Followers

Saturday 4 September 2010

Following on from the beer...WINE

First things first, I've only made a few batches of wine, and I definitely prefer my home beer.  However, I have heard that if you use your own ingredients - actual fruit, the wine tastes a lot nicer.  However, here is what I do to make wine from kits.

You will need:

A demijohn (1 gallon, as opposed to the beers 5, as wine is a lot stronger).  This is typically glass, but if you buy a plastic one they have caps and so you don't need to find a bung as well.  Tl;dr, plastic is easier, glass just looks cooler.

A demijohn cork with a hole in if you have a glass container.


Airlock












Silicon tube (there are similarities with my last list haha)




6 empty (for now) wine bottles and corks


And a hydrometer, cos wine is slightly more tricky than beer.  A simple hydrometer is fairly cheap, comes with instructions and should be available from all brew shops/online/wilkinsons



Now for the actual making!


Pour the grape juice concentrate (from your kit) into the demijohn
Add ~ 3 litres/6 pints of cold water
If you have separate sugar, dissolve it in warm water.  You shouldn't have to do this with most wine kits though
Add the sugar solution
Add water to fill up to 4.5 litres/1 gallon
Pour in the yeast
Jam in the airlock (with the little inside bit half filled with water)
Keep it in a warm room or wrap it up in a blanket and leave it for about a week
Now for your hydrometer - start taking readings.  If you want a dry wine, stop at the reading .99-.996, for a sweet wine 1.009-1.018 and medium anywhere in between.
Now take out the bung, and leave the wine for a few days.  It will slowly clear, and once it looks like wine should use the tube to get it into your wine bottles.
Cork them and your done!

Like the beer, the longer you leave your fresh brew the nicer it tastes, and this is doubly true with wine.  However, even if you don't leave it, because you're a student and just want it for a party no one will remember anyway, it's fine to drink.  Enjoy!

34 comments:

  1. mmmm the longer you let it age the finer it gets~

    ReplyDelete
  2. I will do dailies if you return the favor :D

    ReplyDelete
  3. Man I should get the tools to do this, think it could be quite fun/interesting to do.

    Keep the posts coming (Why am always spelling it with two "m"s? :P)

    ReplyDelete
  4. wow, would an awesome project to set up!
    http://anonymousforthelulz.blogspot.com/
    share the love /b/rothers.

    ReplyDelete
  5. man, maybe i'll do this one day when i have the time or money

    mantoothmusic.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  6. New follower here. Question: Is this better than just buying it off the shelf?

    ReplyDelete
  7. KC, the wine normally tastes quite poor comparative to some of the bottles you can buy, but the beer tastes similar to any microbrew. Its also about a 5th of the price in both cases.

    ReplyDelete
  8. no way.. therse no way this would work

    ReplyDelete
  9. Man I did this a long time ago and it tasted like warm bread, I swear.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Warm bread or not, the satisfaction that goes along with drinking your own drink it enormous. Great post!

    ReplyDelete
  11. House wine, you say? I'd probably have my hand with house beer first as wine looks a lot trickier to make o_O

    fffaces.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  12. I'm also enjoying blogging! What I think I enjoy the most is reading blogs like yours; they're so interesting! I'll have to try brewing my own stuff someday :)

    ReplyDelete
  13. support and love :)

    http://ahdamoh.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  14. Really useful, thanks for sharing!

    ReplyDelete
  15. A little more love and support for you..
    http://ucsdsanta-basketball4life.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  16. man nice and in-depth
    followin
    hit me back :D
    http://checkitoutbroz.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  17. Capt-n-Jack: OIC, so it's a matter of frugality rather than quality eh?

    ReplyDelete
  18. Well if you put the effort in then you can and will get quality...but personally yeah I just try to save as much money as I can haha

    ReplyDelete
  19. Supporting
    http://anonym.to/?http://gifsource.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  20. supporting.

    http://bobcombobreaker.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  21. looks very difficult. but i'll maybe try it someday.i'll support you.

    http://grizzgehtbloggen.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  22. all i have to say is, om nom nom.

    Showing some support!

    http://randommu5ings.blogspot.com/

    Give and you shall receive :)

    ReplyDelete
  23. this is really interesting thanks alot :D

    http://feenfeen.blogspot.com

    xx

    ReplyDelete
  24. 1moar followr here, keep it up mate.
    http://www.text-upload.com/read.php?id=1779&c=9249219

    ReplyDelete
  25. to tell you the truth I made wine for several years, but in comparision to my moonshine...it sucks!
    I made moonshine with grapes, cherries, hot chili peppers, walnuts, coffee seed etc.
    Every single burnt :D

    ReplyDelete
  26. Hi,

    I am from Virat Bharat. I rsaw ur blog this is very nice and very educative for our youth. if you want updates on new invention, technology, education and much more you can easily visit our website.

    http://www.viratbharat.com/Technology/Technology_News.aspx

    Thanking You
    Puneet Kardam

    ReplyDelete