Home Made Wine Secrets
Steps to Making Homemade Wine
If you are striving to be a wine connoisseur, or if you already are, you may take your enjoyment of fine wines to the next level and start making your own wine. It seems complicated, but you don't have to own an entire vineyard for making homemade wine. Study the few basic steps and you'll be on your way.
First, assemble your necessary ingredients. You need either grapes or grape concentrate. If you do have suitable growing area, you can always choose to grow your own grapes. Keep in mind that if you use grape concentrate, it must be very high quality. This is sold online and in home brewing and wine stores. For making your own wine, you will also need yeast and brewing equipment. There are wine kits available for home use so that anyone can build their own equipment. But if you are going to take on the responsibility as a long-term activity, you should invest in high-quality equipment.
Depending on whether you are making homemade wine using real grapes or grape concentrate, there can be five to eight steps. You may need to harvest the real grapes first, and then remove their stems. Since the stems can add a bitterness to the wine, it is imperative that you remove them from the grapes.
After removing the stems, you must break the skin of the grapes to release the juice and flavor. Most winemakers prefer to crush the grapes, and there are many ways to do this. For instance, for a wine with a fruity aroma, the grapes should be barely crushed at all.
Next comes the step known as primary fermentation, where the yeast cells will feed on the sugar cells. This produces carbon dioxide. To ensure a consistent conversion process, you can also add more yeast to the wine, since the grapes' own yeast may not be adequate.
Extract more juice from the fruit after primary fermentation. This extra juice won't be as good quality as the juice obtained from crushing. It is called press juice and it has had more contact with the skins and stems, so it may be more bitter. But it is not useless and it can always be combined with free run juice, which is the juice from crushing. Press juice can increase the yield of a batch of wine, so many wineries still use it.
After extracting the press juice, the wine ages and goes through a second fermentation. At this stage, individual winemakers may decide how long they let the wine ferment.
Next you may choose to blend the wine, which may improve several batches of wine that lack the ideal flavor. It is optional, but it may create a perfectly customized wine.
Finally, you will bottle the wine. You may add sulfites, which help terminate the fermentation process and preserve the wine. Seal it with a cork and you have created your very own wine creation! Making homemade wine is pretty easy if you go step by step.
