Tag: make wine

Making Wine Recipes The Life I Live

You Need These 10 Things To Make Wine

You can do it! But heed my words..

Wine making can be a difficult, specific process. There’s nothing more important than sanitation, and if you mess that up (I have yet to,) your whole batch is a waste.

With that being said, if you make wine often, you will get used to the process, and enjoy the “fruit wine” of your labor for years to come. How fun is that?

To start, read my intro. Next, read Make Wine with Me: The Do’s of Winemaking.

And what follows is next. These are 10 things that you need to make wine.   These items are essential to have before you start.

To Make Wine, You Need These 10 Things:

-granulated white sugar (about 2 cups)

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airlocks

-1 bottle (64 ounces/96 ounces,) 100% juice plus one empty bottle of the same size

-champagne yeast

-bung

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bung

-airlock

-2-3 wine bottles and corks (or screw top wine bottles)

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Reuse old screw top bottles!

-sanitizing solution (mine is 1 tablespoon solution to 1 gallon water ratio and a no-rinse solution)

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sanitizing solution

-hose and suction, or funnel that will fit into the top of your wine bottles

-hydrometer (optional but will tell you how much alcohol is in your wine)

-a measuring cup (1 cup size,) a tablespoon, and a (clean) bucket or bowl that can easily hold 2-3 gallons of liquid

Everything on this list can be found at brew stores or wine supply stores. You can also find most of it online, and if you click on the images below it links to amazon for easy purchase.

As a follow up to this blog and for further information, here’s a video:

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If you buy this champagne yeast, it will last you for so long! Only get it if you need lots. (Otherwise, just buy one or two packets at a time.)

This is a combo pack of airlocks and bungs, and it’s great to have two of each if you’re just starting out!

This set of funnels will work well:

And this hydrometer is great because it comes with a tester tube, too, making measuring your wines alcohol level quick and easy!

Leave any questions in the comments and watch for upcoming videos and articles to learn to make wine at home!

Happy Tuesday and Happy Wineing!

Making Wine Recipes The Life I Live

Make Wine with Me: The Do’s of Winemaking

These are the do’s of winemaking. The more you know, the better your wine batch will turn out. And this is where I come in. I’m no expert but I’ve made a lot and I can’t wait for you to make wine with me!

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Tape the cap to the bottle during fermentation.

For now, heed these tips and watch for the materials article so you can start to gather what you need. This leads me to my first point:

  1. Get everything you need before you start. (A conclusive list is coming so make sure to watch for it!)
  2. Sanitation is the most important step. Do it correctly to ensure that your wine is safe to drink.
  3. Track dates and info throughout the steps. Trying to do it after the fact is not only hard but you will probably make a mistake.
  4. Find a place where your wine can sit and ferment. You need a warm, temperature
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    Fully Fermented

    consistent place with no sun. Right around 80 is the best yeast temperature, so the warmer the better.

  5. Keep the cap (and see picture.)
  6. Use wine bottles with screw on tops! Just buy, drink, and save about three bottles with tops. (Unless you have a corker you will need screw tops to start.)
  7. Be patient. The airlock needs to stop bubbling before you can rack the wine. The picture to the right is how it should look when it’s done.

More wine making articles are set to come out and we are on track to start our first batch soon.

Leave comments or questions if you have them and get excited to become a winemaker too! XOXO

Making Wine Recipes The Life I Live

My Love For Wine (And Why You Should Care)

When I saw a Groupon for a wine making class, I bought it. And that was that. I left the class a soon-to-be, self-proclaimed winemaker!

Screenshot_20170410-131314I started drinking wine much like everyone else. I never liked the wine at holidays growing up but the fruity, sweet wines always tasted yummy. I went from Boones Farm to Moscato, and then I met my husband.

Nick liked all the wines when we met and thus my push into wine life began. I tried everything white and blush. I soon realized I liked a semi sweet Reisling almost as much as a Moscato. It took me a while to come around to the reds, but I soon did.

The first red wine I really enjoyed was a full-flavored, smokey Zinfandel. Well I’m still not sure how I went from not liking any reds to a smokey Zin, that’s what happened.

After the wine class, Nick bought me a deluxe wine making kit as a gift and I was ready. The first (33 bottle) batch of wine I made was a Cabernet. I was nervous but I meticulously followed the directions (SO hard for a non rule follower!) and it turned out tasty. However, the batch was huge and because it was a Cab, the longer I waited to drink it, the better it tasted.

I wanted to do something else. I wanted to make wine that was in smaller batches with more flavors. I wanted a way to test flavors and additions and not spend months on end for each batch. Screenshot_20170410-131303

This is when I started making fruit (juice based) wine. Store bought juice mixed with granulated white sugar and then topped with a 1/4 teaspoon of champagne yeast. Less than two months and it was done.

And the flavors, oh the flavors! As long as you get a 100% fruit juice (or juice with only other juice or sugar added) you can mix and match almost anything together and see what you get.

As much as I love to try things, I also hate to waste batches or even parts of batches based off of “doing it wrong,” possible sanitation issues, or just not liking the taste.

So this is my story and here’s why it’s awesome: because I’m going to teach you how!

Do you want to make your own fruit wine from home? Follow my blog for a step by step guide.

This article is only part one of the series. Watch for more (and videos) including what you need to make wine, the steps, the timing, the how-to’s, the DONT’s, and more!

Happy Friday and Happy Wineing!