What You Need
Making
homemade wine is easier than you might think. Mostly, it takes a few pieces of
inexpensive equipment, serious cleanliness, and a whole mess of patience.
- One
4-gallon food-grade-quality plastic bucket and lid to serve as the primary
fermentation vat
- Three
1-gallon glass jugs to use as secondary fermentation containers
- A funnel
that fits into the mouth of the glass bottles
- Three
airlocks (fermentation traps)
- A rubber
cork (or bung) to fit into the secondary fermentation container
- Large
straining bag of nylon mesh
- About 6
feet of clear half-inch plastic tubing
- About 20
wine bottles (you'll need 5 bottles per gallon of wine)
- Number
9-size, pre-sanitized corks
- Hand
corker (ask about renting these from the wine supply store)
- A
Hydrometer to measure sugar levels
Ingredient Checklist:
- Lots and
lots of wine grapes
- Granulated
sugar
- Filtered
water
- Wine
Yeast
To the above
list you can refine the process by adding such things as Campden tablets to
help prevent oxidation, yeast nutrients, enzymes, tannins, acids, and other
fancy ingredients to better control your wine production.
Making Wine
Part 1
- Ensure
your equipment is thoroughly sterilized and then rinsed clean. (Ask at the
wine supply store about special detergents, bleaches, etc.). It's best to
clean and rinse your equipment immediately before using.
- Select
your grapes, tossing out rotten or peculiar-looking grapes.
- Wash your
grapes thoroughly.
- Remove
the stems.
- Crush the
grapes to release the juice (called "must") into the primary
fermentation container. Your hands will work here as well as anything. Or
go old school and stomp with your feet. If you’re making a lot of wine,
you might look into renting a fruit press from a wine supply store.
- Add wine
yeast.
- Insert
the hydrometer into the must. If it reads less than 1.010, consider adding
sugar. If you're adding sugar, first dissolve granulated sugar in pure
filtered water (adding sugar helps boost low alcohol levels). Stir the
must thoroughly.
- Cover
primary fermentation bucket with cloth; allow must to ferment for one week
to 10 days. Over the course of days, fermentation will cause a froth to
develop on top and sediment to fall to the bottom.
Part 2
- Gently
strain the liquid to remove the sediment and froth.
- Run the
juice through a funnel into sanitized glass secondary fermentation
containers. Fill to the top to reduce the amount of air reaching the wine.
- Fit the
containers with airlocks.
- Allow the
juice to ferment for several weeks.
- Use the
plastic tube to siphon the wine into clean glass secondary fermentation
containers. Again, the purpose here is to separate the wine from sediment
that forms as the wine ferments.
- Continue
to siphon the wine off the sediment periodically (this is called
"racking") for 2 or 3 months until the wine is running clear.
Part 3
- Run the
wine into bottles (using the cleaned plastic tubing), leaving space for
the cork plus about a half inch or so of extra room.
- Insert
corks.
- Store the
wine upright for the first three days.
- After
three days, store the wine on its side at, ideally, 55 degrees F. For red
wine, age for at least 1 year. White wine can be ready to drink after only
6 months.
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