Make Good Homemade Red Wine - Cheap and Easy
How about some good homemade red wine for about $2 a bottle? No problem.
I am not talking about using an inferior grape or grape juice.
I'm talking about wine from a vinifera grape, the best grapes in the world for wine making.
Let's do some home wine making.
First you have to have a supplier of grape juice preferably in your local area.
In the metropolitan Philadelphia area there are several places I can get wine grape juice originating from Italy, California and Chile.
It comes in refrigerated 6 gallon pails.
The average price is about $50 per pail depending on the variety of grape.
Six gallons will yield approximately 30 bottles maximum (there will be a little waste).
At best that is $50 divided by 29 bottles, so that gives us $1.
72 per bottle.
This assumes that you are not buying new bottles which can cost you about $1 a piece.
Save your bottles and / or get more from your wine drinking friends.
OK, let's get started.
This is how to make wine.
After you have your pails of grape juice in your basement...
here's how I do it.
I buy 4 pails of juice.
I pour about 3 inches of juice out of each pail into another clean pail.
(Remember that sanitary conditions are the number 1 rule for wine making.
You must clean all tools and pails with a solution of potassium metabisulfite.
You can get this and other wine supplies from a local wine supply store or on the web.
) So now I have 5 pails about 80% full.
I then add a packet of yeast to each pail.
The yeast should be the type best suited to the type of wine you are making - ask your supplier.
Replace the tops of the pails onto each pail (loose is fine as we just want to keep things or critters from getting into the wine).
About 2 weeks later I siphon the new wine out of the pails into glass carboys (5 gallon or 6.
5 gallon glass jugs) or into a stainless steel variable capacity tank.
With using the carboys you may need extra bottles to make sure that you don't end up with a carboy being half full.
For example if you are doing 24 gallons (4 full pails) then that works out to about two 5 gallon carboys and two 6.
5 gallon carboys to equal about 24 gallons minus some waste.
The stainless steel variable capacity tank has a lid that floats on the surface of the tank so it makes the logistics easier.
While siphoning the wine into these containers, make sure that you leave the lees behind in the pails.
The lees are that stuff at the bottom of the pail that is left over from the yeast and the fermentation process.
I find that by using wine juice I typically don't have very much sediment; hence less racking (siphoning from one container to another) is required.
After the racking is complete, add some metabisulfite to the wine (per instructions).
My stainless steel tank has a valve at the bottom.
About 6 months after racking I start to tap the wine (first with a glass then later with bottles).
You will know when it is ready to drink.
If you don't have a stainless steel tank, you will have to siphon the wine into clean bottles.
Cork them.
Then open and drink with food and friends! Salud! For more information on home wine making tips, techniques, stories and wine recipes visit http://homewinemaking.
thepinot.
com
I am not talking about using an inferior grape or grape juice.
I'm talking about wine from a vinifera grape, the best grapes in the world for wine making.
Let's do some home wine making.
First you have to have a supplier of grape juice preferably in your local area.
In the metropolitan Philadelphia area there are several places I can get wine grape juice originating from Italy, California and Chile.
It comes in refrigerated 6 gallon pails.
The average price is about $50 per pail depending on the variety of grape.
Six gallons will yield approximately 30 bottles maximum (there will be a little waste).
At best that is $50 divided by 29 bottles, so that gives us $1.
72 per bottle.
This assumes that you are not buying new bottles which can cost you about $1 a piece.
Save your bottles and / or get more from your wine drinking friends.
OK, let's get started.
This is how to make wine.
After you have your pails of grape juice in your basement...
here's how I do it.
I buy 4 pails of juice.
I pour about 3 inches of juice out of each pail into another clean pail.
(Remember that sanitary conditions are the number 1 rule for wine making.
You must clean all tools and pails with a solution of potassium metabisulfite.
You can get this and other wine supplies from a local wine supply store or on the web.
) So now I have 5 pails about 80% full.
I then add a packet of yeast to each pail.
The yeast should be the type best suited to the type of wine you are making - ask your supplier.
Replace the tops of the pails onto each pail (loose is fine as we just want to keep things or critters from getting into the wine).
About 2 weeks later I siphon the new wine out of the pails into glass carboys (5 gallon or 6.
5 gallon glass jugs) or into a stainless steel variable capacity tank.
With using the carboys you may need extra bottles to make sure that you don't end up with a carboy being half full.
For example if you are doing 24 gallons (4 full pails) then that works out to about two 5 gallon carboys and two 6.
5 gallon carboys to equal about 24 gallons minus some waste.
The stainless steel variable capacity tank has a lid that floats on the surface of the tank so it makes the logistics easier.
While siphoning the wine into these containers, make sure that you leave the lees behind in the pails.
The lees are that stuff at the bottom of the pail that is left over from the yeast and the fermentation process.
I find that by using wine juice I typically don't have very much sediment; hence less racking (siphoning from one container to another) is required.
After the racking is complete, add some metabisulfite to the wine (per instructions).
My stainless steel tank has a valve at the bottom.
About 6 months after racking I start to tap the wine (first with a glass then later with bottles).
You will know when it is ready to drink.
If you don't have a stainless steel tank, you will have to siphon the wine into clean bottles.
Cork them.
Then open and drink with food and friends! Salud! For more information on home wine making tips, techniques, stories and wine recipes visit http://homewinemaking.
thepinot.
com
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