My story begins with the purchase of a house near my parents. I immediately liked it, with a large and spacious area.
Also, by inheritance from the previous owners, my wife and I got a good vineyard in front of the house. Every year it gave a good harvest, there were enough berries to make compotes and eat.
Last summer, my wife and I thought about what to do with a bucket of grapes after closing many jars. As a result, we decided to use raw materials for making homemade wine, because we are adherents of everything natural, so it’s better to try using natural ingredients.
My wife supported my idea, helped me in this “difficult”, but exciting business.
This is the story of my reader Igor, who makes homemade wine.
What ingredients are required
Before starting cooking, decide on the choice of containers for aging raw materials. Wooden or glass containers are best suited for this. All containers must be perfectly clean.
To make homemade wine, you will need:
- Garden grapes – 5 kg;
- Sand sugar – 200 g per 1 liter of liquid;
- Purified water – up to 3 liters per 1 liter of pure juice.
Adding water to the pressing helps to reduce the acidity level of the future wine.
The cooking process
At the same time, it is important to cut grapes in bright sunny weather so that raindrops do not wash away the natural yeast on the berries, which is so necessary for fermentation.
In order to end up with excellent wine, I select ripe vines. I cut the grapes moderately ripe, since an unripe berry will not give proper fermentation, and an overripe one will intensify the process, but in the end the wine will have a taste of vinegar.
The quality of the must will be spoiled, so carefully monitor the maturity of the berries when harvesting.
I carefully sort out the harvested grapes, separating them from the branches, removing excess leaves, overripe fruits with traces of mold.
Attention! Carrion from the ground is also not worth taking, as it will add an earthy flavor to the drink. We process the picked bunches within 2 days.
I place the separated berries in a spacious container, crush them with clean hands to extract the juice. Do this as carefully as possible so as not to damage the bones inside. If the berries are decently collected, then a wooden mallet will help.
It is important that the released juice does not get on the stainless metal, as this will cause a reaction that can worsen the taste of the wine.
The resulting pulp in a spacious container is covered with a layer of gauze from flies and placed for 4 days in a warm place with no lighting. Twice a day I knock off a hat of berries and foam formed during the fermentation process. This is done so that the future wort does not inadvertently turn sour.
The next step is squeezing the juice. After 4 days, the pulp begins to acquire a light shade. This indicates that it is time to spin.
I pass the juice drained and squeezed from the pulp three times through gauze to clean it from sediment. If the raw material is grapes grown in the northern latitudes, then I add water to the squeezed liquid, because the must stings the tongue in its purified form.
After that, I distribute the juice into jars for fermentation. In this case, the containers must be 70% full. I install my own home water seal on each container to exclude the possibility of liquid contact with oxygen.
Maturation of wine
I place bottles for comfortable fermentation in a place where the temperature will not be lower than 22 degrees. Make sure that the temperature at the place of fermentation does not drop to 15 degrees, otherwise the yeast will not work so actively.
I add weighted sugar in stages. For the first time, I pour 50 g for each liter of liquid received. I add sugar every 4 days as it dissolves, when fermentation stops.
Important! After the end of the last stage of fermentation, sugar is no longer processed into alcohol, so I add it based on my own taste preferences. In this case, the dose of sugar does not exceed 250 g per 1 pure liter.
Next comes the stage of formation of the final taste, at this stage the wine matures from 40 to 380 days. Here I place a bottle with wine cleared of sediment in a cool place where the temperature does not exceed 16 degrees. The ideal place for ripening will be the cellar.
What result did I get
I hasten to share the result that I got during this painstaking work – an excellent wine, from which all the relatives, including myself, were delighted.
The result is a sparkling wine made from exclusively natural ingredients, with a strength of 11-13%, without the need for fixing with vodka.
In general, I think that home-made alcohol is much better than purchased. Especially if it is cooked according to the rules.
Do you make your own wine or do you drink store-bought chemicals?