My First Wine Making Process
Ya gotta have something to bottle into. Its nice to have the bottles ready by the time its time to bottle. I used beer bottles this time. Mostly Sam Adams and Fat Tire bottles! I soaked them in the tub just to get the labels off.
Before winemaking, be sure you have everything you need. Deep Clean and Sanitize the area. I use a soloution of bleach spray. Turn fans off and shut any windows.
In a nutshell, the juice goes in the jug first. Have Temperature on your mind.
If you were a yeast, wouldn't you rather digest dissolved sugar? Don't COOK it. Just Dissolve it.
The dissolved sugar water goes in next. REALLY be thinking about temperature now.
When the Temp of the Juice and Sugar in the jug are between room and 100F, add the yeast.
First time, I filled the rest of the jugs with water, and put Cheese Cloth over the tops as this easy recipe suggested. This worked fine actually, save the attack of the fruit flies.
I've since moved on to a much nicer set up. The bubblers. This is the way to go. I'd also like to add that I feed my fermentaion more sugar water when the bubbles start to slow down the first time. Otherwise, leave them be, save a gentle swirl a couple times a day to keep the foam from rotting.
If all goes well. After racking 2 times, prepare to bottle. Boil them bottles 10 minutes to sterilize.
I used an antique bottle capper i got off eBay. Picked up some cork lined bottle caps off eBay too.
The finished product? Well, you tell me if you got any! ;)
My Wine Recipes
My Wine Log