How To Make Homemade Wine
Now, that home brewers have mastered the art of homemade
beer, the wine industry had decided to take a bite of the
pie. Homemade wine, whether it’s from fresh grapes or
from wine kits, is always the best complement to a perfect
dinner.
High quality wine kits emerged onto the Californian
consumer market in the 1970s. Making a kit wine is less expensive
and labor-intensive than making wine from fresh grapes, just
renting the equipment alone is a cost all on its own. Another
additional benefit from wine kits are that they contain all
the additives and ingredients you’ll need, with the
appropriate measurements. There are four different types of
wine kits: pure juice, fully concentrated grape juice; partially
concentrated grape juice; a combination of juice and concentrate.
SYRUP Magazine has generated easy step-by-step
instructions on how to brew homemade wine. Since wine kits
come equipped with ingredients and instructions, we though
it’d be fun if we showed you how to make it from scratch.
- Basic Winemaking Equipment
- Large nylon straining bag
- Food-grade pail w/ lid (2-4 gallons)
- Cheesecloth
- Hydrometer
- Thermometer
- Acid titration kit
- Clear, flexible ½ inch diameter
plastic tubing
- Two one-gallon glass jugs
- Fermentation lock and bung
- Five 750-ml wine bottles
- Corks
- Hand Corker
Good wine comes from good grapes. Make sure
that your grapes are ripe by testing the sugar density. Crush
two handfuls of grapes and measure the sugar level with a
hydrometer, the sugar density should be around 22 degrees
Brix. The grapes should taste sweet, ripe, and slightly tart.
Make sure you remove all the stems from the grapes, leaving
them will make your wine bitter.
Sanitize your equipment thoroughly. You do
not want any type of debris to get mixed into the wine making
process.
Dry White Table Wine Ingredients
- 18lbs. ripe white grapes
- 1 campden tablet or 1 tsp. Sulfite Crystals
- Tartaric Acid, if necessary
- Table Sugar, if necessary
- 1 packet wine yeast (like Champagne or
Montrachet)
- Pick ripe white grapes. Remove any moldy
clusters and stems and clean grapes thoroughly.
- Place grapes into the nylon straining
bag and put into the bottom of the food-grade plastic pail.
Using your hands or a sanitized tool (i.e. potato masher),
firmly crush the grapes inside the bag.
- Crush the campden tablet (or measure 1
tsp. Of Sulfite Crystals) and sprinkle over the crushed
fruit in the bag. Cover pail and bag with a cheesecloth
and let it sit for one hour.
- Lift the nylon straining bag out of the
pail. Wring the bag to extract as much juice as possible.
You should have about one gallon of juice in the pail.
- Measure the temperature of the juice.
It should be between 55-65 degrees F. Adjust the temperature
as necessary. Take a sample of the juice in the pail and
use your titration kit to measure the acid level. It should
be between 6.5 and 7.5 grams per liter. If it is not, adjust
accordingly.
- Check the specific gravity of the juice.
If it isn’t around 22 degrees Brix, adjust accordingly.
- Dissolve the package of yeast in 1-pint
warm water and let it stand until bubbly. When it’s
bubbling, pour yeast solution directly into the juice. Cover
pail with cheesecloth, set in a cool area and check that
fermentation has begun in at least 24 hours. Monitor fermentation
progress and temperature at least once a day..
- Once the juice has reached dryness (at
least 0.5 degrees Brix), rack the wine off the sediment
into a sanitized one-gallon jug, topping up with dry white
wine of a similar style. Fit with a sanitized bung and fermentation
lock. Keep the container topped with white wine. Be sure
the fermentation lock always has sulfite solution in it.
After 10 days, rack the wine into another sanitized one-gallon
jug. Top up with wine again.
- After three months, siphon the clarified
wine off the sediment and into clean, sanitized bottles
and cork them.
- Store bottles in cool, dark place and
wait at least three months before drinking.
Racking the Wine
“Racking” means transferring the fermenting wine
away from sediment. Insert a clear, ½ inch diameter
plastic hose into the fermenter and siphon the clear wine
into another sanitized jug. Then top it off and fit it with
a sanitized bung and fermentation lock. Do not stir up the
sediment, but don’t lost your siphon suction.
Bottling the Finished Product
Siphon your wine into the bottles (leaving 2 inches below
the rim), insert a cork into the hand corker, position the
bottle under the corker and pull the lever. Buy extra corks
and practice with an empty bottle first.
Adjusting the Juice
To bring the sugar level up, make a sugar syrup by dissolving
one cup of sugar into 1/3 cup of water. Bring it to a boil
and cool it before adding in small amounts, one tablespoon
at a time. To lower sugar level, just dilute your juice with
water.
The temperature can also be adjusted to provide
a good environment for the yeast cells. Warm up the juice
gently, do not boil it.
|