Years ago, I developed a taste for fine wines, both red and white. Eventually, I realized this hobby of tasting various wines from around the world was getting a bit expensive. Thankfully, someone introduced me to the world of home wine making. I had no idea it could be so easy!
Not only is wine making easy, it saves a lot of money. You can make excellent wine for a fraction of the cost of wines available at the liquor store. How much less? How does a cost of less than two dollars a bottle sound?
I started my first wine many years ago, using a wine making kit purchased from a shop that specializes in providing wine kits and equipment necessary to make wine. In 6 weeks from the day I started my wine, I had 30 bottles of a wonderful Libfraumilch.
The equipment you need is inexpensive and doesn't take up much space. All you will need is:
a food grade plastic pail that can hold about 6 gallons of liquid
a glass 5 gallon carboy
an airlock and bung
a long plastic spoon needed to stir the wine
a syphon hose
A hydrometer and cylindrical tube is also handy to have to measure the specific gravity of your wine so that you know how far along the the fermentation process is. Your local supplier will be able to assist you in putting all of this together.
Today, there are a number of distributors of wine kits which contain grape juice and concentrate. Varieties from all around the world are available. The juice is balanced and ready - all you have to do is follow the instructions that come with the kit. Usually, all you will have to do is pour the juice into the plastic pail, add water, mix in some fining agent which helps to speed up the clearing of the wine, and sprinkle the yeast that comes in the kit into the juice. Wait approximately one week, and syphon the wine from the pail into the glass carboy, attach the airlock, and wait a couple of weeks to add more clearing agents and preservatives. In another week, with a four week wine kit, you could be bottling your own wine!
Not only will you save a lot of money, you'll be able to take pride in being able to serve family, friends and guests wine that you've made yourself.
Ian Hugh Scott has been making his own wine for years. As well as wines from commercially available kits, he has discovered the pleasures of experimenting with other ingredients such as black currants, strawberries, blueberries, and even ginger and parsnip!
Follow along with Ian's regular wine making activities at his blog: homewinery.info/blog
Look at this five part series on winemaking.
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