The Home Brew Site

Brewing wine at home is easier than you might think, the easiest way is to buy a kit and follow the instructions. But we don’t want to do that do we… To get a bit more creative and create a wine recipes all of your own then here is a brief guide to get you started.

First off you will need some equipment.

• Food grade plastic bucket. 
• 1 gal Fermentation jar.
• Airlock.
• Syphon tube.
• 6 Wine bottles and stoppers.
• Plastic funnel.
• Muzlin cloth or Teatowel.
• Wooden spoon.
• Sterilising solution.

Next you are going to need some ingredients, these can be varied to suit what you have available.

• 2 to 3lb fruit ( can be a single fruit or a mix)
• 2lb bag of sugar.
• Wine Yeast
• Yeast Nutrient
• Campden Tablets
• Pectic Enzyme.(used to break down the pectin in the fruit giving a clearer wine.)
• Water.

Firstly wash the fruit, then add the fruit to the bucket (which has been sanitized) give the fruit a good bashing either use a potato masher or the end of a rolling pin, pour on 4 pints of water and continue mashing. Dissolve a campden tablet in a little water and add the pectin enzyme ( if used), cover the bucket and leave for 24 hours to allow the juice to come out of the fruit.

Boil another 3 pints of water and add you sugar, give it a good stir to make sure all the sugar has been dissolved. Once the sugar mix has cooled to room temp, chuck this in the bucket with the fruit, then sprinkle a teasp of yeast and a teasp of nutrient over the surface of the fruit mix cover this with a teatowel or the lid of the bucket.

After 5 or 6 days of fermenting, the mix needs straining into a demi john. You can use a fine seive or muslin bag (sanitised again). Seal the demijohn with an airlock and leave ferment. Here is where you require a little patience, the fermentation process can now take a few months before all the sugar is turned to alcohol. Watch the airlock for signs of the fermentation finishing.

You now add another campden tablet to the wine, this will kill the remaining yeast. Allow the wine to clear, again this may take a couple of weeks, but it’s better to leave the yeast sediment in the demijohn and not in the bottles. The wine is ready for bottling, make sure the bottle are clean and sanitised, syphon your wine into the bottles. You should sample the wine at this point, if it is too dry you can add a little sugar to sweeten it. Cork the bottles and leave for as long as you dare, the wine will be ready in a couple of weeks but if you can leave it for a few months the taste will benefit from standing.

 

Useful Tips

• Freeze the fruit: Probably the best tip is to freeze and thaw the fruit at least once - several times is even better. It breaks down the cells allowing the flavour to be extracted by the yeast.
• Add pectic enzyme: Add it when the fruit has cooled and leave for a few hours before adding the yeast if there is a risk of pectin. Plums, apples and gooseberries can be problems if you get them too hot. Blackberries are supposed to be a problem but we have not suffered.
• Keep records: It is easy to forget how much sugar you have added and given time how the wine was made and when it was started. Tag all the jars in the batch.
• Sterilise the fruit: It is a waste of time cleaning everything if you use dirty mouldy fruit. I rinse the fruit in a Sodium Metabisulphite solution of two campden tablets in 2 litres water as it is finishing thawing (leaving it on the fruit for a couple of minutes) and drain off. I then let it stand with the residual Sodium Metabisulphite until thawed. This also reduces oxidation.