Topic: getting started

[Kevins299]

I have recently inherited a 20  year old wine grape, one red one black from an old allotment holder who has successfully made wine from them for years.
however as a newbie to wine making where does one begin. what equipment is needed, brew time, best books to read on basic wine making. looking forward to drinking some nice wine in the near future

[derbex]

CJJ Beryy's -'First Steps in Wine Making' is supposed to be good -they had a copy in my Garden Centre.

On line try http://homewinemaking.co.uk/
or  www.jackkeller.net -not the nicest site, but a good place to start.

As to what you need, I'd say the basics are :

A 1 gall demijohn (or 5 gallon fermneter -but only if you're going to make that much), bung, airlock, food grade bucket and some wine yeast. Try charity shops or EBay -although checkout online and local homebrew shops as well.

As to time -the actual fermenting doesn't take that long 2-3weeks(ish) -maturing takes a lot longer, 3 months+ (although others may disagree :))

Jeremy

[cleo]

One day? I will start this game up again-was once a prize winner :)-grapes from a home grown vine,especially a red might not quite have enough sugar to gve a decent tipple-check the OG from the initial pressing and use raisins rather than sugar to get it up to the required alcohol by volume.

Home wine making has slumped over the past few years but some of the books are still around if you look-CJJ is good,as is anything by Bryan Acton/Peter Duncan

The secret? is maturation-and that is 2-3 years minimum for a decent red.

Stephan

[adrianhumph]

Hi all,  :D
                  First steps by CJJ. Berry is  seriously out of date with todays winemaking, look for recipe books by Professor Gerry Fowles, these have much more current information on recipes & ingredients.

                                                      Adrian

[philcooper]

I'm not sure how a recipe becomes "out of date" if it produces a good result then what's wrong with it.

I started making wine some 45 years ago using the Yorkshire Women's institute Recipe book (I'm now trying to get hold of a copy)

I used a large poly bag in a large bowl to hold the must, with and elastic band round the neck as an airlock. I't produced very drinkable country wines - I remeber parsnip and rhubarb particularly.

Most modern recipes include lots of chemicals, campden tablets being the oldest of them with arscobic acid and so on when all the acid, tannin and so on are in fruit and veg from the garden - boiling water is very good fo sterilising!

I have made wine from grapes recently by just crsuhing the grapes and letting the natural yeast work - strangley it produced wine flavoured wine - and the technique is used by several others in my village - testing time is the Village Show in mid August.

Phil

Bah humbug - they'll be measuring wine in litres next!!!

[derbex]

I'm with you Phil, although I think that a lot of the older recipes ended up with a sweeter wine than the newer ones, by adding an extra 1/2lb or more of suger.

I made cider in a similar way, using crushed apples and natural yeast -although I did use a campden tablet (supposedly will help get a 'good' natural yeast) and pectic enzyme too (helps the juice drop out of eaters -and you get a clear cider.)

Jeremy

[philcooper]

Ah so modern = replace some of sugar with chemicals!!  ;)

My cider is from Bramley type apples with added cider yeast, a nice dry brew

Phil

[derbex]

Sounds good -my apples were a mix from the local farm sold as 'horse apples' since they're windfalls? Most of them looked fine to me. I'm just waiting for the day(year) when my own trees start producing.

[bongo]

wine making with youre own grapes how lucky you are get stuck in and enjoy!!!!!!! ;D hope you can keep up with demand i keep drinking all of mine to fast ;D