I've been making wine for 30 years now - oh and drinking it too. When I started wine-making the books were full of things like "add 15 tonnes of fruit and leave 10 years to ferment and clear ...", OK not quite that bad but not far off. Then I discovered a book called 'Easy Wine Making In 21 Days' and it changed the way I made wine and my method is essentially what is in that book.
I have a basic recipe which underpins both red and white wine - and this is it for 5 gallons of a wine which will be around 15% in alcohol terms.
- 5 x 500g bags of raisins (or sultanas) (you can use grape concentrate but this is expensive)
- 4 to 5 kg of plain white sugar (4 bags with fruit = 11-13% alchohol; 5 bags 14-16%)
- 2 heaped teaspoons of yeast nutrient
- 2 heaped teaspoons of citric acid
- 2 heaped teaspoons of pectolase
- 2 heaped teaspoons of general wine yeast (or a sachet if you can't get the tub)
- You will also need baby bottle sterilizing tablets and Campden Tablets.
The raisins/sultanas will be at your local supermarket while the rest of the stuff will be at your local Wilkinson store (or online but may cost more).
If you want, that will make you a basic raisin wine, popular with the Victorians apparently. The idea is that the raisins/sultanas give the wine 'body' and acts as a base for additional flavours (you can use grape concentrate but that is expensive). Use raisins on their own for a nice basic wine; use sultanas along with other fruit. Flavours come by adding fruit from the allotment or, in in winter, flavoured tea bags - yep really - the new flavoured teabags make fantastic wine - I especially love the summer berry teabags and the nettle and fennel (forget the mint though - not good for wine). When using teabags you need all the sultanas as there is no 'body' in the teabag liquid; however, if you are going to use weighty fruit from the allotment like gooseberries, plums, apples or rhubarb then you can reduce the bags of sultanas by one or two bags. Come the autumn there's free fruit too like elderberries, damsons and blackberries all of which make delicious wine. So, rule of thumb, if you aren't using bulk fruit then stick a 500g bag of sultanas per gallon. If you are using proper fruit you can replace a bag of sultanas with 2 kilos of fruit up to two bags worth - always have at least three bags of sultanas in 5 gallons for a 'base'. (Pictured below - flavoured teabags - sterilising tablets and the various powders needed).
For 5 gallons you will need some equipment: a 5 gal brewing bin (or similar container with a 5 gallon mark on the side); six 1 gal demi-johns; syphon tube; hydrometer; 5 plastic air-locks and drilled bungs. Scout around boot sales for brewing bins and demi-johns, they also appear regularly in places like Freecycle - once you have these they will last virtually all your life. The air-locks, bungs, hydrometer and tube are available cheaply enough online or in Wilkinson.
The Hot Stage
An hour before you start fill your 5 gallon brewing bin with clean water and add 5 sterilising tablets. I always do this outside as it's easier. After an hour, empty the bin and rinse out with clean water, just enough so it doesn't smell of chlorine. Stick a kettle full of water on to boil and then start chopping up the sultanas - a food processor is the easy way of course but I used to do it by hand in the early days. My little food processor can only manage a bag at a time, add a little water to the sultanas to stop it all getting too sticky and the motor struggling. Once chopped up, stick them in your brewing bin - if you are adding fruit - chop in the same way and stick it in the bin with the sultanas. (See below for flavoured teabags). (Pictured below the sultanas and sugar in the brew bin).
The kettle's probably boiled by now so add the sugar and then carefully pour the boiling water over the mix. Fill the kettle again and put on to boil again. Stir the mixture with a long handled implement (the choice is yours) with the idea of dissolving all the sugar granules. You will probably find that the extra kettle full of water you have put on to boil will be needed to help with the dissolving process - so add more boiling water if needed. (Below - the hot stage - boiling water on the fruit and sugar).
(If you are using flavoured teabags stick 10 in a large plastic jug (2 bags per gallon) and pour on a load of boiling water and prod with a wooden spoon with the idea of getting as much flavour out of the bags as possible. Pour the favoured tea into the brew bin while holding back the teabags - add a bit more boiling water to the jug to see if you can prod the last drops of flavour from the bags and again add the liquor - dispose of the bags - don't add them to the brew bin). (Pictured below - fennel & nettle teabags being prodded to release their flavour).
The last part of the 'Hot Stage' is the addition of a few of the powders - it's time to add two teaspoons of yeast nutrient; the same of citric acid and, the same for the pectolase. (The nutrient and the citric acid help the yeast ferment the wine - the pectolase breaks down usable natural sugars in the fruit and helps stop the wine forming a cloudy 'haze' which isn't very nice when it comes to drinking). (Below - Pectolase added).
IMPORTANT - do NOT add the yeast yet as the boiling water will harm it. Do NOT use the Campden Tablets at all for the moment - these are used much later on).
The Cool Stage
Give everything a good stir then top up the bin to the 5 gallon mark with cool water. Ideally the liquid should be tepid rather than freezing cold by the time you have got it up to 5 gallons. Now add the yeast. Brewers yeast used to be available cheaply in decent sized tubs and I used to add three or four heaped teaspoons but now I've noticed yeast seems to be sold in single sachets so just add one of them if you are keeping costs down. The yeast will multiply in the brew anyway, it just might take a few days longer that's all. (Yeast going in).
Place the bin in your house, the kitchen is a good choice, it needs to be a room that isn't going to get too cold. No need to stick it in the airing cupboard etc - modern brewing yeasts can tolerate lower temperatures and temperature fluctuations. Nevertheless, I find the process is much faster in the summer than the winter, even with central heating - constant warmish temperatures are better than the hot and cold of being by a radiator. If your brewing bin came with a lid place it loosely on top - yeast gives off carbon dioxide when working and the gas must be able to escape - if you don't have a lid just cover with a clean tea-towel. (Below - leave a gap for the CO2 to escape or things could get messy).
For the next week give the brew a stir everyday - you should see that small bubbles are forming at the surface, you should hear them when you stir the liquid. At this stage the yeast requires air to reproduce - the yeast is both multiplying in number and changing some of the sugar to alcohol while giving off carbon dioxide as a by-product. After a week it's time to move the liquid from the brew bin into demi-johns.
The Demi-John Fermenting Stage
This first part of this is a bit of a faff - again, I do this outside as it can get messy. Your demi-johns need to be sterilised so fill them with water and pop in a single sterilising tablet and leave for an hour; then rinse with clean water so it doesn't smell of chlorine.
Now - here's the objective: you want to get as much liquid from the brew-bin into the demi-johns without all the cruddy fruit solids going in. I have a tried and trusted method which goes like this: first use a sieve to get as much fruit from the liquid as possible.
Next, a large funnel is placed in the demi-john, on top goes a nylon filter bag (used in jam making I believe) and on top of that does a narrow mesh kitchen sieve. The sieve catches most of the crap while the nylon bag gets the smaller particles. (Below - funnel, sieve and nylon bag used to filter the brew into jars).
I top each jar up to about half-way - rinsing the sieve and bag out as necessary when it gets clogged, then repeat so each demi-john gets a good even portion of the brew. I then top up to the neck of the jar with water if there isn't any brew left. Fit an airlock and bung (remember to put water in the airlock) and in an hour or so you will see bubbles passing through the airlock. The purpose of this stage is to remove the fruit solids and, to exclude the air from the yeast so the yeast stops putting energy into multiplying itself and concentrates on turning sugar into alcohol.
The hydrometer is a cheap but useful piece of kit which removes the guesswork from wine-making. Sugar and water are much denser than alcohol - if you add the hydrometer to your brew immediately you should see that it reads perhaps 50 or 80 on the scale. As the sugar gets turned into alcohol, the liquid becomes less dense and the hydrometer will sink further into the liquid. (You can pop the hydrometer straight into the neck of the demi-john - just make sure that the liquid is half way up the neck so you can fish the hydrometer out but not too far towards the top or the liquid will over flow when the hydrometer goes in). You are aiming to get the hydrometer to zero on the scale - if like me you like your wine on the dry side then let it sink just below the zero mark - if you like it a little sweeter then zero or a point above will be fine. (To get a proper reading make sure that the hydrometer isn't touching the glass jar - just push it into the middle of the neck so it's floating freely - it helps to put the jar on a table so you can see more easily).
Give the wine a week to ten days to ferment out so the hydrometer reads zero - this can be a shorter time in warm temperatures or longer in cooler temperatures. Check the jars regularly. Once at zero the fermentation process needs to be stopped.
Stopping Fermentation & Clearing
This is a simple process. Put your full demi-john jar on a table or kitchen counter and the an empty sterilised jar on the floor (this is why and extra is needed). Crush two Campden Tablets with a tea-spoon and put the powder in the bottom of the empty jar. The Campden Tablets will kill the yeast - the yeast's job is done. Use your siphon tube to carefully 'rack-off' the liquid from the full jar to empty one with the Campden Tablets - the aim is to leave behind as much of the crud lurking at the bottom of the top jar - most of the siphon tubes for wine-making have a plastic gizmo on the end that helps you do that. This takes a bit of practice but aim to leave the crud behind.
Do this for all of the five jars (cleaning one out each time to become your empty) and don't forget the crushed Campden Tablets - these are very important as you don't want the yeast fermenting. Once the jars have been 'racked off' - give them a few days in cooler temperatures and then you can either leave them to clear naturally or add wine finings. I always add finings (follow instructions on the packet) as I find that they will make the wine virtually clear in less than a week - this packet is good for all five jars. (I mix the sachets in a litre measuring jug with 200ml wine from each jar and pour the same amount back).
Once clear you can now 'rack off' into clean jars (leaving the crud behind) so you have a gallon of clear wine to bottle or store as is. You can store the cleared wine in a clean demi-john but remember to fit the air-lock containing water as you don't want the air to spoil your wine. Keep in a cool place. If you want to make red wines then the process is exactly the same but you will need to add fruits like elderberries, damsons and/or black berries. Personally I like to make a white wine with the sultanas but add a few handfuls of red fruits to produce a lovely rose wine.
(Pictured below is a demi-john of wine which has been cleared with wine finings - you can see in the picture that the finings have dragged all the suspended particles to the bottom of the jar forming a white layer. Siphon the wine off leaving this layer behind. The bottles contain finished wine. Home made wine should not be cloudy).
That's it - below two more pictures of rose and red wines fermenting and clearing. I hope this has been helpful - cheers ...
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