This is my first batch of homemade wine.

Step 1: What I Used in My Batch

10 LB Red Grapes

6 LB Sugar

packet of Champagne yeast

a lemon

5-5 Gallon distilled water

a big container to ferment in for first week

glass carboy jug to ferment in 5-9 weeks

vapor lock or a balloon for top

cheese cloth

hose for siphoning

Step 2: Chose Your Fruit

Chose your fruit i chose grapes Muscadines are a local wild and cultivated grape here in the south eastern US.

now some people do not wash the grapes, some people do....i did

Step 3: Crush Your Fruit

i put mine in bags and squeezed them, some ppl freeze them first then thaw it makes then easy to mash.

Step 4: Put in First Fermenter One Week

put mashed grapes, lemon cut up, sugar, and water in first fermenter, stir twice a day.

Step 5: Put in Jug-Strain With Cheese Cloth

after 6 days add yeast, then next day strain with cheese cloth into the glass jug, fill w water to almost full leave a few inches for bubble over protection!

put on vapor lock. now watch and wait

4 weeks to 9 weeks

Step 6: To Add Sugar or Not to Add Sugar

Chaptalization (also known as "sugaring") is the procedure of adding sugar to grape juice or must prior to or during fermentation. winemakers chaptalize must to compensate for poor growing seasons, or if they're located in areas of the world that experience cooler climates.
By boosting the sugar content to appropriate levels, you can help ensure your wine is well-balanced... but be careful - adding too much sugar is just as bad as not having enough!

Step 7: Finishing the Wine

finishing a wine means terminating the fermentation, flavoring it

with oak, aging it in bulk for a few months to a year, clarifying it for bottling, and bottling it.

The addition of crushed Campden tablets to the wine may be enough to stop the fermentation.
Potassium sorbate, is a commercial wine stabilizer that should be used in conjunction with Campden.
Another stabilizer is sodium benzoate,
I think you should stabilize, sweeten to taste, and wait 10 days,The wait is to allow all that dead yeast cells time to settle, You may stabilize and then bulk age your wine for 3-4 months

Step 8: Bottle Then Ageing the Wine

rack if necessary, and then bottle, or you can bottle directly,

i age for at least a year

Then its party time!

The earliest evidence of stored wine comes from 7,000 year-old pottery jugs that were buried in the dirt floor of a Neolithic kitchen in Iran. The Romans used their catacombs. The French began the practice of digging wine caves designed specially to store their adored beverage. Wine collectors turned from catacombs to caves, and from caves to cellars. Today, wine cellars and cabinets function as the ideal wine storage sites, with temperature, humidity, and light controlled to the last degree.