How to Make Wine at Home

Any product that is homemade always gives you a satisfaction that you are consuming the best thing in terms of ingredients used and quality ensured during making. The same holds true for homemade wine also. Making wine at home is quite rewarding. You can make it when there is lots of fruit and you want to preserve them in a way that don’t require fridge for storage.
While wine-making involves a complex procedure, modern technology has brought the art of wine-making at home also. Now, you can prepare it with a simple recipe at a smaller scale. Here’s what you need to follow. We bring to you a step-by-step process on how to make wine at home.

Complexity Level:
Complex

Time Required:
One week for a batch of bottles

Estimated Cost: $30 to $100

Resources Required

  1. A grade plastic tub or stainless steel pot with lid
  2. An electric juicer
  3. A glass fermentation vessel, may be a jug or carboy
  4. A plastic tube for siphoning
  5. Packet of yeast
  6. Sugar
  7. Sterilization solution or tablets (optional)
  8. Bottles and corks

Instructions

1. Selection of right juice
Get right amount of fruit juice for your wine. Select only those fruit qualities that are meant for wine-making. Some people advocate watering fruit juice but that never gives full flavor. So, always use pure fruit juice. Now, extract juice with the help of an electric grinder. In an electric grinder you can juice all kind of fruits, be it grapes or apples or apricot and it is fuss-free also.

2. Add Sugar
If you are making wine from grapes then you will not need sugar but mostly in case of other fruits sugar needs to be added. In one gallon of juice add 2 pounds of sugar. If you like drier wine then you can reduce the quantity of sugar. Add sugar after warming up the juice slightly in a stainless steel pan and then stir sugar to dissolve it.

3. Add yeast
Sterilize the carboy with the help of sterilizing solution or by boiling water and then pour the fruit juice into it. Add yeast and sugar in a cup of warm water and wait for a few minutes to activate. Then add this yeast to the fruit juice and put an air lock on the vessel. Fermentation of juice will begin soon and you will see bubbles in the vessel. This indicates that the yeast is converting the sugar into alcohol.

4. Watch and wait
Put the fermentation vessel at some warm place. Ideally, a good wine takes nine months to a year in making. So leaving it for about a year will mellow it which makes a lot of difference to its taste and appearance.

5. Siphoning
As fermentation continues, you will notice a white layer at the bottom of the vessel. This is actually formed by dead yeast cells. At this time, you should siphon the wine into a new vessel. It will stop the wine from developing that yeasty aftertaste. Siphoning must be done once a month.

6. Bottle your wine

f the wine is not clear in appearance, then you should leave the vessel at a very cold place for almost a week. It will help in clarifying the wine. When you don’t see any bubbles coming from the air lock, then it indicates that fermentation has stopped. Now, the wine is ready to be bottled. Never forget to sterilize the corks and bottles before using them.

7. Enjoy your wine

Most fruit wines are best up to two years after bottling it so enjoy your beverage with friends and family and take pride in your effort.

Frequently Asked Questions

How to age wine at home?
The best way out is to bottle your wine and store it at a cool place where the temperature is always around 53 degrees F. You will get best wine if you can let it age here for a year or at least for 5 – 6 months.

Quick Tips

  • You can make wine from all kind of fruits like grapes, apples, apricots, plums, peaches, etc. Ensure that you discard all rotten fruit in the beginning.
  • If you are making wine from apple then you need to be extra careful with siphoning since apple have a tendency to make lots of froth after juicing and therefore you must siphon out the juice once frothing has stopped.


Things To Watch Out For

  • If you are making a lot of wine, remember to label all the bottles with details of the fruit, the yeast variety used and date of bottling. If you make a superb batch, you can then try to replicate it in following years.
  • Sterilization is very important in wine making. It ensures a hygenic and safe final product which is not contaminated.

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