Wine Ever: December 2012

Wine

1 qt. of fruit, any kind
1 package of active yeast
2 cups of sugar
1 gallon of water (separated as 1 cup hot water, 2 cups warm water and 13 cups)
Colander or cheese cloth
Container with tight-fitting lid

How to Make Homemade Wine - It's Simple!

How to Make Homemade Wine

Using the fruit of your choice, crush the fruit with a masher or fork, any kind of utensil that will give you a smooth consistency. Put the fruit into a clean 1 gallon container.

Combine the 2 cups of sugar into 1 cup of hot water. Dissolve the sugar completely, and let this set until it cools to room temperature. After the mixture is cool, add it to the fruit and stir.

In 2 cups of warm water, dissolve the package of active yeast and mix thoroughly. As you mix, you may notice foaming. This is completely normal. Add this mixture to the fruit and sugar mixture.

Pour the other 13 cups of water into the container and stir everything together. Place a lid on this and place it in a dark, cool place for a couple of weeks to let the fermentation take place.

Once the mixture has fermented, strain it through a cheese cloth or colander to insure a smooth consistency. Pour your wine into a container, and it's ready for use! Use it yourself for a relaxing after dinner drink, or show it off when company comes.

There are many other flavors of wines you can make yourself. There are also other methods you can use. Once you learn how to make this basic wine, you will soon be a wine connoisseur!

Well, now you know how to make homemade wine - enjoy!

Find more tips on how to make homemade wine, and turn your wine making passion into a money saving hobby! Your friends and family will love it.

This article will take you deep inside the sometimes twisted world of making your own homemade wine at home. We are going to explore something you don't hear very much about: stabilization.

When you ferment your juice or must for the first 7 to 10 days, you can see and hear the fermentation going on. You'll hear it fizz and you'll see it bubble, and you'll smell the aromas.

Wine

After that first 7 to 10 days, you'll rack your wine into a secondary fermenter and wait a month or more for your homemade wine to complete it's fermentation. While the wine is in the secondary, it will have an airlock on it and you'll be able to see bubbles in the airlock: proof that the wine is still fermenting.

How to Make Wine - Stabilizing Your Wine

After a month or so - everything seems to stop. No bubbles, the wine is clear, and it appears that it's finished. This is the point that many amateur homemade winemaker's mess up.

They go right ahead and bottle it. BIG problem.

What is really happening on a microscopic level is that the yeast in the wine is still consuming the small amount of sugar that is still present. You can't see it or tell it's happening, but it is.

If you bottle the wine at this point, the yeast will still consume the sugar, even while the wine is in the bottle. And of course, one of the natural by products of the process is the release of carbon dioxide.

Over a month of so, the pressure from the carbon dioxide will build up and pressurize the bottle. The pressure will finally get to the point that it will blow the cork out of the bottle and then a gurgling foamy mass of wine mixed with carbon dioxide will begin streaming out of the bottle. If the bottle is sitting upright, this usually only causes a small mess. But if it's sitting on it's side - I think you get the picture - wine EVERYWHERE.

What to do to prevent this? Simple.

Add Potassium Sorbate, a preservative used in 1,000's of foods, 3 or 4 days BEFORE you bottle the wine.

Potassium Sorbate inhibits or stops the yeast from multiplying. If it can't multiply or reproduce, then the yeast cells that are alive at the time will die off within a day or so but there will be no new yeast cells to take their place. In essence, you have halted the fermentation process.

Now, it's safe to bottle the wine with no worries of your corks popping off!

There are many online and offline "How to make Wine" books that cover this aspect of winemaking. BUT, there are also many guides that leave this simple step out. so BEWARE Be sure you do this step or you'll have a huge mess.

How to Make Wine - Stabilizing Your Wine

Don't want your wine all over the floor? Want a FREE Winemaking guide that DOES include stabilization (and other secrets)? You can get a 24 page Instant Download at How To Make Wine. A complete homemade winemaking guide that will take you step by step through the process of making your own wine at home. Get it at How to Make Wine .