Making Homebrew Wine from Kits
Thinking of Making your own Wine? Making 6 bottles of quality wine is an easy and rewarding pastime! It costs a lot less than you would pay in a supermarket or off licence. The following notes take you through the basics:
What you will need
- Sterilising powder
- 1 Gallon fermenting vessel like a demijohn (glass or plastic). 2 vessels are preferable.
- Plastic funnel and long spoon
- Air lock and bung
- Hydrometer (optional)
- Syphon Tubing
- Wine Kit (this will include the yeast and finings)
- Sugar ( some kits do not require additional sugar)
- 6 X 750ml wine bottles
- Corks
- Wine corker (optional)
Once you have bought the essential equipment at around £20, a bottle or wine can cost you as little as £1-10p.
Sterilising
Make up 1 gallon of sterilising solution with warm water in the demijohn and agitate so that every part of vessel is reached and leave for about 5 minutes.
Use the same solution to sterilise all the other equipment.
Rinse everything thoroughly in cold water.
Sterilising is now complete.
Water Treatment
You will need to add water to the grape concentrate supplied with the kit. You may prefer to de-chlorinate the water before you start by allowing the cold water to stand overnight in another clean container covered with a tea towel.
This enables the chlorine to escape so that it doesn’t interfere with the fermentation process.
Starting the wine kit and fermentation
Follow the instructions that come with the kit. You will need to leave your demijohn in a warm place (20 to 25 deg C) to ferment. The fermentation process will normally take about 3/4 weeks to finish. This will be when the bubbles almost stop coming through the air lock. A hydrometer is useful at this stage as it will give you the finishing specific gravity and confirm that the target figure has been achieved.
Degassing and Stabilising
The quality of the wine will be improved if the wine is racked off (syphoned) into another demijohn leaving the sediment behind. Residual carbon dioxide gas can then be removed by stirring the wine or swirling the vessel. At this stage potassium sorbate is often added to stabilise the wine so that no further fermentation will occur after bottling.
Clearing
Finings are added as described in the kit instructions.
Bottling
When the wine is nice and clear it can be syphoned into clean bottles and corked
Drinking
The wine is very acceptable to drink at bottling time but will improve if allowed to mature for a few more weeks. You will be surprised how good the drinking is!
The quality of the wines are better than ever these days and you can choose wines from around the world rivalling many of the commercial products available elsewhere.
Once you’re hooked you can make wine in 30 bottle kits at even a better price per bottle!