If you’re into homemade wine, you know the importance of getting some good homemade wine recipes. Just throwing some fruit juice and a fermenting agent in a jar and letting it sit for awhile will get you nothing but nasty fruit juice. You can of course try your own mixtures if you’re adventurous, and of course doing so is part of the fun of making your own wine, but especially if you are a beginner you’ll want to follow the easy wine recipes to the tee. Once you’re a bit more experienced, you can start experimenting with different fruit mixes and sugar levels, and who knows - you may even come up with some of your own homemade wine recipes over time! But to get you started, here are some basic recipes you can try.
Mulled wines are a great alternative to hot cocoas, ciders, and other such drinks. They are very easy to make, and once you get the hang of it, you can come up with your own mulled wine recipes. Usually you just take one regular bottle of any red wine and put it into a large stewing pot. Add a quarter cup of brandy, about 10 cloves, 2/3 cup of sugar, some whole cinnamon sticks, and about a teaspoon of ginger or allspice. Let it simmer over very low heat, stirring it occasionally, until the sugar is dissolved. You can experiment with this type of easy wine recipe by adding some favorite pureed fruit or fruit juice, or by using honey instead of sugar as a sweetener. By using different types of red wines, you’ll also be able to get either stronger or mellower flavors.
Apple wine is also a favorite for homemade wines, and while these easy wine recipes are a bit longer, they yield a very good product. Your wine mix is merely 2 containers of frozen apple juice (thawed) and 4 cups of sugar, more or less to taste, with about 2-1/2 quarts of water. As with most easy wine recipes, you boil the sugar in about a quart of the water until it is dissolved, and add this to the apple juice. Add about 6 teaspoons of acid blend, a campden tablet, a quarter teaspoon of grape tannin, a half teaspoon of pectic enzyme, and a package of wine yeast. You then prepare it as you would any other wine. Since this is one of the most basic homemade wine recipes there is, you can experiment with it by mixing the apple juice with other fruit juices. Half apple juice and half grape juice is good; cherry or blackberry juice works well too.
You can also adjust this homemade wine recipe by eliminating the apple altogether and using half grape juice and half grapefruit juice.
The important thing to remember when mixing up the fruits that you use in your homemade wine recipes is that you don’t want to use all tart fruits or all sweet fruits. A good way to remember this is to think of the colors of the fruit, and use two from different colors. For instance, grape and apple, banana and cherry, and so on. These types of mixtures usually make the best easy wine recipes for homemade wines.
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Alyssa Nair has written articles on the finest wines and accessories. Read the helpful tips and advice about homemade wines, how to grow your own grapes or building your own wine cellars.
Many different wines can be made from apples, either by themselves or in combination with other fruits. No one variety is known to be outstanding on its own but cooking varieties make better wine than dessert varieties.
Experience over many years has shown that a combination of cooking, dessert, crab apple, pears and quince make the most attractive wine of all. Apples respond well to most yeast’s but especially to champagne yeast.
Although perfect fruit is desirable for most wines, windfall apples make excellent wine. The apples do not need to be peeled or cored, but naturally any badly bruised parts that have turned brown should be cut away, with any parts infected by a maggot.
Apples are sometimes hard to crush but various answers have been found to this problem. Perhaps the easiest is to wash the apples in a sulphite solution of about 100 ppm, so removing dust, leaves and grass at the same time as killing off unwanted micro-organisms. Next, drain off the surplus water, pack the apples into polythene bags and place them in a freezer for 48 hours. When thawed they should be soft enough to crush with your hands.
If a freezer is not readily available, place the washed apples - a few at a time - in a polythene bag and hit them with a mallet, wooden rolling pin or steak hammer. When each bagful is crushed, drop the contents into water containing sulphite and citric acid to prevent oxidation.
A third method is to place the apples in a strong polythene or wooden bin and to ram them with a 10 cm. (4 in.) cube of wood on the end of a broom handle.
Another way is to liquidise them, and yet another is simply to cut each apple into about 16 pieces. Coarse mincing is not recommended unless it is known for certain that the metal, from which the mincer is made, does not react to acids.
Apples should always be fermented on the pulp. If you lack a big enough bin for this purpose, a heavy gauge, large polythene bag inside a cardboard container may be used very effectively. The neck can be gathered and fastened with a rubber band or a wire tie - not so tightly, of course, that the carbon dioxide cannot escape.
After pulp fermentation a press is needed to extract all the juice. Bale the pulp out of the bin into a freshly sterilised hessian, linen or nylon bag placed inside the press. At first the juice will run free, and then a little shaking-up of the bag will encourage even more to do so. When pressure is applied, do so intermittently rather than steadily; a better run is thereby obtained. When you are satisfied that no more juice can be extracted, the apple cake can be used to make a second-run wine.
Often elderberry, or blackberry, or damson, or plum, wine is being made at or about the same time. The addition of the applecake to the other fruit improves the body and flavour of that wine. Alternatively, the two pulp residues may be mixed together and added to a grape juice concentrate wine to improve its body and flavour. Spent apple and elderberry pulp mixed with a white grape juice concentrate can make an attractive rose.
It is always worth making the maximum amount possible of apple wine. It blends well with other wines, is useful for topping up jars that are not quite full - no matter what the wine they contain - and it makes an excellent base for liqueurs.
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Gareth Meradith runs a Hotel in Blackpool and is sponsered by Karcher Pressure Washers and Snickers Workwear
Whether you’re a real wine enthusiast or just someone looking for a great part-time hobby, home wine making can be fun and enjoyable, and of course there are very few other pursuits with such a tasty payoff! It may seem somewhat intimidating to the novice, but in reality, home wine making can be very easy with just a little bit of guidance.
Most homemade wine is made from a grape juice concentrate, so don’t worry about growing and harvesting your own grapes - or needing to stomp on them once you do! You can also use different fruit juices as well, for a different type of flavor.
Simplicity in Home Wine Making
Typically you simply add your fruit juice, Campden tablets (which release sulfur dioxide when dissolved), and water to what’s called a primary fermenter. This is usually a large vessel with an airlock top. After the mixture has sat for 24 hours you add yeast and allow it to ferment for up to a week. You can then add water and allow it to continue to ferment.
Obviously these are just the most basic of the steps involved in wine making. There are actual recipes and step-by-step instructions you should follow, and additional ingredients. For instance, tannin is used to add flavor, clarify color, and assist in the aging process.
Tracking the Fermentation
A special piece of equipment called a hydrometer is used to track the alcohol content and fermentation process of your wine. If you want to try getting a higher alcohol content you can track this through the fermentation process. However, if you’re new to home wine making, be careful. You can ruin an entire batch of wine by trying to force the alcohol content, so you may want to follow your recipes exactly at least while you’re just starting out.
Personalizing Your Home Wine Making
One of the beautiful things about making your own wine is that you can adjust the ingredients to suit your own taste. Some add additional sugar to make sweeter wines while others prefer a more dry taste. With home wine making, you can also experiment with different fruits other than grapes. Many enjoy apple wine, raspberry wine, elderberry wine, plum wine, gooseberry wine, and many other varieties. You can also add different fruits to any type of wine for a new and unique flavor, or mix up the types of grapes or grape juices you use for a new and exciting flavor. You can also experiment with your techniques in wine making, such as keeping the water at a few degrees higher while trying for a higher alcohol content. The more you experiment with your own wine recipes and fruit combinations, the better your wine will taste, and the better you’ll be at making it.
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David Cowley has created numerous articles on Wines. He has also created a Web Site dedicated to wine information. Visit Wine Information