Making Your Own Wine at Home E-Book

Lori Stahl

• Herausgeber: Fox Chapel Publishing
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Seitenzahl: 154

Beschreibung

If you've been thinking of trying your hand at home winemaking, delay no longer! It's easier than you think to make wonderful wine at home. Get started today with this practical guide to making your first bottle of perfect homemade wine.Author Lori Stahl demystifies essential winemaking techniques with friendly, jargon-free instructions and gorgeous color photography. She begins by taking you step by step through making wine from a kit, and then shows you how to go beyond the kit with creative additions. Soon you'll be making your own flavorful wine from fresh grapes, apples, berries, and even flowers and herbs.This home winemaking companion offers a wide selection of seasonal winemaking recipes, new twists on traditional favorites, and sweet ways to enjoy and indulge in the wines you create. Even if you have never made wine before, Making Your Own Wine at Home will show you everything you need to master an intriguing and rewarding new hobby.

Leseprobe

Dedication

This book is dedicated to Jim and Sandy Witmyer:My appreciation for sharing Coopers Hill Farm with me and the wisdom, bounty, and insights the two of you cultivated in your vineyard and wine supply business there. A sincere wish that this book will nurture winemakers as you have nurtured me.

This book is also dedicated to Katie Stahl: For being you and for enduring life in the fray of a mom whose winemaking transformed your home into a wine lab.

INTRODUCTION

This book is meant to serve as an invitation to and a companion for someone who has never made wine before and, perhaps, as a liberating inspiration to someone who has. If you are anything like I was, a curiosity and intrigue about this ancient art has grown insatiable, and adding yeast to your first batch of wine is inevitable. I’ve written this book to hopefully give you the freedom to play at winemaking.

First, we will explore common tools, equipment, and ingredients used in winemaking. We will go through the steps of creating wine from a kit, then a concentrate. From there we will begin to jazz it up a bit, first adding fruit to a concentrate, then on to making wine from grapes, fruit, and even flowers and herbs. I’ll encourage suggestions of ways to mix it up, and I’ll share a few tales of wine-related adventures. We will visit markets, orchards, and an Amish lady’s backyard in our quest for fruit. I’ve tried to photograph as much as I could along the way, and yes, my camera did end up a little sticky, as I reached for it all too often amid fruit picking, grape crushing, and at every step of the process.

I hope to convey a bit of what was revealed to me of the rhythm of winemaking and tuning into the cycles of fermentation and of nature. I’ll share every tip I’ve discovered and even confess to some amusing blunders. I’ll encourage that you create a community to share in your winemaking and your wine. I’ll offer new twists on traditional recipes and sweet ways to enjoy, appreciate, and indulge in the wines you have created.

I hope this book encourages you to take the first steps on what has been a very enjoyable path for me, and I hope the first time you uncork your very first batch of wine, the aroma delights you and the liquid reveals to you the essence of that which you have fermented.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1: GETTING STARTED

EQUIPMENT

INGREDIENTS

TECHNIQUES

BOTTLING, STORAGE, AND LABELING

CHAPTER 2: STEP-BY-STEP WINEMAKING

MAKING WINE FROM A KIT

MAKING WINE FROM CONCENTRATE

CHAPTER 3: DELICIOUS GRAPE, FRUIT & HERB RECIPES

ALMOND

APPLE

APRICOT

BANANA SPICE

BLACKBERRY

BLUEBERRY

CHERRY

CRANBERRY

CURRANT

FIG

WINE MADE FROM GRAPES

Old Vine Zinfandel

Cabernet Sauvignon

Concord

Seyval Blanc

Vidal Blanc

Riesling

MULBERRY

PARSLEY

PAW PAW

PEACH

PEAR

PLUM

PLUOT

PUMPKIN

RASPBERRY

STRAWBERRY

WATERMELON

SANGRIA

MULLED WINE

CHAPTER 4: ENJOYING YOUR WINE

ACCESSORIES

FOOD AND WINE PAIRING

THE FINAL WORD

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

SUPPLIERS

INDEX

Creative Ingredients for Delicious Wine

Get your adventure in winemaking started with the diverse array of recipes inside this book. You’ll get the straight scoop on how to make wines from kits, concentrates, fresh fruit, and beyond. Whether your taste is Chardonnay, Riesling, or a funky fruit wine, you’ll love trying your hand at the 29 amazing recipes found in these pages.

Chapter 1

GETTING STARTED

Read up on the basics before you jump into winemaking to ensure your success and save you time and money. In this chapter, you’ll learn about winemaking equipment, essential and optional ingredients, typical winemaking techniques, and how to bottle, store, and label your finished masterpieces. You’ll also get a special look at growing your own ingredients and meet five talented people—farmers, suppliers, chemists, and artists—who have worked some aspect of winemaking into their lives.

EQUIPMENT

First, you must familiarize yourself with some of the terminology, equipment, and ingredients used in winemaking. This may seem daunting, but fear not; a few basics are all you need to get started.

The basic equipment you’ll need for making wine is simple:

•  Bucket (to start your wine in, called a primary fermenter)

•  Jug (to finish your wine in, called a carboy or secondary fermenter)

•  Bottles and corks (to store your finished wine)

•  Clear tubing (a way to move your wine from container to container)

•  Airlock with bung (to protect your wine during fermentation)

•  Thermometer (very useful during fermentation)

•  Hydrometer (also useful during fermentation)

From left to right, back row: 5-gallon carboy, 6-gallon carboy, 3-gallon carboy; front row: 1-gallon jug/secondary fermenter, 1/2-gallon jug/secondary fermenter.

Equipment for home winemaking can be easily found and is not too expensive.

As you delve deeper into home winemaking, you’ll want to acquire other helpful tools, including a scale, measuring spoons that include a ⅛ teaspoon (0.5mL), straining bags, a long stirring spoon, and a drill attachment with paddles. Other kitchen tools that can multitask for winemaking include potato mashers, measuring cups, and, of course, bottles, corks, corkscrews, and all sorts of clever tools for decanting and serving wine (more on that in chapter 4, Enjoying Your Wine). Another useful tool is a heating pad. This unlikely tool can be really helpful if your winemaking space is not at an optimal temperature. On many a cold winter’s night I’ve tucked one between two primary fermenters to help the yeast get off to a good start. As you progress in your winemaking, you should also add acid and pH test kits and filtration systems to your stash of tools.

Descriptions of common winemaking equipment follow. Some of these items will make more sense after you’ve read and understood the winemaking techniques. Refer back to this section as needed.

Winemaker’s journal

One of the most important pieces of winemaking equipment is the tablet, notebook, or journal that you dedicate to your winemaking activities. Write down information about your ingredients, your equipment, your successes, and your failures. Include anything that will help you improve your next batch.

Primary fermenter

A primary fermenter is a vessel in which a batch of wine is started. Most commonly used is a 6-gallon (22.7L) bucket made of a special food-grade plastic with markings on the side to denote fill levels and a plastic lid with a small rubber gasketed hole for an airlock. You can also use a glass primary fermenter (or “primary” for short), but this will change how you should set up the primary. As the yeast consumes the sugars, they are converted into alcohol and carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide needs somewhere to go; if you were to seal a primary fermenter tightly, eventually the pressure would build up such that the primary would most likely explode and make a mess. If you are using a bucket as a primary, an airlock will fit into the rubber gasketed hole, and the gas will escape through that airlock. If you are using a glass jar as a primary, leave the lid slightly askew or prop it open with something to allow the gas to escape. Also, if it is summer, I highly advise using something to cover the entire opening of the primary, because it will attract fruit flies.

Primary fermenter with fill level markings

Secondary fermenter

Use a secondary fermenter to complete the fermentation. Common sizes include a one-gallon (3.8L) jug, and a three-, five-, six-, or thirteen-gallon

(11.4, 18.9, 22.7, or 49.2L) carboy (sometimes referred to as a demijohn). These vessels are typically glass; some sizes are available in plastic. See photo on page 14. Wine should never be kept in anything less than a high grade PET plastic carboy made for fermenting. You cannot simply use old milk jugs or water cooler jugs—that plastic is not the appropriate density for alcohol storage and may cause problems or a chemical taste in the wine.

Carboys

Carboys are often used for secondary fermentations. These large containers are most often made of glass or plastic. A tapered top closes to a small spout. See photo on page 14.

Glass primary fermenter, an alternative to plastic

A NOTE ABOUT METRICS

This book includes metric conversions for all measurements, including pounds, fluid ounces, gallons, cups, tablespoons, teaspoons, and inches. Metric equivalents are occasionally rounded for ease of use where the rounding will not interfere with the successful execution of the recipes. Note that some aspects of the recipes are difficult to convert conveniently, such as the use of one-gallon fermenters, which is equivalent to a 3.8L volume, but which is not a commonly available size in countries that utilize the metric system. Adapt the recipes as necessary to suit your tools and abilities. Anyone preparing a recipe from the metric measurements can double check the measurements if needed to ensure best results.

Airlock

A bung and airlock are inserted in the opening of the primary fermenter and provide a way for gas to escape the wine.

Siphon

Airlock

An airlock provides a clever way for gas to be released from the wine by letting it bubble out through a barrier that prevents anything unwanted from entering the wine. Several styles of airlocks are available. The most common are plastic (see photo); I prefer plastic because they show how rapidly the fermentation is bubbling. (I also had a terrible experience when a glass airlock broke, causing shards of glass to fall into my wine.)

Bung

A bung is a rubber stopper with a hole for an airlock that is inserted into the opening of the primary fermenter.

Auto siphon/siphon tube

The auto siphon/siphon tube moves wine from vessel to vessel. Gravity is your friend in this process, as you’ll put the wine you are racking up on a table and the jug you are going into down lower. An auto siphon is pumped; to use a siphon tube you must create suction by sucking on the hose and probably getting a mouthful of whatever you’re making. (It’s important to note that getting a mouthful is way more fun as wines are finishing than it is early on in a fermentation.) Don’t pour the wine between vessels; the splashing introduces too much oxygen into the process.

Thermometer

A thermometer is very important to monitor temperature throughout the winemaking process. Wine thermometers float. I like to use an 8" (20cm) glass thermometer, which is inexpensive and comes in handy at many points in the process.

Hydrometer

A hydrometer is a gauge that can help guide you in your fermentations and help calculate the alcohol in your wine. It’s not strictly necessary when you are just starting out

with kits.

Corker

A corker is a device that puts a cork in a bottle. I’d highly advise getting a floor model because the handheld ones can be tricky to work with. This piece of equipment is easily shared if you have other winemaking friends.

Bottle filler

A bottle filler attaches to the siphon tube and is used when bottling your wine; it’s an important tool to have because you do not want your wine to splash and get oxidized when going into the bottle. It lets wine flow when you push down on it, releasing a stop valve.

Hydrometer

Corker

Bottle filler

Crusher

Wine press

Bottle tree (a bottle washer)

Wine thief

A wine thief is a clever little gadget that allows you to dip it into a carboy and pull out a small volume of wine to use for testing (and tasting—but try to resist, as you’ll need to keep things topped up).

Crusher

A crusher is used to crush and take stems out of grapes. Crushers can be anything from a simple tabletop hand-cranked machine to a large, elaborate motorized wizard. The original “crusher” was the classic people walking on the grapes with their feet; you can also do your crushing by hand. Crushers are expensive, but do come in handy if you are processing large quantities of grapes.

Press

A press is used to extract every bit of goodness out of grapes. When choosing a press, larger may not be better unless you plan to work with large quantities of grapes. Purchase a press directly from a wine supply store to avoid costly shipping expenses.

Refractometer

A refractometer is used to measure the brix (amount of sugar) in grapes. It helps to decide when to harvest grapes and how to handle initial fermentation decisions.

Bottle washers

Bottle washers and bottle draining stands come in a variety of shapes and sizes and can be very helpful, as sanitation is key in winemaking.

Bottle cleaning funnel

Bottle cleaning brush

Bottle cleaners

Bottle cleaning tools such as a bottle brush or a funnel with tiny stainless steel ball bearings are used to get tough stains from hard to reach places in bottles and carboys. You may want to have a few sizes of brushes on hand: smaller ones for wine bottles and a larger one with a band for carboys.

Apps

Some great apps out there are ultra helpful with the task of making conversions. (In my winemaking, it seems that I am forever making conversions!)

Straining tools

Straining is a big part of winemaking. Straining bags are often used by winemakers to keep fruit contained during fermentations and to make it easier to transfer wine from the primary to the secondary fermenter. Personally, I do not use them often in my recipes, simply because I make an absurd number of batches of wine and I’m seldom, if ever, in any kind of a hurry for my wines. I do find it very helpful to squeeze any citrus needed in winemaking recipes over a strainer to keep the juice free of seeds and pulp. Some great funnels on the market have strainers built into them, saving you a step.

Phone apps

Strainer

INGREDIENTS

Here you’ll learn all of the essential winemaking ingredients. Read them over now so that you are ready when you tackle the recipes.

Fruit

Fruit should be of fine quality and very ripe but still in great shape. If there are any bad spots, cut them off before winemaking. You can use fresh, frozen, canned, and dried fruits. Fresh is typically best, but in midwinter, anything goes. Freezing can actually be better for some fruits, since it breaks the fruit down, releasing more juice, but it’s best to freeze your own rather than buy frozen. Try freezing berries and some grapes.

Use the fruit of your choice.

Flowers and herbs are a creative ingredient.

Flowers and herbs

Flowers and herbs can be lovely additions to or the dominant ingredient in wines. We’ll learn more about this in the recipe section.

Water

Spring water is always a safe bet; never use distilled or deionized water. Water can add flavor, so the area you live in will determine whether you can use well water or treated municipal tap water. In some areas well water has high mineral content that can ruin the taste of the wine. Similarly, in some areas the municipal water is highly chlorinated, so you may want to let it stand overnight to allow the chlorine to dissipate; but not all municipalities chlorinate their water to the point that you need to let it stand. Be aware that letting water stand does offer an opportunity for bacteria to infect it.

Sugar

Sugar feeds the yeast and is converted to alcohol. One of the very best types of pure cane sugar to use in winemaking is the traditional white sugar. There are many other types of sweeteners that can be fermented: agave, honey, maple, brown sugar, brown rice syrup, and malt. For the recipes in this book, I advise pure cane sugar.

Sugar feeds the yeast and is converted into alcohol.

The ingredients in wine go beyond good fruit. You will also need various nutrients, yeasts, tablets, and other additives.

Yeast

Yeast is what makes the magic happen: fermentation. There are many kinds and brands of yeast available, and most come in small 2 oz. (5g) packets. We will learn more about using yeast as we get into the examples and recipes.

Hydrating yeast

Campden tablets

Campden tablets are a very easy way to add sulfite, especially in small wine batches that only need very small quantities of sulfite. Early on, sulfite serves to kill unwanted natural yeast and bacteria, and later in the process serves as a preservative.

Campden tablets

Additives and Their Uses

The following, less obvious ingredients used in winemaking are often just as important as the main ingredients. Purchase additives like the ones described in the chart following in small quantities, and be sure to store them in an airtight container.

Additives are usually grains or powders.

Additive

Uses

Components

Potassium metabisulfite

Potassium, or sodium, metabisulfite is used in cleaning, as a preservative, and to kill wild yeast. Potassium is preferred over sodium for preserving your wine. Use extreme care when working with this chemical. When possible, work outside when measuring. You do not want to take in a strong whiff of this; it is nasty stuff. Take the time to look up the Material Safety Data Sheet (otherwise known as the MSDS) for it and familiarize yourself with recommended handling procedures.

—

Acid

Acid is used in most fruit wine recipes. It influences color, balance, and taste and gives a crisp tartness; without it, wines can taste flat. Acid also helps yeast during fermentation and protects wine from bacteria.

Older wine recipes often specified one type of acid. Most modern recipes call for acid blend, which is a combination of citric, tartaric, and malic acids.

Tannin

Tannin is added to some wines to increase flavor (it adds zest) and to help with clearing and aging. The recipes in this book include amounts for tannin powder. Tannin is found naturally in some fruits, like grapes, persimmon, blueberry, pomegranate, acai berries, and quince. But most fruits lack tannins. There are also wood tannins that dissolve into wine through contact with oak.

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Yeast nutrient

Yeast nutrient is essentially just what the name says: food for yeast. It contributes nitrogen, which helps wine yeast to reproduce and makes for good, healthy fermentations.

Nutrient often contains food grade urea and diammonium phosphate.

Yeast energizer

Yeast energizer is like yeast nutrient on steroids. (I mean this metaphorically; you are not literally adding steroids!) The energizer contains all sorts of proteins and vitamin B1 to benefit the yeast and boost fermentation.

Energizer often contains diammonium phosphate, springcell, and magnesium sulphate.

Pectic enzyme

Pectic enzyme is ultra helpful to the fruit winemaking process. The recipes in this book call for a powdered form of pectic enzyme. When added to crushed fruit, pectic enzyme increases the extraction of body and color from the pulp and allows more of the character of the fruit to be appreciated in the wine. It also helps to clear your wine; without it, wines end up with a hazy, almost milky look about them.

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Potassium sorbate