Wine Making - base recipe

You can make wine from almost anything from the garden, from the obvious such as soft fruit to the less obvious such as parsnips and pea pods. There is one very important thing to remember. Most of the wine in the world is made from grapes and this is for a very good reason, grapes provide the ideal balance of tannins, acids, sugars and flavours to make great tasting wine. Making wine with other ingredients is a compromise, often with the need to add tannin, acid and extra sugar to achieve a good result. When starting wine making it is often tempting to make as much as possible from all sorts of ingredients. You will here people say such thing as, “parsnips make an excellent wine, etc”. Quite often the results are disappointing and only the most dedicated home brewer can manage to drink it with a lot of results becoming expensive drain cleaner.

So the following golden rules apply:

1. Cleanliness. Everything must be spotlessly clean, all equipment needs to be sterilised (I use VWE cleanser and steriliser) before use and after use. Watch out for the dreaded fruit fly (tiny flies, mainly around in the summer), just one of these in your wine can turn it into vinegar.

2. Patience. Wine improves a huge amount with time. Once the initial ferment is over it needs to age for at least six months. Try not to drink it in the meantime!

3. Fruit. The temptation is to skimp on the fruit and concentrate on volume rather than quantity. As a general rule the more fruit used the better the wine.

4. Alcohol. Again, a beginner mistake is to add extra sugar to increase alcohol production. A bit of extra sugar will increase alcohol content, to a point. It’s possible, with specialist yeasts to brew wines up to 21%, but generally aim for 11% to 14%. Adding extra sugar sometimes makes the ferment harder to start, more inclined to get stuck, and once the 14-15% alcohol content reached, usually the extra sugar serves only to sweeten the wine.

So, on the basic recipe:

Ingredients to make 4.5 litres/1 gallon:

Fruit (2kg/4.5lb) – more if available, reduce sugar the more fruit used

Sugar (1kg/2.2lb)

Tea (1 cup, normal strength).

Lemon juice (2 lemons)

Yeast nutrient (follow instructions on packet for amount to use). ½ tsp of marmite can be used as an alternative.

Wine brewing yeast

Optional ingredient, sultanas or raisins (350g/1lb)

Equipment:

Fermenting bucket and lid – 10-15 litre/2-3 gallon capacity

Demijohn – 4.5litre/1 gallon capacity, preferably 2

Nylon straining bag

Airlock and bung

Syphon tube

Big spoon for stirring, preferably plastic

Sold cork bung

Bottles (6) or wine box for storage

Note not all fruits will require the tannin from tea, I will cover this is future posts. Sultanas or raisins are optional and I use these to add extra body and depth to the wine.

1. Wash the fruit and crush in the fermenting bucket. I use an electric hand held mixer for soft fruits. Add the sultanas/raisins if using (I use a food processor to chop them). A 2 litres of boiling water and half the sugar and stir until sugar dissolved.

2. Once cooled to room temperature add with lemon juice, tea, yeast nutrient and yeast, and stir well. Cover with lid (but do not seal lid completely, leave a tiny part of the lid unsealed to allow carbon dioxide to escape) and leave in a warm place to start ferment. Ferment should start within a day. Stir daily.

3. After 2-3 days add the rest of the sugar, stir well.

4. After 7 days strain the fermenting mixture using the nylon straining bag to separate the liquid from the solids. Put solids in compost. Put liquid into demijohn, top up with water (allow some airspace, about 4cm at top of demijohn). Fit airlock and listen to the bubbling for several weeks.

5. Once the ferment slows to less than one bubble per 2 minutes the fermentation is over. Rack the wine off the sediment by siphoning into a clean demijohn. Top up with water and refit airlock. If you want to sweeten the wine at a later stage, add potassium sorbate (follow instructions on packet for amount to use). This stops the fermentation, and even if more sugar is added there is no risk of future fermentation.

6. Leave for 2 weeks and rack once again into a clean demijohn. Fit solid bung and leave in cool place for several months, preferably 6 months to a year. I place a plastic bag fastened with an elastic band to provide double protection from air getting into the wine. I have had corks/bungs been blown off demijohns during very hot weather due to expansion.

7. After 6 months, the wine should be ready for drinking. If sweetening add the sugar now, starting with small amounts and tasting regularly until the taste is correct.

8. I use re-usable wine boxes rather than bottles to store the wine prior to use. If bottling, use corks rather than screw cap bottles as screw cap bottles have a small risk of explosion if the ferment starts up again.