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Wine Making - The Basics

In recent years, the general standard of homemade wine has improved dramatically. Once apon a time, wines that were made at home were considered very strong - "rocket fuel" as I remember my mother describing it. However, new techniques and better quality of equipment have allowed wine making enthusiasts to make a wine that is of such a high standard, it would be hard to distinguish between homemade wine and those commercially produced and sold.

To begine with, you must work out where you are going to get your grapes from. There is a grape concentrate that can be used to make wine, and this can be bought from many of the winemaking stockists, both out and about and also on the internet. Pick your own orchards are a great place to get your fruit from, as you can make wine from the different fruits, and you can see the quality of the grapes and other fruits that you are using. If you have decided to use grape concentrates however, you can make wine that orginates in various parts of the world and you have the capability to make white, rose or red wine.

The grapes need to be ripe, and once you have decided that the grapes are ripe, you must lose the stems and then the grapes must be crushed. If it is a white wine that you are looking to make, then you must press the juice off the skins.

The juice from the grapes must then be placed into a large bottle. When this is complete, combine sugar with water and warm it though until the sugar is completely dissolved. The amounts of the various ingredients that you use is down to you, personal preference, and the amount of wine that you wish to make. There are some very good sites on the internet that will give you basic guidelines on the amount of ingredients to use, and there are some good books and kits that you can buy as well.

Once all of the sugar has dissolved, you must wait for it to return to room temperature, then add the yeast, and then mix. This mixture, when fully stirred, must be added to the grape juice. The wine bottle must then be sealed for a set amount of time. As a general rule, the home made wine should start fermenting after approximately two days. Bubbles will appear in the wine at this time, and these bubbles will continue to appear for around three weeks. After this, take a peek at your wine, if bubbles are still in the mixture, wait another week and check again. When the bubbles are no longer appearing, fermentation is complete and it is then time to bottle your wine.

Anything that is used that comes into contact with the wine, as in the equipment that you use to make it, must be clean and completely sanitized. If the equipment is not properly sanitized, the wine will spoil and will be undrinkable.

If you have decided to make wine at your house, there are certain federal laws that you need to know about. Every household with two adults living within that household can produce up to 200 gallons of either wine or beer in any twelve month period. Any more than this, and you could find yourself in a lot of trouble.

Winemaking can be a fun pasttime, and can be enjoyed by the whole adult family. You can give your homemade wine as gifts and enjoy it at parties and other social occasions. It can work out much cheaper as the equipment needed is relatively little and can be bought as a complete kit for quite cheap. Various sites on the internet will fill you in on all the information needed to produce wine at home. There are books you can buy and leaflets you can get. It is a good idea to read this material prior to embarking on this hobby.

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