Robert Cluett - Making Homemade Wine

Robert Cluett

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Cluett, Robert

Making homemade wine / by Robert Cluett

A Storey Publishing Bulletin, A-75

ISBN 978-0-88266-289-3

Wine is probably the most ancient and widespread alcoholic drink. It has been around at least several thousand years, as the literature of both the ancient Greeks and Hebrews tells us. Today, alcohol is available in a wide variety of forms: wines, beers, and distilled spirits. But it is wine that is the most popular with home brewers.

Wine is the easiest alcohol to make. It does not require the fastidious temperature control involved in brewing beer. Unlike distilled spirits, it requires no still and does not invite the curiosity of the revenue agents unless you undertake to sell the wine you produce, and we do not recommend doing that. You can make fine wines from grapes or other fruits, or you can make it from vegetables, grains, or flowers.

This bulletin will take the mystery out of making wine. We will teach you the language of winemakers and explain what ingredients and equipment are essential to the process. We will offer some reliable and delicious wine recipes, and we will tell you the cure and prevention of 11 common problems in case anything goes wrong with your wine. But we dont expect anything to go wrong. So, enjoy!

As with any specialty, winemaking has a language all its own. Before we go any further, let me introduce you to some of the terms you will come across in the text.

Champagning: The process of trapping carbonation into a still wine with a second, sealed ferment.

Cider: The customarily low-alcohol (6 to 9 percent) wine made from apples. Sometimes made sparkling, usually made still.

Fining: The removal of small-particle cloudiness from a wine.

Maderize: To cook a wine until it is like a Madeira. Wines stored at too high a temperature often will be said to be maderized.

Must: The dense liquid from which a wine begins. The point at which must stops being must and starts being wine is indefinite, but is generally conceded to be about SG (specific gravity) 1.030, or the point at which 60 percent of the sugar is converted into alcohol to give an alcoholic content of at least 7 percent.

Pearl: The carbon dioxide bubbles in a very slightly fermenting wine. Some wines, designed for a texture between champagne and still wine, are bottled when there is still a slight pearl in them.

Perry: Cider made from pears. See cider.

Plonk: A corruption of the French blanc, commonly used to denote a common white wine of French origin.

Rack: To siphon wine from one vessel to another.

Specific gravity: The density of a liquid as a fraction of the weight of water. A wine must with a lot of sugar in it will weigh between 8 percent and 12 percent more than water, hence will have a specific gravity (SG) of between 1.080 and 1.120. When these musts ferment out to the point where no sugar is left, they will give wines that weigh between 0.7 percent and 1.2 percent less than water (alcohol being lighter than water). The more alcoholic a finished dry wine is, the lower its SG.

Vinify: Literally, to turn to wine.

You do not need much equipment to make wine at home. Many of the items listed here may already be in your home. The rest should be available at any store that sells winemaking equipment. If there are no such stores in your area, you can order equipment from the suppliers listed in the back of this bulletin.

These are the pieces of equipment you will need to get started in home winemaking.

Air locks: These let carbon dioxide gas out of the carboy and prevent air from getting in. Buy one for each carboy.

Carboys: Large glass vessels used as secondary fermenters. Carboys hold 5 gallons of liquid. You need an extra empty carboy to rack wine into, so buy one more carboy than you plan to make batches of wine.

Funnel: Buy a large one.

Hose and J-tube: For siphoning and keeping the siphon level above that of the dead yeast in the bottom of the vessel.

Hydrometer set: Includes a hydrometer to measure the sugar content in the must and a tall tube.

Nylon bag: Select a fine-mesh or medium-mesh bag, measuring 2 feet by 2 feet. It is used with a mallet to make a homemade juice extractor.

Plastic sheet: To cover the vat.

Spoon: A long-handled wooden spoon works best; but a plastic one is an acceptable substitute. Used for stirring the must.

Strainer: Any large kitchen sieve will do.

String: Take a string that is 4 inches less than the circumference of

your vat, and tie the ends to a 3-inch rubber band. Then you have an elastic tightener to hold the sheet on the vat.

Titration kit: Measures the acidity of the must.

Vat: You will need a large vessel, or vat, for the initial fermenting stage. I am partial to a 17-gallon garbage pail.

Corker: For inserting corks in bottles.

Crown capper: Needed if you intend to make sparkling wines or ciders.

Crusher: Necessary for any large-scale operation that works directly from fresh fruit. It is not necessary for 10-gallon or 20-gallon batches. Crushers can be rented, but if you intend to go to press frequently you will probably want to own your own.

De-stemmer: For taking stems off fresh grapes. A large wooden spaghetti server makes an adequate substitute.

Filter and pump: These are used as a last-ditch method of clarification. I have used one once in 250 batches of homemade wine.

Gallon jugs: These are useful in the stage between carboy and bottle. Sometimes restaurants give them away.

Vinometer: Measures alcohol in wines that are fermented out and dry; it is not useful for wines with residual sugar in them.