Making wine is truly an art. ?Scientific? approach and procedures will get you so far, but to make a perfect batch of wine it will take your personal touch.
To start off, the best fruit for making wine is grape. This is truly the fruit of the ?gods? as it is the only fruit balanced in every respect. It has the right equilibrium of sugar , acids (tartaric, Malic, Ascorbic etc.), yeast nutrients, tannins, water content, etc. Most other fruits, although will produce good wines, are usually lacking either one or more compounds to attain perfection.
Wine is produced by anaerobic fermentation. The alcohol content is directly proportional to the sugar present in the juice. For more details go to www.july4-recipes.com All of the other ingredients, whether natural or supplemented, are to enhance the taste, ability of yeast to convert sugar to alcohol, catalyze the conversion process, and to add the bouquet to the finished product.
If this is your first time attempting the art, the following fool proof, easy method should be your first try. Purchase five gallons of good quality grape juice from local wine supplier or a grocery store.
If white wine is preferred, some of the better juices are: Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling, Chardonnay, Chenin Blanc.
For red Wines: Cabernet Sauvignon, Zinfandel, Merlot, Pinot Noir, Cabernet Franc.
Most of the juice producers have already sulphanated the juice (for sterilization) and added the yeast.
Open the pail, smell, and taste the juice. There should be slight wine-like odor and the juice should taste like premature sweet champagne. This indicates that the primary fermentation is on its way.
Transfer the juice to a clean five gallons sterilized carboy leaving approximately three inches from the top. Place the air trap and leave it for approximately one month.
If the juice is not fermenting and it has not been sulphanated, add two campden (sodium/potassium-metabisulphate) tablets for each one gallon of juice (10 tablets for 5 gallons). Make sure that it has dissolved completely. Crushing the tablets speeds up the process. Cover and leave for 24 hours.
The sulphur from sodium/potassium-metabisulphate, once released throughout the juice, will destroy any yeast within twenty-four hours. For more details go to www.chef-123.com .There are millions of wild spores present in the fruit, so do not play the hit and miss method with your wine. Purchase good quality wine yeast and add it to the juice following the manufacturer's instructions. It usually comes pre-packaged for five gallon batches.
The juice is usually packed in a five-gallon polyethylene/polypropylene pail. This container is perfect for primary fermentation. Make sure there is room for expansion as it will overflow. Once a day for the following week, open the pail and stir the juice with a clean ladle, plastic paddle, etc?. Place the lid on top of the pail and make sure the seal is not airtight.
It seems like the wine making process on the surface would be kind of easy but there are some intricate details. The grapes need to be guided along in the process but they do pretty much of the work for you. In order to achieve the best taste mature grapes should be exposed to a lot of sunlight, watered well and pruned correctly.
The first step in the wine making process is the harvesting of mature grapes. This is just as it sounds because it is the actual picking of the grapes off the vines. During this process be sure to carefully pick only those grapes ready to be fermented. It is during this time that you may want to de-stem the grapes as well. De-stemming can be done after the grapes are picked but some people like to do it during the harvesting process to save time. It's up to the wine maker how to do this.
Crushing the grapes for fermentation is the next step in the wine making process. There are many methods to crushing grapes and crushing is defined as the gentle squeezing of the grapes to liberate the juices from the skin. The old school method of crushing the grapes is to stomp them with bare feet to split the skins open and release the inside contents. However, there are inexpensive small crushers that can be used just as effectively. In some winemaking the stems are left in the mix to further advance fermenting. Temperature during this first fermentation phase is important to the taste of the wine.
To separate the wine juice from the skins and stems if any the next step is the pressing of the grapes. For some wines pressing is not necessary as the wine is separated during the crushing process however you can get another 15-30% of wine out of the pressing process in some cases. Then the wine is cold and heat temperature stabilized. During the cold stabilization period the wine is kept at close to freezing for 1-2 weeks. To rid it of unstable proteins after the cold stabilization the wine is heat stabilized.
Both Balwinder & Bob Hirsch are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Bob Hirsch has sinced written about articles on various topics from Food And Drink, Recipes and Do It Yourself Pest Control. Bob Hirsch is a wine making enthusiast of over 20 years. You can learn about Bob's foolproof formula for making delicious homemade wine by visiting: