Post by wtrfwlr on Oct 30, 2012 19:21:31 GMT -7
Ok, here we go. As many of you know I had a great year with my Muscadines this year and was wanting to make some homemade wine.
I think Will and a couple others asked if I would do a thread on making wine so here it is, I'll try and make this as simple and concise as I can.
Now, I have never made wine before, always wanted to, I just put it off and was a little intimidated since there was no one around to help or show me. So I just jumped off into it this year and was surprised at how easy it really is. I have learned a lot over the past few weeks about winemaking and would like to share it with all of you here who may have, like me considered it before but have not tried it for whatever reason, we can learn some of this together. I know that MissJ makes wine and I think Rev. Coot does too and maybe some others, so if you do make wine and have something to add please add to this if you're inclined, I'm sure open to learning all I can. I have had a lot of fun in this so far.
My research in this was not a lot. I watched some Youtube videos but they were honestly not much help. I do have a book that did give me some good info. and a working basic knowledge to start with and also has some good recipes, I recommend it. It is "The Joy of Making Homemade Wine" by Terry Garey. The recipe I am using for this is from a local Muscadine grower and it is very simple. I also have a local brewers shop here that I have since visited after I got my first batch going and the folks there have been VERY helpful in my learning curve. If you have wine or brewers shop in your area, visit with them, they can really help out and you do not have to buy a whole lot of stuff to get going. I have spent less than $20 on all of my "stuff" and spent $0 on my first batch, other than the sugar since I grew the grapes myself.
To start with I have 2, 1 gallon batches of wine fermenting right now. The first batch I did very basic with nothing from the wine shop. I started with 1 gallon of Muscadine which is 6 lbs. I washed them and picked only nice ripe grapes. I put them in a clean pot and mashed the heck out of them with an old time potato masher. You just want to bust them up where the skins are separated from the pulp. I put all of this in a glass jar that is about 1 gal., I used it as a cookie jar and washed it out really well with boiling water and bleach and then rinsed it thoroughly. Into that I added 2 lbs of sugar. Then I topped that off with tap water till the level was about 1/2" from the top of the jar. Next I put on piece of plastic wrap and secured it with a rubber band. This made an air-lock of sorts so the gasses could get out but the air could not get in. This is known as the Primary Fermenter. In about 24 hours the natural yeast that is in the grapes will begin to eat the sugar and it will begin to make bubbles. I let this work for about 3 weeks. During the first week or so the "cap" or all the skins at the top need to be "punched down" You simply push them back down into the liquid so that they give off the color and flavor.
Next this needs to be transferred to the secondary fermenter which is just another glass jug.
I sanitized a pot and a nylon net bag with boiling water and dumped the grapes and juice into the bag and squeezed the heck out of it. I got about 3 1/2 quarts of juice and topped that off until the level was about 3/4" from the top of the jug. Now by this time I had been to the wine shop and bought a 1 gal. jug, a rubber bung and a cheap plastic air-lock. The jug was $5, the bung was $1 and the air-lock was $1.85. This is seen in the photos. At this point you can smell and taste alcohol but it is very raw and doesn't taste very good at all! Now that you have all the skins and gunk or "must" out of there it will begin to clear up and by the next day it will REALLY take off with the fermenting action! The bubbles will just take off. Over the next couple weeks the wine will get clearer and clearer and eventually the bubbles will slow down some. There will be a layer of "must" at the bottom of the jug. Now we can siphon off the wine into another jug, this is called "racking" and all you have to do is use a length of clear tubing. Place the full jug above the empty clean jug, insert the tubing and suck the wine below the level of the full jug and the siphon action will begin and the wine will flow into the empty jug. The idea here is to remove the clear wine and leave the must that is at the bottom. Top this up again with water and reinstall the air-lock. This racking process can be done several more times and each time there will be less and less must at the bottom of the jug. Each time it is racked top the jug off so there is very little air at the top. When the yeast has eaten all of the sugar and there are NO more bubbles forming or coming out of the air-lock the wine is ready to be bottled.
I have not bottled any of my wine yet so I will cover my experience with that when the time comes. I will say that I have a friend that has a restaurant and I asked her for bottles and she was happy to oblige and after the first weekend I had 4 cases of used wine bottles for free. I will have to buy a corker, those are about $35 new and there are plenty on E-bay for cheap but by the time I pay shipping I will just buy a new one from the wine shop especially since they have been so helpful and I like to help out local shops. Corks are really cheap as well. Like I say I will give first hand when I get to that point.
Here are some photos of what I'm doing so far and I will cover how I'm doing my second batch differently next.
This is the mashed grapes in my make shift primary fermenter.
The secondary jug with the real air-lock and bung in place. The haze at the top of the jug is the millions of bubbles rising and you can see the must at the bottom of the jug.
This is the air-lock and bung in place. This allows the gas from the yeast to escape and bubble out but the water inside seals the wine off from the air.
I tasted some the other day and there is no doubt there is a whopper alcohol thing going on cause it has a kick like pure alcohol, this is because it is mostly ethanol right now but that will settle down over time. Here you can see how much clearer it is getting and the layer of must at the bottom, in a week or so I will rack it again.
Like I said I will go over some of the things I did differently with my second 1 gal batch with the help of stuff from the brew shop. If you have any questions please ask! I'll try to answer but like I say, this is new to me too. If any of you other wine makers out there have some input or suggestions feel free to add!
I think Will and a couple others asked if I would do a thread on making wine so here it is, I'll try and make this as simple and concise as I can.
Now, I have never made wine before, always wanted to, I just put it off and was a little intimidated since there was no one around to help or show me. So I just jumped off into it this year and was surprised at how easy it really is. I have learned a lot over the past few weeks about winemaking and would like to share it with all of you here who may have, like me considered it before but have not tried it for whatever reason, we can learn some of this together. I know that MissJ makes wine and I think Rev. Coot does too and maybe some others, so if you do make wine and have something to add please add to this if you're inclined, I'm sure open to learning all I can. I have had a lot of fun in this so far.
My research in this was not a lot. I watched some Youtube videos but they were honestly not much help. I do have a book that did give me some good info. and a working basic knowledge to start with and also has some good recipes, I recommend it. It is "The Joy of Making Homemade Wine" by Terry Garey. The recipe I am using for this is from a local Muscadine grower and it is very simple. I also have a local brewers shop here that I have since visited after I got my first batch going and the folks there have been VERY helpful in my learning curve. If you have wine or brewers shop in your area, visit with them, they can really help out and you do not have to buy a whole lot of stuff to get going. I have spent less than $20 on all of my "stuff" and spent $0 on my first batch, other than the sugar since I grew the grapes myself.
To start with I have 2, 1 gallon batches of wine fermenting right now. The first batch I did very basic with nothing from the wine shop. I started with 1 gallon of Muscadine which is 6 lbs. I washed them and picked only nice ripe grapes. I put them in a clean pot and mashed the heck out of them with an old time potato masher. You just want to bust them up where the skins are separated from the pulp. I put all of this in a glass jar that is about 1 gal., I used it as a cookie jar and washed it out really well with boiling water and bleach and then rinsed it thoroughly. Into that I added 2 lbs of sugar. Then I topped that off with tap water till the level was about 1/2" from the top of the jar. Next I put on piece of plastic wrap and secured it with a rubber band. This made an air-lock of sorts so the gasses could get out but the air could not get in. This is known as the Primary Fermenter. In about 24 hours the natural yeast that is in the grapes will begin to eat the sugar and it will begin to make bubbles. I let this work for about 3 weeks. During the first week or so the "cap" or all the skins at the top need to be "punched down" You simply push them back down into the liquid so that they give off the color and flavor.
Next this needs to be transferred to the secondary fermenter which is just another glass jug.
I sanitized a pot and a nylon net bag with boiling water and dumped the grapes and juice into the bag and squeezed the heck out of it. I got about 3 1/2 quarts of juice and topped that off until the level was about 3/4" from the top of the jug. Now by this time I had been to the wine shop and bought a 1 gal. jug, a rubber bung and a cheap plastic air-lock. The jug was $5, the bung was $1 and the air-lock was $1.85. This is seen in the photos. At this point you can smell and taste alcohol but it is very raw and doesn't taste very good at all! Now that you have all the skins and gunk or "must" out of there it will begin to clear up and by the next day it will REALLY take off with the fermenting action! The bubbles will just take off. Over the next couple weeks the wine will get clearer and clearer and eventually the bubbles will slow down some. There will be a layer of "must" at the bottom of the jug. Now we can siphon off the wine into another jug, this is called "racking" and all you have to do is use a length of clear tubing. Place the full jug above the empty clean jug, insert the tubing and suck the wine below the level of the full jug and the siphon action will begin and the wine will flow into the empty jug. The idea here is to remove the clear wine and leave the must that is at the bottom. Top this up again with water and reinstall the air-lock. This racking process can be done several more times and each time there will be less and less must at the bottom of the jug. Each time it is racked top the jug off so there is very little air at the top. When the yeast has eaten all of the sugar and there are NO more bubbles forming or coming out of the air-lock the wine is ready to be bottled.
I have not bottled any of my wine yet so I will cover my experience with that when the time comes. I will say that I have a friend that has a restaurant and I asked her for bottles and she was happy to oblige and after the first weekend I had 4 cases of used wine bottles for free. I will have to buy a corker, those are about $35 new and there are plenty on E-bay for cheap but by the time I pay shipping I will just buy a new one from the wine shop especially since they have been so helpful and I like to help out local shops. Corks are really cheap as well. Like I say I will give first hand when I get to that point.
Here are some photos of what I'm doing so far and I will cover how I'm doing my second batch differently next.
This is the mashed grapes in my make shift primary fermenter.
The secondary jug with the real air-lock and bung in place. The haze at the top of the jug is the millions of bubbles rising and you can see the must at the bottom of the jug.
This is the air-lock and bung in place. This allows the gas from the yeast to escape and bubble out but the water inside seals the wine off from the air.
I tasted some the other day and there is no doubt there is a whopper alcohol thing going on cause it has a kick like pure alcohol, this is because it is mostly ethanol right now but that will settle down over time. Here you can see how much clearer it is getting and the layer of must at the bottom, in a week or so I will rack it again.
Like I said I will go over some of the things I did differently with my second 1 gal batch with the help of stuff from the brew shop. If you have any questions please ask! I'll try to answer but like I say, this is new to me too. If any of you other wine makers out there have some input or suggestions feel free to add!