I will here outline the basics of how to make homemade wine. These basics will give you a good grounding of the theory behind a sound wine recipe. Before long, you’ll be making your own, personal, delicious wine from whatever you see fit!
There are 6 basic steps to making good homemade wine: sterilization, making the must, primary fermentation, secondary fermentation, clearing, and bottling.
Sterilization is the process of getting rid of all the little microbes that would otherwise turn your wine bad, or even stop the yeast from making the alcohol. It is easily done by scrubbing / soaking your equipment with bicarbonate of soda dissolved in warm water.
Must actually refers to freshly pressed fruit juice, with the seeds and skin included. However, you may want to use just juice without ever coming across the actual fruit. This is fine, but I will still refer to the starting juices as the must.
As yeast turns sugar into alcohol, there must be enough sugar in your must for the yeast to work on. Fresh grape juice actually contains just the right amount naturally, but other juices may not. To get the balance right, your wine should have a specific gravity of 1.090-1.095, which can be measured by using a hydrometer – another part of learning how to make homemade wine.
Primary fermentation is the first stage of the yeast’s life cycle, in which it is allowed to consume oxygen. The yeast multiplies so that there is enough of it to produce the quantity of alcohol that we want. This stage should take around 2 weeks.
Secondary fermentation is second stage of the yeast’s life cycle. The yeast is cut off from the air, and this lack of oxygen forces it to produce alcohol. This stage lasts until the yeast is poisoned by the alcohol it produces and dies, ending fermentation.
Once fermentation is over the wine must be cleared. There are a number of ways to do this – more details are over at the How to Make Homemade Wine squidoo page. At the end of this stage we will have a lovely clear wine, ready for bottling and aging.
The next step is by far the most important in all of how to make homemade wine – the drinking!
Just read a great article over at Brew Dudes talking about the decision whether to use plastic or glass fermenters.
This is a decision you’re going to have to make when you’re looking for your fermenter, and there’re a few things to consider.
First and foremost, what’s your budget? Plastic fermenters are cheap – and they can be cheaper if you’re willing sacrifice a bit of style for the sake of your pocket. If you think about it, any big milk or juicecontainer will serve perfectly well as a fermenter!
However, you need to bear in mind that they have their limitations. Often plastic containers are somewhat translucent, making it tricky to see the contents. Commercial plastic fermenters are also prone to scratching, which can obscure the view into them.
I therefore recommend sticking to glass carboys for racking, when it’s clearly imperative that you be able to see right into the container to see how the clearing is coming along.
It has been said that the scratches which can accumulate on plastic fermenters can harbour bacteria and other microbes. This is likely true – however, sterilizing your container in bicarb overnight should clear out anything still lurking.
And finally, you might want to consider that glass just looks nicer – there’s something appealing about a room full of glass carboys. If you’re just starting out in this hobby however, it probably makes sense to save your pennies until you’re sure this is for you.
I thought this vid explained the idea of racking pretty well, although I think the auto-siphon is a bit redundant – unless you’re making a LOT of wine, sucking on the end of a tube isn’t that much effort!
You may feel a little overwhelmed when you start out learning how to make homemade wine – what fruit shall I use? How do I choose a yeast? Do I need to add any nutrients?
Inventing your own wine recipes can be a very satisfying process, and will be what keeps you going after making your first bottle of homemade wine.
However, if you are just starting out and are feeling overwhelmed, I definitely recommend that you should make your first batch with a wine brew kit.
Brew kits contain all the ingredients that you need to get started making your first bottles. They take all the hassle out of deliberating about what you need before you get started, and allow you to just GO!
You will learn a lot about how to make homemade wine from making a batch using a brew kit. You will become familiar with the process of primary and secondary fermentation, clearing and bottling, whilst being walked through the steps with the guide that comes with the kit.
I recommend the brew kits made by Vino Italiano. They come with very clear and easy-to-understand instructions, and really do emulate commercial wines well – of course, that’s because they use real grape concentrate from real wine grapes.
You will still need to find containers in which to conduct fermentation – you can use a bucket for primary fermentation, and demijohns for secondary fermentation.
You will also need to find your own bottles, but this should be easy, as any old wine bottles will do – Vino Italiano brew kits I recommended come with corks and labels.
I can heartily recommend this Zinfandel Blush, and this Chardonnay, both of which produce fantastic wines.
Once you’ve made your first batch of homemade wine with a brew kit, you should have a good grounding of how winemaking works. The next step is to get creative, and start innovating – all while quaffing the bottles of wine you just made!
Personalized wine labels are great to put on the table during wedding, birthdays, and any other celebrations, and make a fantastic impression when given as corporate gifts – as long as your wine’s good, you’re flying!
There are a couple of ways to get hold of your personalized wine labels, depending on your budget, and what you need.
The first is to simply make your own. FreeLabelMaker.com recommends using using your printer to print onto dry gummed label paper, which can be bought from here.
Now, of course, you’re going to need label designs to print onto your paper! These can be found all over the web – a google search will turn up plenty of results- but there are a few over here to get you started. Customize them, print them onto the label paper, and you’ve got your personalized wine labels.
You can get some good results using the above method, but you’re never going to achieve the truly professional results used on commercial wine labels. To do this, you need access to specialist printers and, unless you’re skilled with graphics, someone to design your label for you.
Stony Creek Wine Press offers what seems to be the most comprehensive service available. Their label specifications are here, and they are impressive – you can be rest assured that the labels that come out are going to be indistinguishable from the professional labels on commercial wine bottles.
But the site really comes into its own with the design services that they offer. They will create drafts to the specification that you give them, and make any changes you like before producing the finished product. This way, you get exactly what you want, designed to the highest standards.
Check out some of these articles:
Try a Glass of House Wine – Why not name your wine and mention that it is from “The Jones Family, Summer 2009″? …
Personalized wine labels are great to put on the table during wedding, birthdays, and any other celebrations, and make a fantastic impression when given as corporate gifts – as long as your wine’s good, you’re flying!
