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She has over ten years of experience in creative, academic, and professional writing. How marks an article as reader-approved once it receives enough positive feedback. This article has been viewed 2,002,555 times. If you’re a wine lover, you’ve probably dreamed of making your own wine right at home.
Luckily, with the right tools and ingredients, you can! Once you get the hang of it, you can experiment with different fruits until you find the wine that’s perfect for you. In addition to the wine ingredients, you’ll need a few basic supplies to ensure that your wine can age without being affected by bugs or bacteria. Home winemaking shouldn’t be expensive, so it’s not necessary to splurge on special equipment. Wine can be made with any type of fruit, though grapes and berries are the most popular choices. Choose fruit at the peak of its flavor. It’s best to choose organic fruit that hasn’t been treated with chemicals, since you don’t want these to end up in your wine.
If possible, use fruit you’ve picked yourself or buy some from a farmer’s market. Take off the stems and leaves, and make sure the fruit doesn’t have particles of dirt or grit. Rinse the fruit thoroughly and place it in your crock. You can peel the fruit before crushing, but much of the flavor of the wine will come from its skin. Peeling it will result in a much milder wine. Some winemakers choose not to wash the fruit before crushing.
Since fruit has natural yeasts on its skin, it’s possible to make wine using only the yeast from the fruit’s skin and the air. Using a clean potato masher or your hands, crush and squeeze the fruit to release its juices. If you don’t have enough fruit and juice to fill the crock almost to the top, top it off with filtered water. Add a Campden tablet, which releases sulphur dioxide into the mixture, killing wild yeast and bacteria. If you’re making wild yeast wine, don’t take steps to kill the yeast. As an alternative to using a tablet, you can pour 2 cups of boiling water over the fruit.
Using tap water can affect the taste of your wine, since it contains additives. Be sure to use filtered or spring water. Honey provides food for the yeast and sweetens your wine. The amount of honey you use will directly affect the sweetness of your wine. If you prefer sweeter wine, add more honey.
If you don’t like it as sweet, limit your honey to 2 cups. Take the type of fruit you’re using into account as well. Since grapes have a high sugar content, you don’t need to add a lot of honey to grape wine. You can always add more honey later if your wine doesn’t come out as sweet as you like.
If you’re using your own yeast, now is the time to add it. Pour it into the crock and stir it into the mixture with a long-handled spoon. This mixture is called a must. If you’re making wild yeast wine, you can skip this step. Cover the crock and store overnight.
It’s important to use a cover that will keep bugs out but allow air to flow in and escape the crock. You can use a crock lid designed for this purpose or stretch a cloth or t-shirt over the opening and secure it in place with a large rubber band. Place the covered crock in a warm area with a temperature around 70 degrees overnight. Putting the crock in a cool place won’t facilitate the growth of the yeast. Stir the must few times per day. The day after you make the mixture, uncover it and stir it thoroughly, and recover. Do this every 4 hours or so the first day, then keep stirring a few times per day for the next 3 days.