Easy Steps in Making Homemade Wine from Juice

You’d like to try your hand at making wine, but how do you start? You don’t have a vineyard full of grapes and how many pounds of grapes would have to buy to make even a small batch of wine? If this is your first venture into the world of wine making, there’s a very easy way to start and that’s by making homemade wine from juice. Juice for wine making is as close as your local wine making supplier.

Choosing the Right Juice

An important thing to remember when making homemade wine from juice is that wines are usually named after the grapes they are made from and the same applies when making homemade wine from juice. If you want to make a red wine, look for names like Merlot, Zinfandel or Cabernet Sauvignon. For white wines you will want Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc or Riesling.
Most of the juices used in making homemade wine come in five gallon pails and have already been sulphanated for sterilization and have the yeast added. Once you get the juice home, open it and smell and taste the juice. It should have a slightly wine-like scent with a very mild champagne flavor. This tells you that fermentation is underway.

Turning Juice into Wine

At this point you can transfer the juice to sterilized, five gallon carboys, leaving about three inches of headroom at the top. Put the air trap in place and leave it for about a month. The plastic pail also works great for primary fermentation when you are making homemade wine from juice. Make certain that there is room for expansion so it doesn’t overflow. Open the pail once a day for about a week and stir the juice with a plastic spoon or clean ladle. Replace the lid, making sure it’s not too tight, allowing the gases to escape. After the fermentation has slowed, you can then transfer the juice to the carboys and place the air traps.

Fruits of Your Labor

About a month later you should see sediment in the bottom of the carboys. You can rack the wine to a second sterilized carboy, being careful not to disturb or transfer the sediment. This can cause an off flavor in your wine. Rack again in three months and every three months there after until finished. When fermentation stops the wine is ready. You can drink the wine at this time but if you plan to bottle it, be sure to filter it first.

Making homemade wine from juice is such an easy way to get started in the hobby of winemaking. After your first attempt it will be easy to try other varieties of juices as well as experimenting with your own blends. The end product is something that you can share with your friends or give as a gift and you can have the pride of knowing you made it yourself.

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