How to make homemade wine
- 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.
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September 3rd, 2006 at 3:10 am
Help! I am totally new to this?
I have a wine-making kit, bu the directions are poor.
Which of the many nutrients that exist is THE NUTRIENT?
Do you ever cook the fruit/jiuce?
Do you need to use camden tablets and Sodium Metabisulphite?
September 5th, 2006 at 12:00 am
Hi New Wine maker,
Have a look at the new post I’ve just added, hopefully it’ll help out with your poor instructions. It’s under winemaking.
In the wine kit you should have a number of sachets. These should be yeast, nutrient, steriliser and finings. You may have some flavours too add as well. The steriliser, finings and flavours are added after the wine as finished brewing.
Have a look at http://www.eckraus.com/wine-making-nutrients.html there is an article about yeast nutrient.
Campden tablets are made from either Sodium Metabisulphite or Potassium Sorbate, only there is a very small quantity in each tablet. A tablet contain enough to sterilise 1 gallon of wine and prevent further fermentation allowing you to make it sweeter. This is added to the wine after it has brewed and can replace the steriliser, this acts to preserve the wine and make it last longer.
Sodium Metabisulphite is used to sterilse the equipment, and is much to strong to add to the wine, if you don’t rinse the Sodium Metabisulphite off the equipment at the start this will kill the yeast that you add to start it brewing.
You don’t need to cook the fruit, you sterilise the fruit(campden tablets can be used to clean the fruit of wild yeast). Then mash the fruit, once mashed add a gallon of water. Leave it stand and the juice should come out of the fruit over the next day or so. Cooking the fruit will change it’s flavour.
September 21st, 2006 at 3:05 am
where would i find things like a fermintation jar and airlock???and how much does the equiptment usually run???
September 25th, 2006 at 11:58 pm
Hi
If you are looking for homebrew equipment in the states there is a useful site at http://www.ratebeer.com/ShowHomebrewShops.asp
There is a great long list of homebrew shops, also try http://www.midwestsupplies.com, you can order online and they’ll deliver to your door.
Price wise a 1 gallon fermenter in the UK should be around £6 in the USA they are a bit cheaper at around $6. Buying a glass fermenter should last a lifetime, the ones I’m using are around 15 years old. Plastic tends to degenerate over time glass in more more rugged.
January 10th, 2007 at 10:53 pm
How did they make wine before all of the chemicals were made ?
I know the grapes have natural yeast on the skin, and the grapes make their own sugar.
Why I am asking is this; we visit my wife relatives in Peru every year. We find these huge sweet Chiliean purple, white and ros’e grapes at the markets. I decided last Christmas (1 year ago) to mash and let ferment a bottle of each. I strained out after letting set for 2 weeks filling each bottle. I put a balloon on top of each bottle. We left this with her parents, and when the balloons went flat, her brother corked them. We missed this christmas, so sometime this year we will try this wine.
Any suggestions for the next batch, and do you think this will work ?
December 29th, 2007 at 10:47 pm
2lt wine in coke container using ballon is fermenting but how long, on 3 months, long should it take fist time useing this waybollon is riseing but has just stop no progress frustrated
January 31st, 2008 at 10:55 pm
My aMigo who works as a Conservation Restoration Technician presented to me your notes on How to make homemade wine . I searched over other results that helped us , Thanks
February 21st, 2008 at 9:43 am
The Vilmart was very light and traditional, with a very pale color (amidst all the tiny bubbles). It had a delicate taste, very subtle, almost creamy. This is a traditional champagne, very classy. Vilmart comes from the Montagne de Reims and was founded in 1872. It was founded by a man named Desire Vilmart.
March 28th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
Any Rules on Naming your homemade wine?
April 14th, 2008 at 7:30 am
No Rules on naming wines, I try to be a bit creative with naming beers, this year I’m trying place names.
June 13th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
Does sound like a bit of work. How long from start to finish does this take you?
June 27th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
Wine from fresh fruit can take quite a while, they tend to take a bit of time to clear. Usually a good few months, its just patience really as you just leave the demi john on the shelf.
June 30th, 2008 at 5:15 am
I’ve made beer in the past but never wine. Realistically speaking, is there much difference in the process? What about length of time from start to finish?
August 15th, 2008 at 4:34 am
It depends a bit of how you make the wine, if you make fruit wine it does take quite a while as you have too wait for the wine to clear. This can take weeks.
If you make wine from a kit then it is ready in a similar time to beer.
The big difference really is the equipment, wine is usually made in single gallon batches whereas beer is 5 gallon. Other wise there are a lot of similarities.