gave him some pointers and he's got some ideas from other friends but we still have questions. He's got three heaped up bushels of muscadine grapes, we're guessing prob closer to 4 bushels. We got 1 (supposed) bushel smashed and this is giving us about 5 gallons of must so far. We have figured about a gallon of water and 4 lbs of sugar per gallon of must to get us up to our 30 gallon mark. Does this sound right? I think we need more water and less grapes. He's using a 35 gallon trash can for the primary fermenter so we'll fill it as full as we can cause I know we'll lose some when racking. I have a meter to check potential alcohol so we can kinda adjust as we go.

He hadn't planned on using campden tabs b4 adding the yeast. I told him I did, but I know they're not a necessity. Our biggest question I guess is on the yeast. He got some at the grocery store, but I told him he would be better off using wine yeast. I have some ec-1118 that I told him he could have, that's what I always use and he agreed it would prob b better. I'm not sure how much to use. A friend told him only to add a small amount and the wild yeast will do most the work. My yeast packets say for 1 to 6 gallons so that would be 5 of them. Should we add all 5 or just give one and see what happens.

Thanks for any help. I'm at a loss cause I'm used to 5 gallons at a time and I don't know much about making this "old fashion big batch" as he calls it.