How to Make Homemade Wine

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You are choosing your favourite wine to drink for the day when it got you thinking: how is my favourite wine made, especially imp’s delight? It must be a complicated business, just as complex as a bottle of wine is. Then you think to yourself what if you can make your own wine? It won’t be a total walk in the park, but it will be fun and fulfilling.

Making wine is fun, almost as much as when you are drinking it. It might be a complicated matter to see through, but trust me, it is worth it. After all the making and waiting, you will be able to seek out new recipes of wines you think you’ll enjoy and make them yourself!

If you are into liquor, you might have also thought about making other alcoholic drinks such as beer. But if you want to try other brews, starting with wine is the best move since it is arguably the most simple of them all. Also, you don’t need expensive stuff to make one; in fact, most of the utensils that you will need can be found in your own home.

The ingredients to make wine can also just be found at your local supermarket, and most of them are affordable as most of them are your everyday stuff. If you are serious about venturing to this new endeavour, it would only cost you around £10 to get started, given you already have some of the stuff that you will need.

Preparation

As I mentioned above, all you need are thoroughly cleaned utensils, the complete checklist of ingredients, and a lot of patience. The hardest part of the process is the waiting part. That is because you have to wait several months or most probably a year to let the brew ferment and be ready for drinking.

The items you need are as follows:

1. One and a half cups of sugar, or two cups of sugar at most – 340g
2. A funnel.
3. Measuring cup.
4. Half a gallon of grape juice – 1.9L
5. A balloon.
6. A packet of yeast.

Process

First things first, clean everything with hot water. Honestly, this is the only thing you can do wrong in the whole process. Clean it inside and out very thoroughly because if your brew gets contaminated with unwanted foreign agents, needless to say, that it will be undrinkable.

After that, pour one and ¾ of the grape juice into your selected container. Then pour 1.5 cups of sugar into the same pot.  Seal the bottle and shake it thoroughly until you are sure that all of the sugar has dissolved in the solution. Once you are sure that the sugar granules are all dissolved, put the pack of yeast into the mix, no need to hold back as it is one of the crucial things in the process. Give the yeast some time to moisten and shake the brew again for about 10-15 seconds.

Lastly, place the balloon in the opening of the container. The balloon acts as an air proof seal as you don’t want to aerate your brew. However, if you don’t trust the balloon, you can substitute it with another sealing material that would act as a cork that won’t let the air go inside the brew.

Fermenting

After the whole process, keep the brew in a cold and dark place. Why? You need a site that is cool for it to be untouched by the sunlight. Sunlight would give the drink a chemical reaction that would leave the brew unwanted and undrinkable. After a few hours, if you are using the balloon, check if it is inflated. If it is, it means that yeast is producing carbon dioxide, which is entirely normal.

After 2 or more weeks, the wine will bubble, and several chemical reactions will take place. Also, the yeast will die off and stop excreting carbon dioxide causing the balloon to deflate. When that happens, you are almost done, and you will be able to taste your brew shortly after. As for decanting, it depends on you if you want to, but it is highly recommended. The process of decanting is to filter the wine to separate the remaining solid substance in the mix. Now, you can get a wine glass and taste your very own  wine.

There are tons of guidelines and instructions on how to make your very own homemade wine on the internet, some of them simple, and there are also some which are  complicated at best. But if you’re trying out and feeling your way in this endeavour, or just trying to see if you’ll like it, a simple yet efficient guide of making wine would be best for you, just like this one.