06 May, 2019
Let me start by saying that I am not an avid wine drinker, my go-to adult drink is generally a nice, cold bottle of beer, BUT...I have spurts of interest in wine.
This was an original hobbyhomefarm.com post, but I think this applies to nurses too! I say this because I have met many nurses that drink wine to unwind, so why not show you how to make and customize your own!
I once worked at a fine dining restaurant that sold many different kinds of wines and before our shifts we had wine tastings and discussed the different flavors and qualities of wine so that we could recommend them to customers. As a novice wine drinker, I tended to go for the sweeter wines like Rieslings, German wines, Zinfandels, and such. As my taste buds acclimated and started to acquire the taste for wine, I started to like the less sweet types. And each time I leave wine and then go back to it, I feel I follow the same pattern.
My most recent startup came with the discovery that a friend of mine was making wine. She gave me a taste (I absolutely LOVED it), then I became a customer, and then I decided to make my own because I was buying more than I probably should. Her wine was made from fresh juice and she gave me some pointers on how to get started. At first, I felt like it was more work than it was worth. I didn't recognize the terminology and just pretended to know what she was talking about. At some point, I decided I had to either start somewhere or just keep being a customer.
I started by reading articles online, watching youtube videos, and then I bought my very first startup kit from North Mountain on Amazon for less than a $100. Here is the link. It came with a purple paperback wine making recipe book with basic instructions and everything I really needed to get started making wine from fruit juice. Each gallon makes about 4-5 wine bottles of finished wine. At first, I bought 100% juice such as Oceanspray Cranberry blends or Welch's grape blends. Then I branched out to making wine from fresh fruit. I found that some fruits really blossom with flavor while others turn into a more alcohol taste with less fruity flavor.
My friend used your run of the mill Fleishmann's yeast, I choose to buy the wine yeast packets. Her wine is absolutely delicious, pomegranate is to die for. I have been able to make my own wine successfully and my friends and I enjoy it very much. It has been great to bring to parties and give as gifts and wine making always seems to spark interest and is a great conversation starter so I thought I would share what I have learned with you.
Some of the best wines I have made so far are apricot, cran-raspberry, grape, lychee, cherry-apple, peach-quince, and pineapple.
The kit that I mentioned earlier comes with a bucket, airlocks, yeast, a bunch of different additives, and more. I ended up buying more airlocks (link) so I can have several batches going at once and try to find juices that come in gallon glass jugs that I can re-purpose for wine making. You want to start with the juice, look at the ingredients, I look for 100% juice and no high fructose corn syrup or other diluents. Make sure you have enough for your batch. I usually make 1 gallon batches and do not dilute the juice. If I am using fresh fruit, I wash, peel and place fruit in a nylon mesh bag so the pulp stays contained as much as possible. Some fruits can be bought when it is in season and then peeled and frozen - I found that this brings out the flavors more in some fruits. Then disinfecting (kit has powder that you dissolve to make the food grade disinfectant) all of your parts. If you do not disinfect properly, in my experience, the wine may turn into wine and then go past secondary fermentation and end up like vinegar or fizzy. I have used the vinegar to make salad dressings and if it became fizzy, I drank it anyway if it tasted good - I read that it's not harmful - but it must be drank pretty quickly because if you bottle it and it is still very fizzy, the cork could just blow out.
*my starter kit has a hydrometer to measure specific gravity. You must get an initial reading and then again at the end. You may be able to calculate alcohol content this way, but I just gung-ho'd it. I'm a bit impatient so I have always skipped this step
The basics are:
(1) Juice and sugar. add 1 crushed Campden tablet (which is potassium/sodium metabisulfite, used to sterilize wine, to kill bacteria and to prevent growth of most wild yeast) per gallon. mix and cover (airlock - but won't bubble to until you add yeast). wait 24 hours
(2) Add yeast (you must wait at least 24 hours or the Campden tablet can make yeast less effective). cover with airlock. it should start to bubble (primary fermentation) within a day. keep it protected from light. I have my wine in a closet of a room that doesn't get much traffic and cover it with black material to decrease light exposure.
(3) if you used fresh fruit, mix every couple of days and I squeeze the bag to release the flavor. After 5-7 days, remove the pulp.
(4) have sterilized glass jar (carboy) ready and siphon liquid into jar (this is called Racking), do not stir, leave as much sediment behind as possible. discard sediment. cover and airlock. fermentation will continue, bubbles should appear, the seal should be letting the gas (carbon dioxide) out without letting anything in.
(5) I let it sit for a couple of weeks and then I will rack again (thus, it's good to have extra bottles), I taste it and see if it needs more sugar. Add to taste. Adding sugar gives yeast more food and it will bubble again, add slowly or bubbles and wine (don't waste it!) may come out of your carboy
(6) I repeat this every couple of weeks until there is little to no sediment. As it continues to ferment (secondary fermentation), your wine should start to clear up. A batch can take anywhere from 2-4 months for me. Good things come to those that wait!
(7) Once it looks clear, taste it! If it's good, bottle your homemade wine! You can buy bottles or sterilize used bottles. I find that some brands have a much easier time getting the label off. If the label doesn't come off easily, I abort. My friends save me their bottles. Or you can buy in bulk. I buy new corks like this (link). I Like the #7 size. The #8 is a bigger and harder to get in, even with the tool.
It may sound daunting and complicated, but once you give it a try, it's easy. So go ahead, try it!
to learn more about my farming adventures, click here
to learn more about my nursing journey, click here
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