Can Wine Be Made at Home? Included: Making Methods and Precautions

Wine is a fruit wine made from grapes as the raw material. It can both help with sleep and beautify and nourish the skin, making it one of many friends' favorites. So can you also make wine at home yourself? What tools are needed to make wine? What are the methods for making wine? Let me answer these for you!

One: Tools needed for winemaking:

1. Primary fermentation vessel. It is recommended to use a glass jar, glass vat, glass bottle, ceramic vat, stainless steel bottle, or plastic bottles, plastic jars, etc. that can tolerate alcohol and are harmless to people. Size does not matter.

2. Secondary fermentation container and wine storage container. You can use empty wine bottles, beverage bottles, mineral water bottles, etc.

3. A thin plastic tube. Used after fermentation is complete to siphon the wine out of the fermentation container.

4. A wooden stick or chopsticks. Used during fermentation to stir the grape skins and grape juice.

5. Stockings or fine gauze. Used to filter the wine juice.

Two: Materials for making wine:

Very simple. The main ingredient is ripe, deeply colored grapes, such as Jufeng, Muscat Hamburg, etc. under amateur conditions. The auxiliary ingredient is rock sugar or white sugar. The weight ratio of grapes to sugar used for fermentation is 10:1.

Three: Steps needed to make wine:

1. Crushing. After washing ripe red grapes clean with clear water, remove the stems and green berries, moldy berries, broken berries, etc., put them into a disinfected container (small vat), and crush them by hand or mash them. But before doing this, you must first wash your hands, wooden stick, container, etc. once with potassium permanganate water, then rinse once with clear water, and only then proceed, to prevent contamination by miscellaneous bacteria. At the same time, be careful not to use metal tools and containers such as iron or copper (or use a clean aluminum spoon in a cup after disinfection) to mash the grapes.

2. Fermentation. Fermentation is the process in which the sugar in the grape skin and juice produces alcohol and carbon dioxide through the action of yeast. In the primary fermentation process of red wine, the skins and juice are mixed together. The yeast has already been introduced into the juice when the grapes are crushed, because yeast exists on the white frost on grape skins, so when making wine at home, no additional yeast needs to be added during fermentation.

The fermentation temperature is best at 15~25°C, and should not exceed 35°C. However, when fermenting in a small container, heat dissipation is easier, and generally it can be kept from exceeding 32°C.

After the skins and juice are put into the container, fermentation generally begins after about one day. The liquid surface is initially calm. At this time, weak carbon dioxide bubbles have already begun to appear, indicating that the yeast has begun to reproduce. After 2~3 days, a large amount of carbon dioxide is released, the skins and pomace float up and form a cap layer, and when the juice is tasted, the sweetness gradually decreases and the wine flavor gradually increases.

During fermentation, the floating grape skins should be pressed down into the juice twice a day with disinfected chopsticks. On the one hand, this prevents the grape skins from becoming moldy and turning sour. At the same time, it can soak the pigments on the skins into the juice and release CO2, allowing the yeast to obtain oxygen and making fermentation more vigorous.

After the peak, the fermentation momentum begins to weaken. At this point, sugar can be added. The sugar should be dissolved using the raw grape wine, not added after dissolving the sugar in water. After the white sugar is completely dissolved, continue fermentation in the container. Finally, when carbon dioxide release becomes weak and nearly calm, the alcohol smell is very strong, the sugar content decreases to below 1%, and the liquid begins to become clear, fermentation is finished. Then press to separate the skins from the juice.

3. Pressing. The pressing method is to use a clean cloth bag or gauze to squeeze or wring it, and the red wine liquid flows out, which is called raw wine.

4. Clarify by adding egg white. About one egg white is added to 30 milliliters of raw grape wine. The method is to beat the egg white into a foam, fully stir and mix it with a small amount of wine, then add it to the wine, stir thoroughly and let it stand until the wine liquid is clear and transparent, then discard the sediment.

5. Adding sugar to the wine. Most people are used to thinking that wine should be sweet. Therefore, the grapes need to be sweetened and blended. The amount of sugar added is about 12~14%. When dissolving the sugar, use the raw wine to stir and dissolve it.

Four: Precautions:

1. All kinds of containers must be washed clean. During the winemaking process, grapes must not come into contact with oil stains, iron utensils, copper utensils, tin utensils, etc., but they can come into contact with clean stainless steel products.

2. During fermentation, the lid of the fermentation vessel must not be sealed tightly, to prevent explosion.

3. Do not add too much sugar, as that will affect the fermentation process and produce components we do not want. If you want to drink sweet wine, you can add sugar when drinking after fermentation is complete.

4. Although the wine is good to drink, pay attention to moderation.