How To Make Homemade Wine
Author: adminHomemade wine making is becoming very popular. Aside from the money savings there is the actual enjoyment of making wine from scratch, and sharing your results with friends and family.
Although some preparation and materials are required, it is relatively inexpensive. Some of the items needed are
- a hydrometer, A hydrometer is an instrument used to measure the specific gravity or density) of liquids.
- 5 gallon bucket or 1 gallon (If you just want to do something quick and simple.)
- 2 air tight fermentation container.
Some chemicals may be required such as
- Yeast, Citric acid, potassium sorbate, or pectin enzyme.
- campden tablets or sulfate tablets for stabilization
Decide which type of juice you want to ferment. Cherry, Cranberry and Grape juice are all good starter choices.
Sterilize all of the containers and equipment you will be using with extremely hot water or a sanitizer. With sanitizing solution you should pour over everything making contact with all surfaces. Then rinse everything off with hot water.
Put the juice in your 5 gallon bucket .
Sterilize the juice. You can do this with 4 Campden Tablets. These are sulfite tablets that will get rid of any type of bacteria that could be present in the juice. Crush the tablets and then dissolve them in some warm water and then pour them in your juice. Let this sit overnight while the sulfites do their work.
24 hours later, you are ready to sprinkle in your yeast.
Bakers yeast is fine to use for your first wine making experience. Later, and after some research, you will probably want to use one of the specialized strains.
Wait 7 days and watch. you will want to cover your bucket with a cloth towel or even put on a lid with an airlock in place. The wine will be perfectly safe during the fermentation stage because it will give off lots of Carbon Dioxide. The Co2 will protect your wine from the oxygen in the air.
Once the 7 days has passed, siphon off the wine from the bucket into another bucket or secondary fermenter. When you are doing the siphoning, you will want to get as little of the gunk on the bottom of the bucket as possible. This gunk is called “lees” and is made up of dead yeast. Wine that sits on top of the dead yeast sometimes can develop an off flavor.
Once your wine has been transferred into your “secondary fermenter”, then you will want to put an airlock in place and just let it sit for about a month. There’s a song about this part – “The Waiting is the Hardest Part”. It’s true. Every budding home winemaker just cannot wait to taste the stuff – but – don’t do it. It surely won’t hurt you but during this month it is still fermenting. The wine isn’t finished yet. Be Patient.
After the month is up, transfer it back to your first bucket, again making sure that you leave the gunk on the bottom. The process of transferring the wine from one vessel to another is called “racking”. Theres only one thing left to do and that is to add a “stablizer” to your wine. A stabilizer inhibits yeast reproduction. Part of what happens during yeast growth and reproduction is that it releases Co2 gas. If that is happening after you bottle the wine, you will get popped corks or exploded bottles or both. So – put in the stabilizer, stir the wine well, and then return it to your sterilized Secondary fermentation vessel.
Now, all you have to do at this point is wait until the wine clears. Gravity is your friend here. Of course, it won’t hurt a bit to bottle cloudy wine. But if you wait another month, it should be crystal clear. Bottling time! All you have to do is make sure your bottles are clean and sanitized and just siphon the wine into the bottles. Corking the bottles can be a little difficult and I recommend using a corker.
Now the hard part, let the wine sit in the bottle for 6 to 9 months. The longer the wine ages, the better it will taste.
