Author Topic: Totally New at This.. Don't know where to start! Grapes and Wine  (Read 3868 times)

Karen Atkinson

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I inherited a vine on my lottie. The grapes are dark purple and have seeds. This is as much as I know. I'd like to try wine-making but haven't a clue where to start. Need an ABC, in easy steps, from start to finish. Can anyone help?

squeezyjohn

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Re: Totally New at This.. Don't know where to start! Grapes and Wine
« Reply #1 on: September 18, 2012, 12:39:58 »
Well it's basically as simple or as difficult as you want to make it!

At it's simplest - crush the grapes and press out as much of the juice as you can get for white wine or leave the mushed up grapes on the skins to make red wine - only straining the juice off after a week or so.  You can add wine yeast or use the yeast growing naturally on the skins of the grapes (which can be a bit hit and miss).

You can add sugar if you don't think your grapes are sweet enough to make a decent wine - but most don't.

The only thing to be really meticulous about is making sure that everything the grapes or wine touches from start to finish has been sterilised by heating (steam, boiling, baking the bottles in the oven) - or chemically (by soaking in sodium metabisulphite or another sterilising solution).  Also keep everything covered at all times so that no nasties get in your wine - but bear in mind that the gas produced in fermentation needs to be able to escape - that's why glass jars with airlocks are normally used for home-brewing.

You can normally start it off in a clean bucket and worry about where you're going to strain it in to after a week or two has gone by - that should give you time.

Good Luck

It's fun!

OllieC

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Re: Totally New at This.. Don't know where to start! Grapes and Wine
« Reply #2 on: September 18, 2012, 13:59:07 »
Good advice from John there - I would add the following... You can get a net bag from a homebrew shop that helps keep all the bits of crap (skin and seeds) out of the way when you syphon later on - really really useful. If you want to see how useful, don't use one and remember me when you first rack your wine.

Also personally I'd recommend always using a proper yeast for winemaking rather than what falls in - for the sake of £1 at least you know what you're getting and it gives it a good start in life. Work out whether to add sugar or not by using a hydrometer - quite often home extracted my grape juice is about 1.050 so nowhere near enough for it to end up as wine. You need an SG of around 1.090.

Sterilisation cannot be overemphasised, although FWIW and IMHO neither can using a hydrometer at the start and end.

Good luck!

 

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