Your Supplies

The easy way to make your own wine would be to simply buy a kit to make your own wine. The prices are pretty steep but putting together your own supplies and totally doing it on your own can be a lot of fun. You will need: A few five gallon buckets to make and store the wine (some should have air locks for the fermentation process); a winepress (optional); a hydrometer to take readings of sugar and alcohol; a destemmer; a siphoning hose and some bottles, corks and a corker. Sterilize everything before you begin to make your wine.

Grapes (of course!)

I normally make roughly 5-6 gallons per batch when I make wine at home. This should give you about 24 bottles of wine. You are going to need quite a lot of grapes. You will need about 45 pounds of grapes. If you want, winemaking supply stores also sell bottled grape juice just for making wine at home.

Juice Those Grapes

You can obviously skip the step of making grape juice if you’ve bought the bottled juice. If not get that winepress working if you have one or start squishing grapes! Please note that red wine grapes must be fermented with the skins for several days before juicing.

Prep Your Juice

So you have you juice, now take out your hydrometer and take a reading of your sugar content. Check to see if the alcohol scale reads between 9% and 13%. If you are below that level add some sugar until your hydrometer gives you the green light to continue.

Ferment

Pour the juice into an open container about halfway. Next add yeast nutrient, pectic enzyme and potassium bisulfite. Wait a day and then gently sprinkle yeast (one package every 5 gallons) into your container. Let the fermentation process begin! Bubbling will occur in about 12 hours. Make sure you stir daily and have your containers lightly covered with a clean cloth.

And Again

You are almost there after five or six days. Move your fermenting juice into a clean bucket with an air lock. The sediment from the first bucket should stay there! Be carefull. Take another hydrometer reading to let you know if you are done fermenting. Almost there. Your wine will start to separate from the sediment at this point and needs to be taken out. This can take quite a while; several weeks to maybe even months.

Bottle Your Batch

After your liquid has cleared prepare for bottling. I usually strain my wine before bottling to remove any left over sediment. This is not necessary but a good habit to have I feel. Siphon the wine into your bottles, cork them and store them in a nice cool, dry place until you want to drink. Age it as you see fit. Enjoy!!

Find More Merlot Wine Articles