Wine making simplified - For The Beginner.
- Eric R Mentzer
- Jan 19, 2014
- 3 min read
The art of home wine making is simply fermenting grape Must (juice). It also includes keeping correct temperatures, clean sterilized equipment and proper racking of wine (clarification).
Fermentation
Must is allowed to reach room temperature (65-75 degrees F) and wine yeast is added. This causes the yeast to eat the sugars in the grape Must and give off a gas and alcohol. The gas escapes and alcohol turns the juice into wine.
Fermentation has 2 phases:
1. Phase 1 – Is when yeast is added to Must. It takes 6-10 days to complete when most of the gas has stopped.
2. Phase 2 – Is when young wine is placed in a fermenting vessel like a 6 gallon glass jar with an air lock on it. The air lock allows gas to escape (you don’t want a wine explosion) and air to be kept out.
Temperatures
The fermenting room should be between 65 and 75 degrees F for proper fermentation. I personally like a slower fermentation (temperature near the bottom end of the range). Once fermentation is completed (stage 2) the new wine can be moved to a cold storage. This storage should be around 65 degrees F for young wines that will not be kept very long. For aging, the temperature should be 55 degrees F.
Sterilization of Equipment
All equipment that touches the wine MUST be sterilized each time you use them. This includes siphon hoses, glass fermentation jars, buckets you siphon into, stirring sticks, meters you use to measure wine attributes. You sterilize with Potassium metabisulfite solution.
Racking
Racking is the process of siphoning off the wine into another bucket leaving the residue (sediment) behind. The original container can be cleaned and wine re-siphoned back into it. This process clarifies the wine. All wines must be clarified (no one wants to drink wine with stuff floating in it) but whites can be seen easier and must be carefully racked. I rack 3-4 times before bottling depending on how much sediment was in the last racking.
Bottling
You can bottle by pouring wine from a jug into each bottle with a funnel. I find this to be messy and the ullage (space between bottom of cork and wine) is different in each bottle. There are wine bottlers for around $ 340 that will quickly fill a bottle and stop with the correct amount of ullage. After bottling you will need a corker machine (about $100) to put the corks into the bottles. Corks are prepared by boiling them in water for a few minutes. Finally I like a cap which is either plastic or foil and covers the top of the bottle and cork. These go onto the bottle and you dip it briefly into boiling water. The cap shrinks onto the bottle tightly. Last but not least is labeling your new bottle of wine to show off your accomplishment. It should contain the Vintage (year the grapes were picked, which is the year you bought the Must), Varietal (The type of grape e.g. Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Chianti, etc.) and country the grapes were grown in.
Storage
I like a long-term storage area at 55 degrees F to keep my wine. It is an investment especially if you have over 1,000 bottles from years ago. You can not replace the wine. Temperature, light and air are the three big enemies of wine.
