It may seem daunting to look at the online catalog of any large winemaking supply company. There are a lot of tools and equipment, and picking out what you need could seem like a complicated process. But in truth, you really just need a few basic things. People, after all, were making wine long before things like electronic filters, pH meters, and temperature-control equipment were available.
Fermentation is a natural process. With a minimum of equipment and a little experience, it is possible to make wine as good as or even better than anything you can purchase.
The first stage of winemaking is called primary fermentation. Fermentation is a process whereby bacteria, yeasts, or other microorganisms break down an energy-rich organic compound, usually giving off heat and gases, and sometimes creating other simpler compounds, like alcohol. In the case of wine, yeast converts the sugar in the must (the crushed fruit or juice), plus any sugar you might add, into alcohol and carbon dioxide. During this stage, the fruit pulp will rise to the top and form a solid mat, called a cap, that should be broken up and stirred back into the wine twice a day. As the sugar is converted into alcohol and carbon dioxide, the cap will become less firm, which indicates that, depending on the recipe and the volume of wine you’re making, more sugar should be added or the primary fermentation is done. Because the must needs oxygen and you will be stirring it frequently, it’s best to use a container with a wide mouth.
For the 1-gallon recipes in this book, you’ll need a 2-gallon fermentation bucket or crock, or a 1.4-gallon “bubbler,” which is a clear widemouthed jar that comes with a lid and a fermentation lock. If using a crock or a bucket that does not come with a cover fitted with a fermentation lock, cover the crock or bucket with a kitchen-size trash bag. Pull the bag over the bucket, loosely tucking it in around the bottom of the bucket. The bag is loose enough that carbon dioxide can flow out of it, but it provides enough covering to protect the must from any airborne microorganisms. Fermentation buckets come in many different sizes, and if you are making larger batches of wine, be sure your bucket is about half a gallon larger than the finished wine, to leave room for the chopped fruits, vegetables, or herbs. My 61⁄2-gallon bucket holds enough must to make 6 gallons of wine, which, in the secondary fermentation stage, I split between a 5-gallon glass carboy (a narrow-necked bottle larger than 1 gallon in size) and a 1-gallon glass jug.
Food-grade buckets work well as primary fermentation vessels, and you can sometimes get them free, but you must be careful of your source. Any buckets from industrial sources that originally held chemicals are not safe to use. Instead, look for buckets from restaurants, bakeries, and other food vendors and establishments. I have a couple of 5-gallon buckets that originally held food-grade coconut oil. If you know someone who works at or owns a food establishment, you may be able to build a collection of buckets for free. Give anyone who offers you a bucket a bottle of one of your best vintages, and you may receive all the buckets you need. You will need two 5-gallon buckets to make one 5-gallon batch of wine because you need room for stirring in the buckets and some volume will be lost after you strain out the pulp.
Secondary fermenter (carboy); bottling bucket; primary fermenter (bubbler); funnel; corks; glass bottles
I prefer to let the fruit, flowers, or herbs float freely in the primary fermentation vessel because I believe you get more of the flavor and full essence of your main ingredient this way, but some people prefer to enclose them in a fermentation bag (a large mesh bag) because it is easier and less messy. I use a fermentation bag for pressing: before I transfer the wine into the secondary fermentation vessel, I scoop the pulp into the mesh bag and squeeze the wine into the vessel. Supply shops will carry both fermentation bags and smaller mesh bags. You can also start with juice and not need a bag. I will discuss these options in more detail in chapter 2.
After 1 or 2 weeks of primary fermentation, it is time to press out the pulp and put the liquid into secondary fermentation. Secondary fermentation is slower and can last a long time if you don’t add sulfites or other additives that kill yeast.
For the recipes in this book, you’ll need a small-necked 1-gallon glass jug. Glass is preferable to plastic because plastic can degrade over time and the alcohol in your wine can leach undesirable chemicals out of the plastic, especially if you age your wine in these jugs after secondary fermentation, as I will recommend in the next chapter. You may also consider purchasing a 1⁄2-gallon glass jug, in case you have some wine that won’t fit in your 1-gallon jug after pressing out the must.
If making larger batches, you’ll need to purchase a glass carboy (a small-necked vessel larger than 1 gallon); sizes range from 3 to 61⁄2 gallons. Even larger fermentation containers called demijohns are also available. I have two 9-gallon demijohns and a 17-gallon demijohn in my collection. You may be able to scavenge some secondary fermentation jugs. I collected more than two dozen 1-gallon glass jugs back when apple juice and cider were still sold in glass, and more than a dozen 5-gallon glass carboys when water was still sold in glass.
Wine- and beer-making supply stores sell carboy covers to protect the wine from light. In addition, I’ve known people to use old T-shirts to cover their carboys. Some people worry that prolonged exposure to light can be detrimental to wine, but I’ve never used a cover and have kept wine in jugs and carboys for up to 2 years before bottling without any problems.
Some of the earliest evidence of winemaking comes from wine residues found on pottery shards dating back to around 6,000 bce near the Caucasus Mountains regions of Iran and Georgia. The development of pottery was a crucial factor in the development of a wine culture because pottery is nonporous and (one hopes) does not leak, it does not transmit disagreeable flavors to its contents, and it produces containers that can be sealed against oxidation.
Wines made before the advent of pottery might have been stored in open or unsealed containers and would have soured quickly, turning into vinegar, which has its uses but is not enjoyable to drink. They may also have been stored in animal-skin containers, which could have been sealed against oxidation but would have imparted other, perhaps disagreeble, flavors to the wine. So, in general, it’s fair to say that pottery making and winemaking were natural partners.
Once a winemaking culture was able to produce jars with a tapered small opening, like the Greek amphorae, it became easier to properly seal the vessels. This allowed wines to be stored for longer periods and to be more easily transported, allowing the creation of a commercial market for wines.
Bungs are rubber stoppers that are sold in a variety of sizes to fit jugs, carboys, and demijohns. You’ll need both solid bungs, to use when fermentation has stopped and the wine is continuing to age, and bungs with a hole in the middle. The hole fits a fermentation lock, which is used during secondary fermentation and can also be used during primary fermentation.
There are dry fermentation locks that use a ball to seal the opening, but most fermentation locks use a barrier of water to keep air and potential contaminants out of the ferment while allowing the carbon dioxide generated during fermentation to escape (so the bottle won’t explode!). They come in two main styles: S-shaped locks and simple vertical locks. S-shaped locks are popular because they can be left unattended for long periods of time without worrying that the water barrier inside them will evaporate, but their disadvantage is they are difficult to clean. This is especially troublesome if you get an overactive fermentation that bubbles over, filling the fermentation lock with fermenting fruit juices. This type of overactive fermentation can also keep dry locks from sealing properly. I prefer a simple vertical, also called T-shaped, fermentation lock that is easy to clean, though its water will evaporate over time and must be refilled occasionally.
A siphon hose is a plastic tube used to rack wine (transfer it from one container to another) between carboys and jugs, leaving behind the sediment at the bottom. The full vessel is placed on a table or counter, and suction is used to transfer the liquid to the empty vessel below. I use plastic tubing that has an inside diameter of 3⁄8 inch and is 4 to 6 feet long, but you can use any size you like. Tubing with a larger inside diameter will siphon the wine faster, and longer is better if you are working with large carboys or have a tall table. You can purchase food-grade plastic tubing at your local winemaking supply shop. The inside of the hose will eventually build up residue that is impossible to clean, but the tubing is inexpensive and easily replaced.
You can suck on one end of the tubing to create suction to rack your wine (see Step 7: Rack the Wine and Filter the Lees), or you can use a tool called an auto-siphon. They even sell mini auto-siphons for use on 1-gallon jugs. You can also purchase expensive electronic pumps, some with filtering attachments, if you are moving large quantities of wine or just like having fancy, high-tech equipment.
A hydrometer is perhaps the most talked-about piece of equipment used in home winemaking. A glass cylinder with a weighted bottom and a scale printed along its length, it is floated in a narrow cylinder of your must or wine to determine the wine’s specific gravity (the ratio of the density of the wine to the density of water). Some wine hydrometers show both specific gravity and estimated alcohol content on scales along the cylinder of the hydrometer. A hydrometer can help you decide how much sugar you need to add to the must to reach a certain alcohol percentage.
I have a hydrometer and have never used it. There are several reasons for this. Because I use chopped or mashed fruit, I don’t get as accurate a reading of the specific gravity of my must as I would if I were to measure juice because much of the sugar is still in the fruit pulp rather than the juice. A hydrometer measures the sugar content of an aqueous solution, not the sugar still in the solid fruit. Also, you measure the specific gravity of your must at the beginning and end of fermentation in order to calculate alcohol and residual sugar levels. My method involves adding sugar several times during the primary fermentation when I’m making large batches, so using a hydrometer would not give me an accurate idea of the alcohol and sugar levels; I’m changing those levels every time I add sugar. Also, because I never add sulfites to kill the yeast and stop fermentation, the alcohol concentration of my wines may continue to increase slightly after bottling.
All of the recipes in this book include the exact amount of sugar you will need to make each wine so that it is at least 14 percent alcohol (the minimum level needed to preserve a wine that does not contain sulfites). If you want to develop your own recipes, look to chapter 2 for a basic ratio of sugar to water (see Basic Rules for Adding Sugar) so that you know how much sugar to use. Nevertheless, if you would like to have a little more control and would like to use a hydrometer for 1-gallon batches, see the box above to learn how to use one.
With the exception of my cannabis wines, all of the recipes in this book call for adding the sugar all at once at the beginning. While a hydrometer is not necessary, you could certainly use one when making these recipes. The packaging material will tell you how to read the hydrometer and what the readings mean. Some hydrometers have a scale for specific gravity, and others may also have a scale for alcohol.
To read the hydrometer, look at the number that corresponds with the bottom of the curve in the liquid (called the meniscus). You may notice that the bottom of the curve is a few ticks lower than the topmost point of the liquid.
If your hydrometer only reads for specific gravity, it’s easy to convert the readings to alcohol content. Make a reading before fermentation starts, and jot it down. After the fermentation finishes, take another reading. Subtract the second reading from the first, and divide the result by 0.0074. That will give you the alcohol content as a percentage.
It’s good to have a collection of different-sized funnels and bottle brushes in your stash of winemaking equipment. I use a large 7-inch-diameter funnel for pouring the pressed-out wines from primary fermentation into gallon jugs and carboys for secondary fermentation. I also have six small kitchen funnels, which usually come in sets of three with descending sizes (4, 3, and 2 inches in diameter), into which I place paper coffee filters, to filter the solids out of the lees that settle in my secondary fermentation vessels, and to filter wine before bottling. I use three different bottle brushes: a small one for cleaning wine bottles, a larger one for cleaning gallon jugs, and one with a longer handle and an angled brush for cleaning carboys. You will need these to keep your fermenting equipment and wine bottles clean.
The standard wine bottle holds 750 milliliters of wine; a gallon of wine will fill five of these. Large bottles (called magnums) that hold 1,500 milliliters are also commonly used in the wine industry. I find that half bottles, which hold 375 milliliters, are especially useful for bottling small amounts of spicy hot pepper wines, since these are usually consumed in smaller quantities. I also have a Jeroboam bottle in my cellar that holds more than a gallon of wine. The standard 750-milliliter bottle is probably best for most home winemakers, being readily available and easy to drink in a night, although the larger magnums are fine for wine intended for larger groups of people at parties or other gatherings.
Wine bottles come in a variety of colors. Traditionally, dark green bottles are used for red wines, light green for dry whites, and clear bottles for sweet whites, but you can also find amber bottles and even bright blue ones. Some winemakers use unusually shaped bottles. If you collect these, they can be fun to use for special wines or to give unique gift bottles. You can purchase new bottles from supply shops, but if you are willing to work a little at cleaning off old labels (see How to Remove Wine Labels), it is easy to get all of the bottles you will ever need from wine-drinking friends or restaurant connections.
Most commercial wine bottles still use traditional corks, but these days you’ll find a fair percentage with screw tops. Since home winemakers generally cork their bottles to seal them, if you’re reusing commercial bottles, you’ll want to stick with those that use corks. Some people claim to have had success corking screw-top bottles, but in my opinion, these look tacky, and even though I need several hundred bottles each year, I haven’t had a problem obtaining enough traditional bottles for my use.
If you only make small quantities and plan to drink your wine quickly, you could get by with a collection of swing-top bottles. They are not generally as airtight as corks, but they are reusable. Swing-top bottles come with a ceramic cap and a rubber seal attached to a wire swing that allows you to lock the cap down and release it easily. Commercial meads often come in this type of bottle.
Siphon pump, siphon hose, mesh bag, corker, fermentation lock, carboy brush, bottle brush, and sanitizer
Corks come in a variety of sizes and materials. I recommend using the highest-quality corks possible, even though they cost a little more — especially if you plan to age your wine for years or even decades. Cheap corks made from gluing and compressing small pieces of cork can work for shorter storage periods but are more likely to deteriorate and break down over longer periods. Synthetic plastic corks work fine, even for longer-term storage, but I prefer natural corks punched from the bark of the cork oak (Quercus suber). When wine bottles are properly stored on their sides, lying down, the corks absorb enough liquid to swell and form a tight seal against the bottle.
Wine corks come in four sizes, based on the cork diameter: 7, 8, 9, and 10. Number 7 corks are used when you’re corking bottles by hand, but they may not form a tight seal and are not recommended for wines that are to be stored and aged, even for only a year or two. I use size 8 corks because they work well with my hand corker. Most commercial wineries use number 9 corks, but they require a more powerful floor corker than my lever-operated hand corker. Number 9 corks are often recommended for wines that are aged for longer periods, although my number 8 corks have worked well with wines that have been cellared for 30 years. Number 10 corks are used for bottles larger than the standard 750-milliliter size if the bottle in question has a larger opening.
Tasting corks are very useful. These are a rounded half cork glued to a sturdy, easy-to-grip lid, usually of knurled black plastic. Tasting corks are easy to pull out and put back in, so you can use them in opened bottles of wine that you wish to keep corked between pourings. When I hold a tasting event, I open bottles and replace the regular corks with tasting corks to make things easier. I also use them temporarily when filtering wine into bottles until I am ready to cork a group of bottles. While you can purchase tasting corks from winemaking supply shops, they often are used in commercial port bottles, and I’ve collected all that I need over the years from a friend who drinks lots of port.
Corker. To put the corks into the bottles, you will need either a hand corker or a floor-mounted corker. My hand corker operates with two levers and an adjustable plunger that presses the cork into the bottle to the proper depth. Hand corkers work well with number 7 and number 8 corks. Number 9 corks require the use of a floor-mounted corker, which can be easier to use than a hand corker since it has only a single lever or floor pedal, and it’s also more powerful. A floor-mounted corker is better if you bottle large amounts at a time, but it will also cost quite a bit more than a hand corker.
Labels. While you can identify your bottles with masking tape and pen, you will probably wish to finish them with nice labels. You can purchase premade labels, with or without glue, from suppliers. These will have a space where you can write in the name and date of your wine. If you are handy with graphics, you can create your own custom labels and not need to handwrite anything.
Capsules. The final touch to your wine bottles is a plastic or foil capsule that covers the cork and top of the bottle. Winemaking supply shops sell these in a variety of colors and even some with patterns. You can buy plastic beads in a variety of colors, melt the beads, and dip the tops of your bottles in for a more artistic seal.
Cleaning old labels off bottles doesn’t have to be difficult. Start by soaking the bottles in a sink full of hot soapy water (just a little bit of dish soap will do the trick) to soften the labels and glue. Some wineries use a water-soluble glue and the labels will just float off. Others use a soft glue that will easily rub or peel off with the label. Many use a much stickier glue that is a little more challenging to remove. I scrape these with the edge of a spoon to remove the label and as much glue as possible. Other people swear by using steel wool.
Some glues are very sticky and resinous, leaving little white clumps behind no matter how hard you scrape. At this stage, I use a widely available citrus-based commercial cleaner called Goo Gone to dissolve this glue residue. Occasionally even this won’t work, and I consign those bottles to the recycling bin.
There are plenty of other tools, accessories, and equipment you may wish to consider. Wine racks come in many sizes and shapes. Small racks that hold anywhere from two to a dozen bottles will fit nicely on a kitchen counter to hold bottles for immediate use. Large racks that can hold a hundred or more bottles are better for lining the walls of your cellar. Temperature-controlled wine refrigerators will fit under a counter and are useful for people who want to keep a variety of wines chilled, especially if they entertain guests often.
Oak barrels have been used to age and add flavor to red wines for hundreds of years. French oak barrels in a wide variety of sizes from 1 gallon to larger than you would ever use are available from major winemaking suppliers. You can purchase cradles to set your barrels in so they don’t roll. Or you may want a small barrel just for decorative ambience in your wine cellar or wet-bar recreation room.
Serious winemakers who make larger quantities of wine may wish to use large metal or plastic fermenters that hold anywhere from 20 to 55 gallons. You can purchase small or large wine presses and even large-scale crushers/destemmers if you decide to plant your own vineyard or buy large quantities of wine grapes from a grower. And jet-powered filters can help you filter large quantities of wine at a time. These tools can often be rented from your local winemaking supply store.
There are pH meters and other instruments for measuring all aspects of your wine during fermentation. Wine acidity is considered important to balance sweet and tart notes in the wine, which also leads to better aging when storing wines, but pH is less important for my style of higher-alcohol wines that age more like liquors than traditional wines.
Simple thermometers as well as cooling and heating units to facilitate fermenting in all weather conditions are available, since temperature can affect the speed of fermentation. However, I have done well making wine year-round in normal indoor temperatures and see little need for mechanical temperature control. My desire to simplify the winemaking process precludes the use of these instruments, and my methods have created wines that turn out well.
As for your bottles, you can find handles that attach to the necks of carboys to make them easier to handle and carry. You can also find bottle trees for drying your botttles, so you don’t tie up space in your dish rack. They are poles lined with short rods that hold as many as 90 cleaned bottles and have a small plastic tray at the bottom for catching water. You can get automatic bottle-filling tubes with spring-loaded stops to get the perfect fill for each bottle. Degassing equipment can help you bottle earlier without worry that continued fermentation in the bottle will cause corks to pop or bottles to explode. And if you wish to try your hand at making bubbly wines, you can get champagne corks, wires, and champagne corkers.
Most suppliers sell winemaking kits with all the basic tools for small batches of wine that will cost less than buying each piece separately. Many of these kits will come with a large can of juice concentrate to make your first 6-gallon batch of wine. You can start simple with just a kit, or with a bucket and jug and a few tools, and then build a collection of accessories if the winemaking lifestyle works for you.
If you want to make multiple batches at once, you will need additional fermentation buckets, 1-gallon glass jugs with stoppers and airlocks, solid stoppers, siphon hoses, and bottles.
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There are four basic ingredients for making wine: water, sugar, yeast, and whatever fruit, vegetable, flower, herb, spices, or combination thereof you are using to make and flavor your wine. There are limitless possibilities in this last group, making home winemaking a creative adventure that never gets old.
You can make wine from any edible fruit, vegetable, flower, herb, or combination thereof. You will just need to add more sugar for foods that are not naturally sweet. You can also use juice concentrate. In fact, most winemaking kits come with a large can of juice concentrate for starting your wine, and you can obtain juice concentrate of most, if not all, major wine grapes as well as many different types of fruits from winemaking suppliers. You can even buy some types of juice concentrates from the grocery store. While I prefer whole fruit, I have used frozen orange juice concentrate for making some of my citrus–hot pepper wines. I have heard about people making wine from their favorite soda, crushing up peppermint sticks and other candies to ferment, and flavoring apple wines with caramel. Don’t be afraid to use your imagination and try something different.
Most wine books will advise that you only use fruit in prime condition, but I have often made very good wine with fruit that was overripe. It’s important to make the distinction between overripe and bad, however. Don’t use fruit that has passed from overripe to spoiled, and carefully check your fruit for bruises and other bad spots and remove them.
Your wine base, whether fruit, vegetable, flower, or herb, can come from many places. Friends who have tasted your wine may offer you excess fruit from the trees in their yard, knowing they will get to drink some of the product. A close friend of mine who managed a nursery held a weekend farmers’ market one summer and several times brought me a case of leftover fruit that he knew wouldn’t keep until the next weekend. Make friends with the produce managers at your local grocery stores. They will often have fruit that gets a little too old to display and would prefer to sell it to you at a reduced price rather than throw it away. Always give any donors a couple of bottles as thanks. And always be ready to take advantage of special sales when the opportunities present themselves. One of my local grocery stores generally offers nice, large pineapples for a dollar each around New Year’s Eve, and I’ve taken advantage of that three times to make Pineapple wine.
Archaelogical evidence suggests that people first start making wine around 6000 bce from the wild progenitors of Vitis vinifera grapes. Grapes most likely became the favorite fruit for fermentation because they have more sugar than other fruits, thereby making wines that are higher in alcohol. Furthermore, grapes are notorious for having wild yeasts on their skins, which get the fermentation process going when the grapes are bruised and the sweet juice comes in contact with the yeasts. Even with no understanding of the fermentation process, early humans would have noticed the difference in alcohol content — and that alone is reason enough for grapes’ enduring popularity in winemaking.
Whether it comes from the fruit or is added, sugar is needed to make wine. Yeasts consume the sugar to create alcohol while giving off the carbon dioxide that creates the bubbles in fermenting wine musts and champagne. I add sugar to all of my wines, including the few I’ve made with grapes. Traditional grape winemakers would object to this, but because I do not use sulfites to preserve my wine, it needs to have a relatively high alcohol content so that it can keep and age better. Plus, I like a little sweetness in most of my wines. Alcohol kills off most types of wine yeast at about 18 percent concentration, so fermentation will continue until that point. If there’s still sugar in the must then, the wine will be sweetened by it. The wines in this book vary in alcohol content, but some do approach 18 percent under the right conditions.
I use cheap white table sugar from the grocery store, which is most likely beet sugar. While there is theoretically no chemical difference between beet and cane sugar, some winemakers insist on using only cane sugar. I do know from experience that cane sugar makes a difference when you’re making jams and jellies — the preserves will jell better with cane sugar, while beet sugar can sometimes leave them runny. I can detect no difference between cane and beet sugar when I’m making wine, however.
Some people use brown sugar or molasses in particular wines for the flavor it adds, but I have no experience with using these sweeteners. You can also use honey, though it can be pricey and may be best reserved for small batches. Artificial sweeteners will not work for any kind of wine, as they do not provide the proper food for the yeast to digest.
Raisins are another source of sugar for your wines. I always add raisins to my flower, herb, and citrus–hot pepper wines to give them not just sugar but also a little body. I usually use plain dark raisins, but I sometimes use golden raisins, especially if I am making a delicate white-flower wine like jasmine.
Yeast, sugar, raisins, vegetables, herbs, and fruit.
There are many ways to obtain fruits, vegetables, herbs, and flowers for your wine. I get the most pleasure out of collecting wild ingredients, although growing my own comes in a close second. When I decided, for instance, that I wanted to make an orange mole wine, featuring both chocolate and mole peppers, I didn’t have a convenient source to buy the peppers from. So I purchased seeds and grew the peppers myself until I had enough to make my first batch of Calamondin Orange Mole wine, which has proven to be a favorite! And as a side benefit, mole peppers became my favorite peppers to use in cooking. I now grow them every year for cooking, as well as for making wine.
With wild edibles, you have to be ready and willing to make time for harvesting when they are ready or you will miss your only opportunity of the year. Some wild edibles, like dandelions, chokecherries, and elderberries, have a limited harvest period and can be time consuming and labor intensive to pick and process. Turn the harvest into a party by inviting friends to help. Drink some wines during the event and make sure that everyone who participates gets some of the finished wine when it is ready.
Sometimes the harvest comes fast and furious, overwhelming your winemaking capacity, or it comes when you just don’t have time to make wine. In that case, you can freeze, dry, or even juice your wild or homegrown edibles and make wine later. Some ingredients, like rose petals or tomatoes, may have an extended harvest season and can be dried or frozen until you can gather enough to make your wine.
Wild yeasts abound in almost every environment on earth. All wines — and breads, beers, and so on — were fermented by wild yeasts until the mid- to late 1800s, when Louis Pasteur began investigating the role of yeast in fermentation and how to isolate particular strains. Some commercial wineries and home winemakers still allow local wild yeasts to ferment their wines, believing that this process creates the most authentic wine based on terroir — the particular characteristics of a wine imparted to it by the unique environmental conditions of the place where it was produced. Connoisseurs claim to be able to identify the origin of a wine — down to the vineyard that grew the grapes — based on terroir. I don’t recommend that beginners use wild yeast to make natural wines because you must expose your wine must to the open air for a couple of hours to allow wild yeasts to find it, which also gives undesirable bacteria a chance to find their way into the must. Bacterial contamination could give your wine an unpleasant odor and taste, possibly making it undrinkable. In warm weather, fermentation can start within a couple of days. Just keep in mind that the results can be unpredictable.
Most home winemakers will appreciate the more reliable and generally better outcome of commercial yeasts, and I recommend using commercial yeasts in the recipes in part 2. At least 150 different strains are available from specialty manufacturers, though you’re likely to find only a few of them at your local winemaking supply shop. (If you don’t have a local shop, you can order yeast from an online supplier.)
While any wine yeast will ferment any wine you care to make, particular strains are considered to be optimal for creating specific types of wine. Your supplier can recommend yeasts that are best for red wines, white wines, fruit wines, and champagne, as well as all-purpose yeasts. They can also recommend optimum fermentation temperatures, which vary based on yeast strain. Another factor to consider is alcohol percentage; most yeasts will die when the alcohol level reaches a certain concentration, which can vary from strain to strain. I’ve made wine with most varieties of commonly available commercial yeast and have been generally pleased with the results. I have found good success using Lalvin Narbonne white wine yeast (71B-1122) in my white, rosé, and orange-colored wines. For red wines, like blueberry, I prefer to use red wine yeast. Wine yeasts are inexpensive — a single packet of yeast, which contains about 5 grams of yeast and is enough to start a 1- to 5-gallon batch of wine, can usually be had for less than a dollar.
Some home winemakers have used the common bread-making yeast sold in grocery stores to ferment their wine and claim to have been satisfied with the results. I wouldn’t recommend bread yeast, however. Wine yeasts will produce better wines.
Below is a list of additives that are strongly recommended by most, if not all, winemaking guides. I used some of them when I first started making wines, but I stopped using them when I started avoiding additives in all of my foods. I believe that by not putting additives in my wine, the quality of my wine and its ability to age well have improved. The choice is up to you, however. You could experiment with adding additives to one batch of wine and keeping another additive-free, and see what you think of each.
Sulfite. Potassium metabisulfite, commonly called sulfite, produces sulfur dioxide gas (SO2) when added to the must or to the finished wine. The SO2 gas kills bacteria and yeast. Sulfite is most commonly found in the form of Campden tablets, which may be added to the must at the earliest stage to kill wild yeasts and any bacteria that are present. After 24 hours, when the sulfur dioxide has been reduced to a level that will no longer kill yeast, the desired wine yeast is added to start the fermentation. Campden tablets may be added again, to the finished wine, just before bottling to kill any residual yeast so that the wine does not continue to ferment in the bottle. Of course, if you’re making a sparkling or champagne-style wine, in which the bubbles are produced by continued fermentation in the bottle, called méthode champenoise, you would not add sulfite at this stage. Sparkling wines are created using the Charmat method of injecting CO2 gas into wine to make it bubbly.
Tannins. Tannin is a polyphenol compound that is present in grape skins, seeds, and stems. Red wines tend to have higher tannin levels than white wines because they are fermented with the grapes’ skins and seeds, which leaches the tannins into the wines; white wine musts, in contrast, do not generally contain the skins and seeds. Red wines also are often aged in oak barrels, where they will pick up oak tannins. Tannins are valued because they produce a spectrum of interesting aroma and flavor compounds and have preservative qualities that allow wine to age longer. As wines age, the tannins combine with anthocyanin pigments to preserve the red color of wine and soften the taste of wine. Winemaking shops often sell powdered tannin or bags of oak chips to submerse in your wines during aging. However, tannins also stimulate the release of the neurotransmitter serotonin and grape skins contain histamines, both of which can be associated with headaches. People who get headaches from drinking red wine may have a difficult time determining whether they are sensitive to tannins, histamines, or sulfites.
Sorbate. Sorbate, in the form of potassium sorbate or calcium sorbate, is used as a preservative to prevent the growth of yeast. Many home winemakers add both sulfites and sorbates to their wines just before bottling, as preservatives, but it seems redundant to me to add two different chemicals to kill and prevent yeast growth, even if you decide killing yeast is important and you aren’t sensitive to these chemical additives. Sensitivity to sorbates can result in allergic-type reactions in the mouth, throat, and eyes, as well as headaches.
Most people who have a bad reaction to drinking wine blame it on sulfites. There are many different additives used by winemakers, and a small number of people may react to many of them. The likely cause of most reactions is not sulfites but tannins, which are given credit for stabilizing and improving the aging flavor of wines. Tannins are naturally present in grapes but are also added by aging in oak barrels or adding oak chips during fermentation. My personal experience, although anecdotal, is that many people who complain of bad reactions to drinking wine, such as headaches, tell me that they don’t have that reaction when drinking my wines, which are free of any of the additives I discuss here.
Fining agents. Winemakers use a variety of substances, called fining agents, to clarify wine if it exhibits cloudiness. One potential cause of cloudiness is protein. There are small amounts of protein in all fruits, including grapes. Fining agents that bind to these proteins, causing them to become sediment that settles to the bottom of the wine, include egg whites, various milk products (whole milk, skim milk, and even half-and-half), casein (a milk protein), isinglass (a gelatin created from dried fish bladders), bentonite clay, and several different protease enzymes, including trypsin and pepsin.
Pectin haze is another potential form of cloudiness in wines, resulting from the presence of pectin, the glue-like substance that holds cell walls together in fruit. Pectic enzyme is often recommended for use in fruit wines, as it breaks down pectin.
Winemaking shops also sell many commercial fining agent products. One such product is Biolees, described as a naturally occurring aging enzyme. It is a patented product prepared from yeast cell walls with an enriched peptide fraction. Its use is said to replicate 6 months of natural aging. Sparkolloid is another commercial fining product consisting of a mix of polysaccharides made from brown seaweed on a diatomaceous earth carrier that works on a variety of cloudy factors in wine and is claimed to have no effect on flavor. It is a very effective fining agent and is popular with home winemakers. There are other commercial products that provide different combinations of various fining substances. If you choose to use any of those, be sure to know what chemicals are in them so you can make an informed choice based on their results and whether you have an adverse reaction to one of the ingredients.
Yeast nutrients/energizers. Yeast nutrients, also called energizers, stimulate yeast activity; you might use them if fermentation is slow or stopped (stuck). Yeast nutrients often include DAP (diammonium phosphate), which can create an ammonia odor and unpleasant salty flavor, as well as essential minerals, nutrients, and vitamins. Bi-Activ is a commercial yeast nutrient that combines sterols, long-chain fatty acids, vitamins, amino acids, and cellulose, but does not contain DAP. Different manufacturers combine different amounts of various nutrients in their formulations.
Winemaking shops will usually recommend that beginning winemakers use yeast nutrients. I used yeast nutrients a few times in my early years of winemaking, but I soon learned that they weren’t necessary to stimulate fermentation. For my wines that are slower to ferment, such as my herb and flower wines, I simply add some raisins at the beginning of the fermentation to get things going.
Although not typically used by home winemakers, commercial wineries employ a number of other additives for various reasons. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gives specific guidelines about the use of some of these additives, but wineries aren’t legally obligated to list them on labels.
Ascorbic acid (vitamin C) and the antifoaming agent dimethylpolysiloxane (also called dimethicone, a silicone polymer) are used as preservatives by some winemakers. Ascorbic acid is commonly used for that purpose in foodstuffs, while dimethylpolysiloxane is widely used in fast foods and in shampoos, lubricants, and many other personal-care products.
Dimethyl dicarbonate is added to some wines as a stabilizer. While it is poisonous, it supposedly hydrolyzes to a nonpoisonous form within an hour after bottling.
Acetaldehyde is sometimes added to grape juice before fermentation to stabilize the color, although the finished wine is not allowed to have any detectable level of this chemical.
Glycerin, a common ingredient in soaps, is sometimes added to wines to give what is called smoothness, fullness, or viscosity. It also creates nicer wine legs — that is, how your wine drips down the inside of a glass after swirling. It can add a little sweetness to wine, but too much will result in a metallic flavor.
I see these additives as just another reason to make your own wines, where you can control all the ingredients.
Additives to control pH. All wines are acidic and most have a pH range of 2.5 to 4.5, with 2.5 being the most acidic and 4.5 being the least. White wines are at the lower end of the pH range (higher acidity) and red wines are at the higher end (lower acidity). Acids are sometimes added to wines to lower the pH to a more desirable acidity, considered by many to be important in balancing the taste (especially in sweet wines) and increasing the aging qualities of wine. Commercial acids are usually sold in winemaking shops as “acid blend,” a mixture of citric, tartaric, and malic acids. You can also buy each of these acids separately if you want to mix different proportions. Citric and tartaric acids will lower the pH more than malic acid. Another method of adding acids is to slice a lemon or two and add it to the primary fermentation. Calcium carbonate, in the form of precipitated chalk, is sometimes used to raise the pH of a wine if it is deemed to be too acidic.
I used some acid additives early in my winemaking path, but I haven’t used them in decades. Instead, I add raisins, which are a good source of tartaric acid, to all of my flower and herb wines to help balance their flavors. I have herb wines that are more than 20 years old that have received no acid additives other than the raisins, and they have aged spectacularly well.
Winemakers are often experimenting in an effort to improve their wines, so there are always new additives. I’ve attempted to describe above the most common additives, sold in a wide variety of commercial preparations. If you decide to use any of these products, be sure you know exactly what they contain and keep records of your efforts, so that you can decide which ones work best for you in the future.
One of the best ways to naturally clear wine is to store it in bulk in cold temperatures. Cold temperatures increase the rate of sedimentation, allowing you to pull off more sediment when racking. You can convert an old refrigerator for this use or place your wines in an unheated garage if the temperature stays above 0°F/–18°C, the temperature at which wines can freeze.
By aging my wines in bulk — in gallon jugs or carboys — in the cold for a year or more before bottling, and periodically racking the wines into new containers and leaving behind the sediment (lees) that has dropped, I am left with naturally clear wine. I find this is true for most fruit wines, even apple wines, which are notoriously high in pectin. One exception in my experience is peach wine, which often remains cloudy even with the use of pectic enzyme. I prefer to drink it cloudy rather than add any of these fining agents to clarify it.
To avoid contamination with undesirable yeasts or bacteria during fermentation, it is important that you start with clean equipment. However, our society tends to overemphasize the virtues of sanitizing, leading to the overuse of antibacterial soaps, hand sanitizers, and other powerful cleaning agents. When I started making wine, the advice was to treat water with sulfur dioxide (to kill any yeasts or bacteria that could be in the water) and use only that sanitized water to fill fermentation locks and to rinse all bottles, buckets, and anything else that would come into contact with my wine. I did this for a couple of years, but then I gave up the practice. It was burdensome and, as I found out, unnecessary.
Now I fill my fermentation locks with tap water and just keep them clean, adding fresh water on a regular basis. I simply use hot water straight from the faucet to clean my bottles, jugs, carboys, and demijohns. After making well over two hundred batches of wine, I’ve only rejected and dumped four of them (two of them became slimy and thick, probably due to bacterial contamination, and the other two had an unpleasant taste). The only time I use anything other than plain hot water straight from the faucet is when I make a wine using hot peppers. After pressing out the primary fermentation, I fill and soak my plastic fermentation buckets with hot, soapy water, using mild dish soap. The soap may not be necessary, but I want to be certain that no hot pepper flavor carries over into the next batch of wine.
If you wish to use sanitizers, you have many options: