Home Brewing Wine - small batch

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Wine is fun and easy. I've made many flavors, and have a basic recipe that works for almost all fruits. It doesn't work on citrus though.

3 lbs fruit
3 lbs sugar
1 gal water
1 egg (optional)

Bring to a boil to break up the fruit and dissolve the sugar. Allow to cool. Strain out pulp and throw it in your garden as fertilizer.

Add one packet of yeast. Bread yeast will do, this is wine, not beer. Wine is less picky. Sit for 3 days to allow the yeast to grow.

Pour in one gallon bottle, cap with airlock. Sit for one year. Get wasted.

Citrus is different and a lot more tricky. Never ever EVER EVER try with bananas.

My favorite is cranberry wine, but you have to add pectic enzyme or you get cranberry wine jelly.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

@Jason Harvestdancer,

You've basically got it. Fun and easy is definitely it.

Today I cracked open my first small batch - Rhubarb, Tart Cherry and White Grape. I originally added some sugar to bring the potential alcohol up to 12%. Then I basically let it do it's thing and racked it a while back. No self-promotion intended here but I must say it is top-of-the-line brew. Nice and dry with that rhubarb tartness and just the tiniest bit of sweetness, and not at all yeasty. I am really surprised at the level of success on my very first try. It did not clarify 100% so looks a bit like a rose, but it is really, really good.

These home brews are supposed to sit for six months to two years, after which they begin to go south. But the wonderful Spring weather told me to have a glass in the afternoon shade of the side yard after five months on the shelf in the cool cellar. Something they don't talk too much about on those wine instructional videos is that the wine will darken as it ages. All of my batches are doing this, and it's not something I expected, it's just part of the aging process.

Feeling nicely buzzed.

 

[Lion IRC]

Nice thread.
I've never acheived anything much over 9% - measuring with a vinometer.
Late summer excess plums, red grapes, nashi apples

...eating fermentation must????

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Nice thread.
I've never acheived anything much over 9% - measuring with a vinometer.
Late summer excess plums, red grapes, nashi apples

...eating fermentation must????

9% is okay. I add sugar or honey or fruit concentrate to get the sugar content up.

And if you are going to consume the fermenting fruit it is okay for a few days, depending on the speed of the fermentation, as it will still be slightly sweet. And I freeze it first.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

I am pleased. I had a batch of lemon wine and a batch of lime wine, and both of them were refusing to turn. Normally a fruit wine takes a year, these took over three. And they FINALLY turned out. I was afraid I'd have to throw them out and start over so I could use the jugs again.

Citrus is very fickle.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Yesterday I drank a bottle and half of my wine, a mix of pawpaw, rhubarb and white grape, to celebrate the 4th.

Also mixed up batch 9 which is more of the same.

 

[Underseer]

I had a friend who took a stab at home brewing long before it became a fad. What she made tasted great, but she complained "I have become little more than a maid for microbes."

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I am pleased. I had a batch of lemon wine and a batch of lime wine, and both of them were refusing to turn. Normally a fruit wine takes a year, these took over three. And they FINALLY turned out. I was afraid I'd have to throw them out and start over so I could use the jugs again.

Citrus is very fickle.

I'm going to use some lemon in the next batch for acidity, basically a blueberry melomel. Batch 5 did not settle out as well as I like so I tried the bentonite clay thing. It helped but it's still cloudy.

But I don't mind cloudy. It's the taste that matters. Other batches clarified very nicely, thought not like you buy in a store. That stuff is full of chemicals. I put the latest batch into secondary ferment but I think it's played out so will merely age for at least six months.

This next batch will get started tomorrow. When all is said and done it's 5 to 7 bottles per batch, nice and simple.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Today I threw together batch 12 using rhubarb, a fruit juice mix and sugar. Lately I've been using honey but the rhubarb just seemed to call for sugar.

Also used my juicer to keep from having to remove the pulp from the primary fermenter! Glad I kept that thing!

Half the rhubarb was frozen and juiced beautifully. The rest was picked fresh and so was a bit harder to juice but worked great. Got half a gallon of rhubarb juice total, half a gallon of fruit juice and half a gallon of water. Sweetened to 14% potential alcohol. This will make seven bottles of finished wine.

Have been drinking apple, honey and pawpaw wine that needs a bit more time but it is good. It's more like a mead/cider as the alcohol is 9%.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Did the last racking today of five batches, each 1.5 gallons, enough to make seven bottles of finished wine that will be ready in three to six months after final bottling.

Also made a batch of cherry mead. Nice rainy morning to stay inside and get this done. Got a taste of the blueberry mead and it is already quite good. Drank a couple cups worth.

Was discussing this hobby with a workmate and she said I'm making hooch, not wine. Maybe she's right.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

So yesterday my wife goes into the fridge and the only thing there is a lone bottle of my asian pear mead, opened from the weekend and straight out of the orchard. She said it was really good, which I agree, even surprised myself.

She also said she had no slight headache this morning as is typical. So - WOOT! I've been telling her it's the chemicals used in wine-making causing her ill effects, primarily preservatives added at bottling to extend shelf life.

I racked some wine this morning made from canned peaches. I'll compare it to the previous batch made from frozen peaches.

Onward and upward.