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This is just a quick announcement about our next wine class. It will be held at the Porter House Brew Shop in Portersville. Class will be held on November 16, 2011. Please call the Porter House Brew Shop to sign up. I will be making Elderberry wine from fruit. I hope to see you there. In the first post about Basic Wine Making, I talked about sanitization and how important it is to successful wine making. In this post, I am going to go over the equipment you will need to make wine. I will describe what each item is for, and when you can use items you may have around the house. Primary Fermenter – This is the first thing you will need. Generally it is a food grade bucket used to ferment the wine at the beginning of the process. Any food grade bucket will work. If you have a bucket that came with food in it, you have a food grade bucket. Wine making supply shops sell 5 gallon ones for around $15. You can also get them at your local big box store. Be sure you get food grade plastic. Food grade plastic is denser than regular plastic and won’t harbor bacteria as well as regular plastic. Secondary Fermenter – This is where you rack your wine to after it leaves the primary fermenter. I prefer to use a glass carboy for this step. You can also use the plastic water cooler jugs. Glass is easier to keep clean, plastic is lighter. Choose which ever one you prefer. Airlock and Bung – This is a S shaped piece of plastic you fill with water. It will let the CO2 gas from fermentation out, while blocking outside oxygen from getting inside. The bung is a rubber stopper with a hole in it for the airlock. This goes on the secondary fermentor. You can get bungs in many sizes. They can be small enough for a wine bottle and large enough for water cooler bottles and everything in between. Hydrometer and flask – This is used to measure the amount of ferment-able sugar in a wine prior to fermentation. A hydrometer is calibrated to read 0 when floating in water. As you add sugar to water, the water become more dense and the hydrometer will float higher. This is how you figure out how potent you wine will be. You take a reading before fermentation and a reading after fermentation, subtract the two, then you know how much alcohol is in your wine. Siphon Hose – This is just a rubber hose used to siphon wine from the primary fermenter in the secondary fermenter and from one carboy to the next. Wine Thief – This is a long tube used to take a sample of wine from a carboy for testing. Wine Bottles – You will need something to keep your finished wine in. Save your wine bottles. Have your friends save wine bottle for you. Ask local restaurants what they do with their old wine bottles and see if you can have some. You can also buy them at you local wine making supply shop. Corker – This is used to put the corks in the wine bottles. Hand corkers generally have two levers on each side. You put a cork in the corker, place it on top of the bottle, and push the levers down to push the cork into the bottle. There is also a floor model corker that is easier to use, but it is more expensive. Pick which ever one suits you. Corks – These are used to seal your bottle of wine. The most common sizes are #8 and #9. Most wine bottles are #9, most champagne bottles and #8. If you are not sure what size you need, take your bottle to the local wine supply shop and ask them. Only use new corks. Acid Test Kit – Used to test the acid in your wine prior to fermentation. You won’t need this if you only make kit wines. Kit wines have already had their acid adjusted. If you make wine from other fruits, you will need an acid test kit. If you have never made wine before, and you just want to try it one time to see if it is something you might like, then the above items are probably the bare minimum. If you decide you want to make more wine, then there are some items that will make the whole process easier. They are listed below. Auto-siphon – This is a handy device you can use to siphon the wine from one container to the next. You just attach you siphon hose to it, place it in the carboy or bucket, give it a couple pumps and the wine starts flowing. Far easier then sucking on the end of the hose. Bottling Wand – This device goes on the other end of the siphon hose and is used at bottling time. It has a small plunger on the end and when you push it down on the bottom of the bottle, it lets the wine flow and stops the flow when you lift it from the bottom of the bottle. It is far easier that trying to pinch the siphon hose to stop the flow of wine. Carboy Brush – This is just a large brush with a handle long enough to get to the bottom on a carboy. They are useful for stubborn rings on the inside of the carboy. This is the equipment needed to start making wine. Keep in mind you can start small with 1 gallon containers for fermentation. They will be less expensive than 5 gallon containers. If you enjoy the hobby, you can upgrade to larger containers later. In my next post, I will explain the wine making process in detail. Enjoy! Last week I mentioned that I had a special recipe I was going to use with the last gallon of Valpolicello wine. After making the 6 gallon batch of wine from fresh juice, I rack the wine into a 5 gallon carboy. This leaves me with 1 gallon extra. I decided to make a second batch of wine using the left over wine in the bucket. I had a few pounds of Elderberries in the freezer and a couple of cans of Welches frozen grape juice. That was the basis of the recipe. First, I use the same bucket that the original wine fermented in, I did not clean it out. When I racked the wine to the 5 gallon carboy, I left 1 gallon in the bucket. I then placed 7 pounds of elderberries in a nylon straining bag and placed that in a pot. I then mixed 8 pounds of sugar and 2 gallon of water in with the elderberries. Then I added 2 cans of Welches grape juice. I did not boil the water, I just warmed it up to room temperature and added it to the bucket. I then added enough water to bring the bucket to 5 gallons. Next I added 2 teaspoons of acid blend for each gallon of wine for a total of 10 teaspoons. Since the wine in the bucket had yeast still in it, the fermentation started right away. I did not have to add any additional yeast. I started this wine on 9/15/2011. PA was at 11.5% and TA was at .60%. I stirred it every day to mix the fruit into the wine. (As wine ferments, the fruit will float to the top and needs “punched down” in order to get maximum extraction of the flavors and colors.) On 9/22/2011 I lifted the bag of elderberries from the wine and let it drain. (Do Not Squeeze The Bag!) I then racked the wine from the bucket into a 5 gallon carboy for secondary fermentation. There are a couple of things to keep in mind for this process. First, since the left over wine in the bucket is still fermenting, you do not want to do anything that will kill the yeast. I don’t add sulfite at this stage because I want fermentation to begin right away. I don’t pour boiling hot water into the bucket. I make sure the water temp is withing 5-10 degrees of the wine so as not to shock the yeast. Same thing with frozen fruit, bring it within 5-10 degrees of the wine must before adding it to the bucket. Second, you can adjust the amount of fruit and frozen grape juice to suit what you have on hand. I used 7 pounds of elderberries because that was what I had in the freezer. I used 2 cans of Welches Frozen Grape Juice because, again, that is what I had in the freezer. Generally, I will use 8 pounds of fruit or 8 cans of Welches Frozen grape juice for a second run recipe. Mix and match as you see fit. Well, that is one of the ways I stretch my wine. Using this method, I can make two batches of wine for a little more than the cost of one. Both of these wines should be done at around the same time, so I will be bottling 10 gallons instead of 5. That is how you make wine on a budget. Enjoy! Welcome to the second update of my Wine Log Series – Luva Bella Fall Juice. In the previous post I took the initial readings and started the fermentation. I let the wine ferment for 1 week, then I checked the readings again. The PA readings ranged from 0-6% and acidity was higher in all the wines. I racked the wine into 5 gallon carboys. The wine came in 6 gallon buckets, so I racked the remainder into 1 gallon glass jugs. I will use this wine to top up the 5 gallon carboys when I rack the wine later. I did something different with the Valpolicella, after racking 5 gallons into the carboy, I used the remaining gallon to start another wine. I will post that recipe soon. One thing I do at each racking is taste the wine. I do this to see how the wine develops and to catch any potential problems early. I listed my impressions of the wine that I tasted below. These were the readings on 9-15-2011. Burgundy – PA 2%, TA .50%. I taste currents and cherries. Shiraz – PA 0%, TA .50%. I taste a hint of blackberry. Valpolicella – PA 0%, TA .50%. I taste a hint of currents Viognier – PA 6%, TA .75%. This had a strong aroma of grapefruit and it tasted like peaches. Since the acid readings rose on all of these wines, I am not going to add anything at this time. I will let the wine continue to ferment and clear. Until the next update, Enjoy! Every wine maker should take good notes when they make wine. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, taking good notes will help you improve your wine making skills. By being able to reference what worked well and what didn’t, you can improve the quality of your wine. The second reason is for the times when you surprise yourself and make something truly exceptional. In those instances, you will have a record of what you did and can repeat your work of art. I am going to demonstrate what I am talking about. I am starting a new series of posts titled The Wine Log Series. I plan on documenting my wine logs on this blog. All the notes that I take about the wine, any readings I take, any impressions I get from the wine, will be documented here. I hope this will help you understand how to take good notes on wine making. To start off the series, I ordered fresh wine juice from Luva Bella Winery. The juice came from California and is in 6 gallon buckets. The juices that I ordered were Burgundy, Shiraz, and Valpolicella, which are reds and Viognier which is a white. Below is a short description of each wine along with the readings I took on September 8, 2011 when I started the wine. Burgundy – Ruby red in color that has a light aroma of cherry and earthliness. The hydrometer reading was 12.5% PA, or 1.096 SG. Tartaric Acid reading was .30%, which is a little low for a red. It should be around .60-.65% TA. Shiraz – A blend of blackberry, spice and chocolate hints. The hydrometer reading was 12% PA, or 1.092 SG. Tartaric Acid reading was .30%, which is a little low. Valpolicella – Deep ruby red color with apple and cherry aromas. The hydrometer reading was 11.5% PA, or 1.089 SG. Tartaric Acid reading was .35%, which is a little low. Viognier – Light gold in color with the aroma of apricot, spice and honey. The hydrometer reading was 12%, or 1.094 SG. Tartaric Acid reading was .40%, which is a little low for a white. It should be around .65-.75% TA. Since these juices are from California, I am not surprised the TA reading are a little low. Californian grapes are known to be low in acid. When I rack the juice to carboys, I will take another reading and adjust the acid at that time. The instructions to start these wines were easy. Just bring the wine home, let it warm up and stir the must with a sanitized spoon. I also took the PA and TA readings listed above at that time. I will give them about a week to ferment, then I will check the PA reading to see if they are ready to rack into the carboy. I will update the wine log at that time. If you have any questions or comments, please let me know. Enjoy! It has been awhile since my last post, so I decided to do a series on Basic Wine Making. I teach a wine making class here in Portersville, but for those of you who could not make it, I am going to go over what I teach in class. This is going to be a multi-part series starting with sanitization. I have been making my own wine for over 12 years now. I started my journey making wine completely by happen-stance. One year, my father decided he wanted to make some pear wine because he had lots of pears from his fruit trees. One of his buddies decided to help him with this project. Now, my dad likes to jump right into new projects and since he had so many pears, he decided to make 55 gallons of pear wine! He got an old plastic 55 gallon barrel, put in the pears, some water, 25 pounds of sugar and a brick of bread yeast. He stirred and stirred, it bubbled and fermented, this went on for a few weeks. After a couple months, we had this barrel full of nasty, vinegary, pear flavored concoction. It certainly was not wine. We had to dump this stuff down the drain. After this first failure, I figured I would try to make a batch of wine. One of the first batches of wine I tried to make was a Strawberry wine. I did a little research on the Internet, borrowed an old crock pot, bought some wine yeast and tried to make strawberry wine. I boiled some water, added some sugar, added the strawberries, fermented it in a old crock pot, and it failed spectacularly. It was the most terrible thing I ever tasted! For the record, don’t try to make wine in a crock pot that has been used to make sauerkraut… EVER! Other than the fact that I should not have used a crock pot that had been used for sauerkraut, the other big mistake I made was not to sanitize my equipment. Which leads me to the point I am trying to make here. KEEP EVERYTHING THAT TOUCHES YOUR WINE SANITIZED! I can’t stress this enough. Proper sanitation will solve 90% of your problems before you have them. Wine spoilage is almost always the result of not properly sanitizing something along the way. Make sure your equipment, buckets, carboys, siphon hose, and anything else that touches the wine are all properly sanitized. Sanitizing involves more than just washing your equipment with dish soap, so I will explain how to do it properly. In fact, you don’t want to use dish soap to clean your equipment, you want to use a clenser like B-brite. There are 3 types of sanitizers that I have used in wine making. The sanitizers are Sulfite solution, Star San, and Chlorine Bleach. Star San and Sulfite solution are no-rinse sanitizers. What that means is that you can use them with out rinsing the solution off the equipment with water. Star San is an acid based sanitizer and will not harm your wine. Sulfite is found naturally in wine and also will not harm your wine. Chlorine Bleach needs to be rinsed after use. It is very important to not get bleach in your wine, so rinse your equipmen very well if you use a bleach sanitizer. I mostly use Star San for sanitization now. I mix my Star San at 1/4 ounce per gallon, the directions say use 1oz for 5 gallons. Leave your equipment stand for a few minutes to give the sanitizer time to work. You do not have to rinse your equipment after using Star San. Another no rinse solution you can use is sulfite solution. You can make this by mixing 2 ounces of Potassium Metabisulfite into 1 gallon of water. You can then spray your equipment and give it a few minuets to work. If you want to use Chlorine Bleach as a sanitizer, mix 1 table spoon of bleach per gallon of water. Let the wet equipment stand for 5 minuets to kill any organisms then rinse thoroughly with water. I clean my equipment with B-Brite after each use and then let air dry. When I am ready to start another batch of wine, I’ll sanitize the bucket, spoons and any other equipment by spraying everything down with Star San. Then I will make my wine. After a week or two, I rack the wine out of the bucket. I will then rinse the dirty bucket with cold water. This will remove any sediment, fruit, and wine still in the bucket. Once the bucket has been rinsed, I will use B-Brite to wash out the bucket. I make sure to get B-Brite on every surface of the bucket, inside and out. I use it like dish soap and clean the whole bucket. To make a B-Brite solution, mix one table spoon into 1 gallon of water. I use Chlorine Bleach for really tough stains and smells. I also use Chlorine Bleach for any used equipment that I get. If someone gives me used wine bottles, or I buy used carboys, they all get a 24 hour soak in bleach solution. This soak is also good for removing really tough labels from bottles. I used to use a sulfite solution to clean my bottles prior to bottling. I would fill the bottles with the sulfite solution, give them a couple minuets to soak then pour the solution from one bottle into the next. I would leave the bottles wet to add a little sulfite to the wine to keep the wine from spoiling. The one downside is that sulfite solution has a bad sulfur smell. I have switched to Star San to sanitize my bottles, but now I check my sulfite levels of my wine while it is bulk aging. I will go over this in more detail in a later post. This concludes the first post in the series Basic Wine Making. I hope you understand how important proper sanitization is to Wine Making. It will solve 90% of your problems before you have them. In the next post, I will go over the equipment used in Wine Making and each items purpose. Enjoy! Spring is here and that means that Dandelions are starting to bloom. Most people don’t like Dandelions growing in their yard, but I look forward to them. It means I can make Dandelion Wine! This is a recipe I make every year and I usually make 2 batches. The best way I can describe how Dandelion Wine tastes is that it tastes like a Chianti Wine. A few things to keep in mind when you make this wine. Make sure you pick your Dandelions from a yard that has not been sprayed with any kind of chemical, you don’t want that in your wine. Pick medium to large dandelions in the late morning after the flowers have fully opened. You only want the head of the flower so you need to remove the stem and any leaves. The inner pedal leaves are fine, but you must remove all of the stem, this is important. I just pinch off the stem when I am cleaning the flowers, some people use scissors. Sometimes Dandelion Wine is hard to get started fermenting. If it has not started fermenting 3-4 days after pitching the yeast you may need to vigorously rack it into another bucket. By “vigorously rack” I just mean shaking the end of the hose the wine is coming out of a little bit to introduce air into the must. Sometimes the yeast just needs a little shot of oxygen to get started. My Dandelion Wine takes a while before it is ready to bottle. I usually start it in April\May and bottle in December\January, so be patient. If you are ready to get started making Dandelion Wine, use the recipe below. It is for a 5 gallon batch of wine.
Bring 2 gallons of water and your dandelion petals to a boil, remove from heat and steep for 2 hours. Strain water through a colander to remove petals and pour it into your primary fermentor. Add your remaining water, sugar, Acid Blend,Tannin, and Yeast Nutrient. Take an acid reading, your acid should be between .55% to .65% TA. Take the PA reading, it should be between 10 and 12%. Add Campden Tablets after the must has cooled to room temp. 12 to 24 hours after the Campden Tablets, pitch the Yeast. Ferment and rack as normal for wine. Enjoy! Every so often I teach a wine making class in Portersville PA . The next class is scheduled for January 8, 2011. Class will begin at 4:30PM. The class costs $20 at the door, $15 if you pre-register. You can contact the Porter House Brew Shop to sign up and for more information. Hope to see you there. |
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