Homegrown Wine

One of my spring/summer hobbies for several years has been making homemade wine. The process sounds complicated at first glance, but like anything it can be as simple or as complicated as we want it to be. I prefer the simple way.

There are a few pieces of equipment that are needed for home wine-making, like a big bucket, a long spoon, a straining bag, some gallon jugs with airlocks, a long tube to siphon the wine from one container to another, and bottles and corks. I am blessed to have a shop in town that carries homebrewing supplies, although if there weren't a store in town I could find it all on the internet easily.

Wine can be made from just about any fruit, vegetable, flower or plant. I used strawberries leftover from last summer for my latest batch. I'm looking forward to making dandelion wine this spring, and others as the fruit season progresses-- peach, cherry, choke cherry, apricot, plum, apple. I suppose I could use zucchini, onions or tomatoes from my garden to make wine, but... well, I guess I'd like to try a sample before I create onion wine!

The basic procedure for wine is simple. Fruit (or other plant matter) is crushed with boiling water in a bucket; sugar and yeast are added and it is all stirred daily for a week; the liquid is strained into a gallon jug and the jug is topped with an airlock; the wine is siphoned a few times back and forth into another clean jug; and when the wine is clear and no longer fermenting it is bottled and corked. The wine can be aged or enjoyed immediately. Some people add sulfites to the wine and others do not; I am not sure whether they are necessary or harmful, but here is a short article on sulfites. There are tons of other things involved with more advanced winemaking, but when I sit down to read about it I start feeling tired and stressed, so I figure if I like my wine and enjoy the process, then simple is the way to go.

Wine recipes can be found all over the place in books and websites; for this batch I used a strawberry wine recipe from The Winemaking Home Page:

* 3 lbs. fresh strawberries
* 2-1/2 lbs. granulated sugar
* 2 tsp. citric acid
* water to make 1 gallon
* wine yeast & nutrient

Place all ingredients except yeast in crock. Crush fruit with hands and cover with 5 pints boiling water. Stir with wooden paddle to dissolve sugar and simultaneously mash the strawberries. When cooled to 85 degrees F., add yeast. Cover and stir daily. Strain on 7th day, transfer to secondary fermentation vessel, top up to one gallon, fit fermentation trap, and set aside. Rack after 30 days and again after additional 30 days. Bottle when clear.


Related posts/links:
Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods has simple recipes and instructions for many ferments, including wine, mead, and beer.
The 5 Basic Steps of Winemaking
The Basic Procedure (with pictures)
Winemaking 101 from the Joy of Home Winemaking
Wine Making Recipe Chart
Wine Making Supplies
Recipes
More Recipes
Want to Live Forever? Drink Kombucha!