How to make wine from grapes at home step by step
2022-08-30 08:59
How do I make homemade grape wine? Here are the tips to help you learn making wine method step by step!
How to Make Homemade Wine
Winemaking at home requires several pieces of inexpensive equipment, serious cleanliness, and a mess of patience. Turns out, Tom Petty was right: "The waiting is the hardest part."
Equipment Checklist:
One 4-gallon food-grade-quality plastic bucket and lid to serve as the primary fermentation vat
Three 1-gallon glass jugs to use as secondary fermentation containers
A funnel that fits into the mouth of the glass bottles
Three airlocks (fermentation traps)
A rubber cork (or bung) to fit into the secondary fermentation container
Large straining bag of nylon mesh
About 6 feet of clear half-inch plastic tubing
About 20 wine bottles (you'll need five bottles per gallon of wine)
Number 9-size, pre-sanitized corks
Hand corker (ask about renting these from the wine supply store)
A hydrometer to measure sugar levels
Ingredient Checklist:
Lots and lots of wine grapes
Granulated sugar
Filtered water
Wine yeast
Tips to make wine
Pick your grapes - you will need around 6-7kgs per gallon.
Strip them off their stalks, wash them in clean water if necessary/desired and then crush and press them to extract the juice. For small quantities, this can be done with a potato masher. It will often be easier if you freeze them first and then allow them to defrost.
Check the sugar content with a hydrometer and add extra sugar, if required, to obtain a start gravity of 1080-1085. This will produce about 11-12% alcohol in your finished wine, depending upon your finishing gravity.
Check the acidity with a pH strip. You should aim for a pH level of 3.1-3.4, so you may need to add Citric Acid to increase the acidity or Precipitated Chalk to lower it.
Add 1 crushed Campden Tablet per gallon of juice and leave for 24 hours to kill off any natural yeast that may be present.
Add your preferred Wine Yeast (some people also add yeast nutrient to encourage a rapid ferment) and leave to ferment at room temperature (18-24°C) or as per your yeast's preferences/tolerances.
If you are making Red or Rose wine, you will generally need to leave the skins in contact with the juice for 4-10 days depending how dark a colour you want. Once the juice has become the colour you want, strain it into a clean demijohn or bucket and allow it to continue to ferment.
Once fermentation has finished, or you have reached your preferred finishing gravity, syphon the wine into a clean demijohn or bucket, add 1 crushed Campden Tablet per gallon and leave to clear.
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