How To Make Homemade Wine With A Few Easy To Follow Steps
While it is famously known that the best kind of wine is the one that has aged for a very...
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hile it is famously known that the best kind of wine is the one that has aged for a very long time, it is also extremely expensive to purchase. However, you do not necessarily need to have wine that has been aging for years with these few easy steps on how to make homemade wine. The best part about this is that you get to make it in the comfort of your own home.
Winemaking at home can be a very fun activity and you can experiment with different fruits as you make a variety of wine and you can find all the ingredients you need at your nearest local grocery store. This recipe will make approximately 2.5 liters of wine, being the perfect amount to start off with.
Ingredients Needed For Winemaking
Winemaking is quite different from brewing alcohol at home; it is actually easier. You will require the following ingredients to embark on this winemaking journey:
1.5 to 2 cups of sugar
0.5 gallon of grape juice. The kind of grape juice you buy will depend on your personal preference for wine. If you want to make white wine then you will need white grape juice. For red wine, you will need red grape juice whereas if you want to make your wine with any other fruit flavor, you can buy that as well. All you have to ensure is that the juice does not have any ingredients that will kill the yeast. This will be ensured if you get pasteurized juice with no preservatives.
1 packet of any active dry yeast. You can even get your hands on wine yeast, which works best for beginners.
Equipment Required For Winemaking
These are the following equipment needed for you to start making your wine:
A measuring cup
A Funnel
An Airlock is extremely useful to ensure that air is released during the fermentation process while also preventing bugs and microbes from entering the container. You can also alternatively use a balloon to do the job too.
Bottling equipment is required to pour your wine into. This will most obviously be a glass bottle in which you will be storing your wine.
Instructions To Start Making Wine
You will have to start by first ensuring that everything is washed properly with hot water. This is so you can avoid any form of contamination in your product because if that happens, you will not be able to have it.
Pour out about a cup of grape juice so that you can make room for all of your ingredients and then add 1.5 cups of sugar. The amount of sugar you’re putting in your wine will depend on how alcoholic you want it to be. If you want your wine to be more alcoholic, you can add about two cups of sugar whereas if you want your wine to be less alcoholic, you can reduce the amount of sugar and add about a cup only. After this, you should screw the cap back on and then start shaking that juice and sugar mixture while dancing your heart out to the fullest for at least a minute. This is to make sure that the sugar gets dissolved in the mixture properly.
Add that entire packet of yeast that you bought into the mixture. You can choose to use a funnel for this process but it is not mandatory. Give it 5 minutes and let it rest, so the yeast can moisten up, and then you can proceed to energetically shake the mixture for approximately 15-20 seconds. Congratulations, you are done with the hardest part!
Uncap the bottle and then place your airlock or a balloon on top of your container. In case you are using a balloon, you will have to poke 1 to 2 holes that are pin-sized in the area that is closest to the top of the bottle, in the balloon’s bottom third part. This ensures that the carbon dioxide, which the yeast produces as it eats up the sugar particles, is excreated outside while the alcohol that this interaction produces stays inside the wine bottle. In the event that the cap is put back on, the bottle would either explode due to the pressure that would build inside it or the yeast would get killed by the carbon dioxide.
Last but not the least, you will have to put your bottle in a cool, dark area since that is the environment best for yeast to work its magic. You will notice that your wine will start bubbling over the course of the next few weeks and it will soon be ready!
The last step is to enjoy it! Now that you know how to make homemade wine, you can get ready to host some amazing wine and cheese tastings at your home.
