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Important Reminders on Wine Making

Cleanliness

This particular reminder can never be stressed and repeated enough. It is one of the most crucial in all wine directions. Always maintain cleanliness in your workstation whether it be your kitchen, your backyard or wherever it is that you choose to make your own homemade wine. When we say cleanliness, it does not only mean that your kitchen counter or work station must be physically clean like spotless and all that but chemically speaking, it must be clean too! This means, everything must be sanitized including all equipment and surrounding areas. Working in a sterilized area will ensure that no bacteria will come enter or mix with your concoction and airborne yeasts and vinegar flies won’t be around to ruin your mixture and turn it to vinegar. You will know more about this as you go through with the wine making process.

Fermentation

The process of fermentation is the part in wine directions that may be a bit hard to understand at first but really, it’s not that complicated. Putting it in simple terms, it is just yeast feeding on sugar which produces carbon dioxide and alcohol. It is the process of fermentation that will eventually turn your grape juice into wine or alcoholic beverage. There are two types of fermentation that can happen at this stage — the process of primary fermentation that can take up to 14 days and the process of secondary fermentation that can take up ten more days.

As part of our important reminders or wine directions, it is important to take note of the following dos and don’ts:

Dos
-    Like what was mentioned earlier, one of the most crucial of all wine directions is ensuring that all the equipment that you are going to us are clean, meaning, properly sanitized and or sterilized.
-    Your first ferment must be tightly covered.
-    Another crucial part in all wine directions is that during your secondary fermentation, keep away air by sealing your fermenter. This ensures that bacteria and vinegar flies will be kept at bay.
-    Don’t forget to always use the fermentation traps.
-    Wine bottles are kept full which is about ¾ inches of the cork.
-    The alcohol or liquor must be slowly and thoroughly  strained off your must.  
-    Instead of making sweet wine right at the start, better make the dry kind first. This way, if you don’t like the way it tastes, you can always add sugar and make it sweet later on.
-    Make sure you are using yeast from a reliable source.
-    Again, like what was mentioned, sugar can always be added at a later time, step by step. Just keep a detailed record of it.  
-    Rack twice or thrice which is more preferred by wine makers.
-    When tasting wine, it must be done at intervals.
-    Corks and stoppers must always be sterilized whether they are old one or new ones.
-    Red wines can lose their colors if not stored in dark colored bottles.

Don’ts
-    Another important of all wine directions is to not try to distill your wine.  
-    Forget to keep vinegar flies at bay.
-    Don’t use equipment of resinous wood.
-    Don’t forget to stir a must two times everyday.
-    Don’t put in a lot of sugar at the beginning.
-    Don’t use high temperature just so you can speed up fermentation.
-    be impatient.
-    Don’t leave your wine to sit on yeast that’s dead or sediment.
-    Don’t forget that wines do clear up in time. Don’t rush the process by filtering too soon.
-    Don’t pour your wine in jars or bottles that have not been sterilized.
-    While wine is still fermenting, don’t bottle it just yet.

About the Author

Simon Thomas is a homemade winemaker, enthusiast and author. He lives in California and spends his time teaching others how to setup an amazing boutique winery. His latest book, “Homemade Wine:
Great Secrets on How to Turn Your Winemaking Hobby Into a Profitable Business” is available at http://www.homemadewinesecrets.com.

Get Wines Direct – Recommendations Thursday 11 March, 2010