I started making wine seven years ago. After tasting the wine and inquiring about the process, some of my friends and neighbors became inspired and wanted to make wine at home for themselves.

I used the following ingredients to make wine. Sodium or potassium metabisulfate, yeast, acid blend, sugar,water, grape tannins. I bought them from local brewer's supply store.

Here are some tips from my preparation.

Some fruit juice, like very sweet grape juice, will not need the addition of any sugar. Most other fruit wines will need sugar to be added.

Sterilize your carboy or demijohn with sterilizing solution, or boiling water. Put the sugared fruit juice into your vessel. Dissolve the powdered yeast in a little warm water and sugar in a cup, and leave it for a few minutes to activate. Then add the yeast to the fruit juice. Put your air lock on the vessel.

Fermentation of the fruit juice should begin soon, and you will see bubbles in the air lock. This means the yeast is converting the sugar to alcohol.

Put your fermentation vessel in a warm place if possible. Ideally you should leave the wine fermenting for nine months to a year. If you drink it after only a month or two it will taste rough and poor; leaving it for about a year will let it mellow out – this really makes a difference.

When the fermentation has stopped (no bubbles coming through the air lock) you can bottle the wine and cork the bottle.

Permalink | Report