How to Make Wine

Making wine is actually pretty idiot proof, with the right stuff, equipment, and sanitizing again and again.

In this Instructable, you'll learn how to make fruit wines, including grape wines. This instructable will focus on the techniques, equipment and materials, rather than recipes.

You'll need to procure some equipment and some chemicals but don't worry. Most of it will last many batches with the proper cleaning and maintaining.

EDIT: Wow. 200k views! Never thought I'd actually get this many. I will be preparing another batch before too long, so I'll try to include some more photos.

Step 1 Legality and Warning

Winemaking, also known as Homebrewing, is completely legal in the US and many other places. As follows is what I KNOW is legal in the US(1):
1. You can make up to 100 gallons by yourself or 200 max, if you live with other people, annually.
2. You may not sale your homebrew.
3. You must be 21 or legal drinking age to make and drink your homebrew. *
4. You may not distill spirits.
5. You may share and taste homebrewed beverages
*Technically it is 18, but you'd 99% of the time be seeking to consume or possess alcohol, which is illegal.

Since you are producing substance that kills more people a year than most forms of cancer, you will need to treat alcoholic beverages with the respect they command.
1. Do not drink and drive.
2. Do not drink while pregnant.
3. Do not drink if you suffer from liver, heart failure, or anything else just about.
4. Consult your doctor if you are unsure how alcohol will interact with any drugs you are taking.

Home wine making is not making moonshine. It will not cause you any more harm than consuming alcohol does. You will have few, if any, methyl alcohols that cause blindness. You would die from alcohol poisoning long before having to worry about this.

Additionally:
Almost all commercial wines contain sulfites. This Instructable teaches users how to add sulfites if needed. This may be left off if sulfites cause alergic reactions to you or those you want to consume the wine. Potassium Metabisulfite MSDS
Sodium Metabisulfite MSDS

Potassium Sorbate is potentially added if additional sweeting is required. Do not add if you are allergic to it. Here is it's MSDS Potassium Sorbate MSDS

Finally, your final product will be about 12-18% alcohol. Keep that in mind when serving.

With disclosures and warnings out of the way, let's go to it!

1= Wiki Link

Comments

[dakiro]

If you are making wine from juice only, add the nutrient and also some acid.
If you boil the water with sugar, which is a good idea if you are not lazy like me, then squize a lemon into the water. This will help the sugar to invert into simple sugars. Acid also supports the growth of yeast and insufficient acid might result in off taste. I am quoting from C.J.J. Berry.

[dakiro]

Great instructions.

I like the tip with the turkey baster - I am using a 50ml syringe with a piece of thin plastic hose attached.

I would definitely want to have a hydrometer too, if you buy the equipment, buy a hydrometer as well, this will let you have much more control over the fermentation.
Buy pectolaze to get rid of some of the haze, it IS cheap, invest if you want to have wine from fruit you can have jam from. Not tried yet but there is also an enzyme getting rid of starch haze.

[co'brien3]

So I have a potentially foolish question preceded by some statements: I've never made wine or any other type of alcohol before, however in your instructable it says to check the airlock regularly. What are the chances something should go wrong with the airlock if not checked? (I plan on using a balloon), I have an apartment that is several hours away from my summer home that i will be visiting soon, and then returning to in about 5 weeks. It would be perfect if I could concoct this brew while I'm there and then just leave it to ferment whilst I'm away. Is that feasible, or am I asking for trouble?

[Green Goddess]

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-make-your-own-Fermentation-Lock-Not-a-ball/step2/Methods/

Just read this and thought it was very helpful for a DIY state-of-mind...
:)

[Seakip18]

I would highly suggest getting a rubber stopper and 3 piece airlock if it's going to be left alone for long periods of time without inspection. Any homebrew supply store will have this, and it's highly reliable. For the $3 plus shipping, it's well worth it to have piece of mind while you're away.



If you're set on the balloon approach, however, you can keep an eye on it for the first week, then it will probably be fine, as that's when the highest amount of CO2 is created.

[Green Goddess]

What an excellent tek!! So well explained and super helpful!

[mguer133]

I am very surprised you are calling wine an apple based beverage; over here (France), wine is only a grape fruit based beverage. Is this an American localisms?

Why would you use a pasteurized juice that is made out of concentrated juice and then add bacteria when you could just press you fruits with the bacteria already in them? There would then be no need for adding sugar for example.

Other than this, it is an interesting process but it does not sound natural to me at all and I can not see the point of all this if you have to use industrial ingredients...

Let me know if there is something I have not understood (I'm French after all lol).

Mickaël

[Seakip18]

Thanks for your comment!

Wine is best known for it's grape origins. However, any juice liberated from fruit and fermented can be called wine. Apples = apple wine, plums= plum wine, etc.

The bacteria in the fruit/juice is not yeast. Yeast is what is responsible for giving us the flavor, mouthfeel and alcohol. Almost all brewers, big and small, rely on prepackaged yeast if they do not have their own line.

While one could go ahead and press the fruit and liberate the juice themselves, I found it to be outside the scope of the instructable, I figured I'd go cheap, fast and easy.

The sugar and other stuff? I explain why those are needed respectively.

Again, thanks for your comment. I can definitely understand how some if seems pretty strange.

[BOOM5601]

I just finished setting it all up to ferment. I juiced apples for it, so there is LOTS of pulp in there, will that cause a problem?

[Seakip18]

Sorry for the delay in getting back!
It'll be fine. I would use a straining bag, or if you can't find one, cheese cloth to filter it out before bottling. That pulp can clog up the hoses and filling mechanisms easily.

To use, simply siphon from the fermenter into another bucket with the liquid passing through a straining bag(which is usually big enough to go around a bucket or through a funnel with a hose on the end with cheese cloth in the middle.

Don't forget to sanitize anything that comes in contact with the liquid!

[BOOM5601]

I've finished fermenting and have bottled it. Even though there was a lot of pulp in there, after filtering it looks exactly like step 11, so now im hoping it will finish clearing up in another week or two.

[BOOM5601]

Also, I'm doing this for a Biology project, and why does it have to be fermented in a dark place?

[Seakip18]

UV light is very harsh to the wine. While this lacks hops, which are particularly sensitive to sunlight, wine can have it's various flavor compounds broken down via UV exposure. This is why you don't find wine or beer in clear glass bottles typically.

[bozzchem]

This was a good primer on the overall process of winemaking. While this will certainly make an alcoholic beverage akin to wine, you'd be far better off using a commercially available wine kit and skip using the store bought juice/dextrose combo. The dextrose will provide you with a high alcohol yield but at the cost of the flavors imparted by the fermentation of the natural fruit sugars. Fermentation can be boiled down to this: Yeast eat sugar (fructose, dextrose, glucose, etc.) piss alcohol and fart CO2. You are enjoying the waste products of the yeast. The suggestions regarding sanitation are not too be taken lightly! If in doubt, sanitize again. If anything (bacteria) takes hold before your yeast do, you are in for one hell of a shock on your first sip...assuming you can get past the smell. All in all, an excellent tutorial along with great money saving techniques. Making wine is exceptionally easy if you take the time to sanitize everything properly and, as suggested, get the proper tools.

[Scurvymcdiggle]

commercially available wine kit...pffft.

[Lolicon]

What kind of bottles could I use? And what kinds of bottles are recommended? I'll assume that wine bottles would be best, but without a cork machine there wouldn't be a point, because you wouldn't be able to cork them.

[Seakip18]

I've got a corker and kegs, so I typically fill a few bottles before kegging. You can actually use soda bottles for this as well. Those big jugs I poured all of the juice from will work. Just pour all of the sanitizing liquid from the carboy into them and let them dry. Prior to filling, resanitize them and their caps.

[Lolicon]

Okay, thanks!

[Scurvymcdiggle]

also you can get wine bottles in the recycle or garbage depending on where you are at... you can get T corks at homebrew stores that dont need a corker.
but if you are going to make a lot of wine it quickly becomes a good thing to get a corker. mine was 35 dollars i think...

[Homemade wine recipes]

@Seakip18, this is indeed very impressive.

I went through all the steps, you simply rock! 

I greatly appreciate the legality, warning, and health related (allergy precaution) stuff that you have posted on the first page itself. Few wine-makers bother to mention this.

Best regards,

Jason,
Easy Homemade Wine Recipes

[MisterMissanthrope]

why cant the glass bottle be scratched?

[Andii1993]

As Seakip18 said, bacteria... but there's a host of other reasons too... cracks (+pressure) and mean leakage of flavours and outside air may be able to squeeze through the scratches (if they're deep enough), contaminating the wine. :)

[Seakip18]

If there are scratches, bacteria can actually manage to hide inside the gaps. No amount of sanitizing will be able to truly remove them. It sucks, but I'd rather play it safe than risk losing a batch of wine that will age for a while.

[akinich]

i have a question
which yeast do u use
in the local store they have active dry yeast
will that do?
also nice instructable
akinich

[sickdog74]

"Losing your money at poker" LOL, I love it! Great instructable, BTW. Gonna try it!

[homemadewine]

That's a pretty good instructable. One thing I learned from another Homemade Wine Guide was that you don't need to put yeast in.

[FeteLeToiMeme]

I don't know which kind of wine you want to get but i always made my beers, wine and other ferment without any chemicals, and without any problems neither...  My goal of making myself what i want (and HOW i want) is also to try to find alternatives to the classical ways of making, wich i dont like for some points, for me adding chemicals is more a way to make quantity and more benefits, and not quality (i don't doubt that you make also quality for what you want...) and healthy on long therm ..
There is a lot of doc foundable on the web about secondary effect of the conservatives to the body ..
thanks for the detailed explanation anyway..!

[rtlangston]

 You are not "degassing" at this point, you are oxygenating.  Yeast needs oxygen to reproduce and the vigorous mixing at this point will increase the dissolved O2 in solution.

[snakeboyeric]

Will contamination be entirely obvious? I have a batch that smells like sour but very wine-like. Also can accidental ingestion of contaminated wine be deadly?

[Aizaku]

Winebuddy1,

thanks for the links and the tips.
they seem very helpful

I cant seem to find inverted sugar (i live in japan) or i dont know whatit is called here.
Is it easy to find where you are from?

do you really think i could substitute Frontenac grape for the Cali. Red grape?

Thanks Again,
how-to-make-wine.com

[winebuddy1]

Aizaku,

Looks like a very good recipe - I'll have to try that one!  I found a really detailed free book at www.freewinemakingbook.com  check it out.

One other thing:  you can INVERT your sugar before you start and it will make your fermentation go faster and the yeast won' t have to work as hard.

Here's the address to an article that tells you how to invert your sugar:
http://www.how-to-make-wine.net/winemaking/17/how-to-make-wine-invert-your-sugar-first/

I just started another batch and this time it's from a kit.  I'll let you know how it turns out!

[Aizaku]

Do any of you guys know how to make a port style wine with frontenac grapes?<br /><br />If I used these ingredients but used frontenac grapes instead of california red grapes, would it be ok?<br /><br />PORT WINE<br /><br />* 1 gallon can California Red Grape Concentrate<br />* 12 lbs fine granulated sugar<br />* 5 gallons warm water<br />* 6 oz dried elderberries<br />* 16 oz dried, non-glazed, banana chips<br />* 2 tsp yeast energizer<br />* 3 oz acid blend<br />* 5 crushed Campden tablets<br />* 1 pkg Port wine yeast<br /><br />i need it for my site <a href="http://how-to-make-wine.com">how-to-make-wine.com</a><br /><br />i'd appreciate any help i can get<br /><br />thanx<br /><br />

[walt1973]

Question: Will it get clear even if I used cider which is murky, and not apple juice? thank you for this tutorial by the way.

[Seakip18]

With fresh fruits or unfiltered products, this is typically a "pectin haze" and you add pectic enzyme to increase juice yield and remove the haze. If I remember correctly, though, it should not affect the taste in anyway. Just give it a cloudy appearance. If you have already fermented the cider, I'd give it a few weeks of cool aging(55F-62F) and see if that helps. If not, you can use clarifiers such as kiesol and isinglass to clarify.

[magickaldan]

Also you can skip the flavor step at first and just use sugar and yeast and water, then afterwards add enough koolaid to flavor it. I've done it before and it tastes great. My next project is gonna try and make a carbonated wine cooler.

[Seakip18]

That's probably not a very good idea. The yeast typically do not have enough nutrients(nitrogen mainly) to properly form the ethyl alcohols and instead are forced to produce fusel alcohols that would normally only occur at higher fermentation temperatures.

Sugar + water + yeast = Rotgut.

[magickaldan]

That is easily fixed by adding some yeast nutrient or energizer at the beginning.

[magickaldan]

Here is my short step to making wine. Works Wonderful. And makes 15-18% alcohol.

1. Buy enough 100% juice concentrate to make 1 gallon of juice. Usually 3 cans of the welchs works.
2. Mix 2 1/2 - 3 cans of the concentrate in a 1 gallon (glass) food grade jug. Add about 1200 grams of sugar. And fill rest of the way with good water.
3. I usually do a Specific gravity reading but it isn't necessary. Two methods with one is with a hydrometer, 2nd is by density using a scale and volume. Record results.
4. Temperture should be between 10° to 30°C (50° to 86°F). Never lower than 10* C.
5. (for yeast I use Lalvin EC-1118 only need 1.5 grams 5 grams make 5 gallons.) Now take a small glass and fill with about 50 ml of 40* C (104*F) water, and mix in the yeast. Let stand 5 minutes and the mix up the clumps.
6. Pour yeast/water into wine jug.
7. Add about 1/4 teaspoon of lyeast nutrient. And then stir around.
8. For the first five days only cover the jug with a cloth or towel to keep bugs out, and stir every day. The first five days it is essential to not seal the jug because the yeast needs to reproduce and only do it aerobic with air.)
9. Now is time for the bacteria to become anaerobic without air. This is when they stop reproducing and eat the sugar to produce CO2 and Ethanol. Now After the five days is up seal the jug with an airlock(ballon with needle hole etc). The balloon will fill up or your airlock will bubble vigorously. When the bubbling ceases your wine is ready for racking and bottling.

[magickaldan]

Also before bottling if not sure it is done fermenting add some sulfite to kill the yeast so it doesn't go boom on you in a year. Have had it happen before not fun mess to clean up lol. Also the Specific gravity will be about .999 when done.

[Seakip18]

Hey! I'm actually replying to comments on time. I'm going to say it's just because it's on the front page under popular. That's pretty good quick launch guide. I'd still recommend sanitation as part of everything you do. Also, it's actually Potassium Sorbate that send yeast into inactivity(it removes a reproduction capability) and prevent them from producing CO2. Adding sulfites just helps perserve the wine. One other small note:Yeast are actually fungi, an entire kingdom apart from bacteria. Some bacteria are used in the brewing process, but not typically for fruit wines(don't hold me to that!). You can thank my biologist girlfriend for pointing that out to me. It can be used as a sanitizer in larger quantities, but that'd ruin the wine. And as a last note, I've clarified one batch of my wine and plan on bottling it this weekend. I should be able to snap some pictures of that and finish up the guide for once and all.