Making homemade wine the easy fun way

When you first look at making homemade wine with the idea of sharing it with your friends you probably have a few concerns.  One of the questions that might come up is whether your friends will like the taste of your wine? Another is the possibility that there is something wrong with the way you’ve created your wine? Could it be poisonous? Have you made a mistake in the preparation?

Here are some important tips you can use to help solve those concerns.

1. Finding a good reliable recipe to follow. Not improvising but being teachable and following the advice of the expert whose recipe you are using will eliminate many problems.
2. Working with the best equipment you can afford. Not just the things that you’d find in your kitchen that may have been used to prepare of all types of different food. If you can purchase specialist equipment from a winemaking store.
3. Keeping the equipment you use properly cleaned and sterilized is essential. Not paying attention to this is so often the reason for poor results.
4. Controlling oxidation by checking acid levels and eliminating contamination of by the wrong kind of yeast or bacteria.  (Use campden tablets) This will help stop nasty surprises when you first taste your wine.
5. Getting the right yeast activation is very important so using good quality wine making yeast and following the instructions paying particular attention to the temperature will yield best results.  Too hot or too cold causes problems. You don’t want the yeast re-fermenting at the wrong time in the winemaking process.




6. Use a hydrometer to get the sugar levels right. This is important for setting the alcohol content of your wine which should be around 12%. Having the process go well is helped by balancing the sugar content with your wine yeast.
7. Letting the wine settle properly will prevent sediments getting into your final product. When siphoning avoid getting too close to the unwanted bottom layer.
8. Having a permanent place to store your wine while it matures. Letting it remain undisturbed will definitely enhance the quality of your wine.

Successful winemaking that really will impress your family and friends comes down to taking your time not rushing the process and following the instructions of your recipe as closely as you can.  One of the big causes of failing to create great tasting wine is interfering when you should be patient let nature do its work.

Don’t worry if your first efforts are not perfect. Learn from your mistakes. Try to analyze where you may have gone wrong and improve that area with you next batch.

Here’s to your next great vintage of homemade wine that you can serve to your friends with pride.

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