Lance Pacheco's blog

A Closer Look At Homemade Wine Aging Process

Would you believe there are people who are so anxious to know when or how long a wine matures whereas the truth is they just want to have a good drink of it? Actually, it is surprising that the number of people will not simply believe it that wines improve with age. They set about making wines possessed of urgency which should not exist and an impatience that is hard to believe. People really believe that wine can be made, matured and drunk in six or seven weeks. Of course with luck, you might get fermentation done and your wines clear and bottled in that time, but truly they can't be drinkable even so young.

Yes indeed I know it very well that you will be itching to get your teeth into that wine and you cannot blame yourself for that. Many winemakers desire to taste the latest batch to be bottled. Also, keeping the homemade wine at least a year before you manage to drink it seems to be a waste of time, especially after when you had a taste of it when siphoning it. So, remember this for your own sake. When it's bottling time, put two bottles or more in the basement or someplace where they can't be reached easily. Later on, those two bottles of each batch made will soon amount up to a nice little collection.

Building up a stock collection means to be making numerous lots at the same time. In the middle of the process of one batch, you start another. This way, you will always have a couple gallons fermenting, several bottles for use as needed and a dozen slowly growing into a nice reserve. These saved wines will have become so magnificent in that time that your lesson will be learned.

It's also definitely a good idea to keep some of your wine for five years. For at five years it's better than four and at three years it's better than two. Also you can be rest assured that these times have been proven by many winemakers and trusted for years. So, are you ready to keep your wine long enough to have a better taste?

In addition, wines should be stored at a temperature at which they remain constant throughout the year. Rapid changes of temperature are certainly best avoided, so if you can store your wines on a stone floor or in a cupboard which has a stone floor, so much the better; if you cannot do this, store your wines where you can and fret no more.

Using Basic Method In Preventing The Two Common Enemies Of Homemade Wine Making

Wild yeasts and acetic bacteria are the two enemies of successful homemade wine making. The acetic bacteria converts alcohol into acetic acid thereby turning wine to vinegar is ever present in the air. Similarly, the yeasts and spores of fungi which turn wine insipid and flat or turn it sour are also in the air. When using fresh fruit and other ingredients from the garden or from the shops, the bacteria, yeasts and fungi are also present, but fret no more because they are easily destroyed so they do no harm.

Many ingredients we use in making wine are come in sealed containers so that they will not be contaminated. In the same sense, the water that you might be using- if not sterile- contains harmful bacteria that can spoil the wine or possibly the yeast can cause distasteful ferments and these ferments could give 'off' flavors such as sour or stale.

Surprisingly, it is the mold on cheeses, half-empty pots of meat paste and jam are often yeasts growing there for it is the yeast floating around in the air that ruins the wine you make. In order to treat these yeasts, you must keep the fermenting wines and finished wines covered closely. Such finished wines should be covered under the heading 'storing' and it is important that you keep fermenting wines covered.

When the prepared yeasts have been added to the liquid, the top of the jar should be covered with a piece of polythene and this should be pressed down all around by hand and a strong string tied tightly around it. This will keep airborne diseases away from the wine. Also, a good idea is to use a fermentation lock.

If the whole idea in using fermentation locks is to keep airborne diseases from contaminating the wine, make sure that the bung and lock are airtight. If they are not, the gas leaking will prevent air from reaching the wine during the early stages, but as it slows down the outgoing stream of gas through the leakage holes wouldn't be strong enough for this and so the airborne diseases could easily reach the wine.

After fitting the lock to the bung and jar, run a little sealing wax where the bungs enter the jar and where the lock enters the bung. This precaution may not be necessary, but it's better to be safe. Remove one piece of the lock and bung and insert a new one when fermentation stops.

The Benefits Of Using T'Noirot Extract In Homemade Wine Making

Flavoring world famous wines, and liqueurs can be a cumbersome job unless you use T'Noirot extracts. These extracts are scientifically mixed to give flavors equal to the world-famous liqueurs of the same name. You are guaranteed the natural taste and nothing fake or synthetic tasting in your homemade wine. It's also so easy to use.

T'Noirot extracts are potent and should not be judged by their pure scent. Anyone smelling the raw undiluted extract is likely to think that something is off or bitter. Do not pay any attention to the strength of the odor and do not taste any wine being made from the extract until it is done fermenting. The flavor will also improve immensely as it ages.

Extracts contain blends of bitter and aromatic plants. They have delicate flavor that is something quite unique when it comes to making wines. These extracts were not intended for this, but making wines from them instead of fruit or other ingredients are something that you could be proud of.

You will want to be sure to ferment the wine in a one gallon jar from start to finish. The reason for doing so is to save as much of the deposit until the very end. This residue will be where all of the unique flavors build up.

Also, dividing the wine batched is not a wise idea. Even if you have two half gallon jars on hand, resist the urge because the flavors will not be able to develop proportionally. Instead use a larger vessel if you must but only rack the wine one time and only do so after all fermentation has stopped.

Here's a basic recipe to get you started.

T'Noirot extract Wines

Ingredients: 6 bottles of cherry brandy extract, 3 lb. sugar, 1 gal. water, yeast and nutrient.

One-third of the sugar should be boiled in a half gallon of water for two minutes; after cooling, pour it into the gallon jar. Add the extract, & yeast. Cover as directed and ferment in a warm place for ten days. Boil the rest of the sugar in remaining water for two minutes and when cool add this to the rest. Ferment in a warm place for a further fourteen days. Cover and leave in a cool place until all fermentation has ceased.

The Stages In Making Delicious Homemade Wine From Ribena

A wonderful syrup made of excellent quality Ribena could well be added to fermenting 'must haves' to get special results. If you use Ribena in winemaking, you should reduce the amount of sugar accordingly in whichever homemade wine recipes you have in mind. The addition of one or two bottles of Ribena per gallon can make a vast improvement to the flavor and even quality of the wine.

One extra bonus is that there is no fruit to buy! Best of all, Ribena has been treated with a pectin-destroying enzyme, which means that you can boil it without fearing pectin clouding the finished wines. Boiling kicks off the SO2 and gives you a wine flavored like cooked blackcurrants. The over all goal with using the Ribena is that you can reduce sugar needed. The steps you can use for the addition of Ribena syrup are listed below.

1: First two full bottles of Ribena are diluted with two times the amount of H2O (four bottles total). The yeast is added and the batch is allowed to ferment for 10 days.

Stage 2: After ten days of fermentation, two bottles of Ribena and one bottle of water were added and the mixture was allowed to ferment for a further ten days.

Step 3: Finally, after twenty days of fermentation, add two more bottles of Ribena and one bottle of water. This should be allowed to ferment until completion, usually, three months. The result is a good, round wine flavored of fresh blackcurrants.

The fermentation was carried out in narrow bottles plugged with fermentation locks fitted after ten days. No racking is necessary until after the last addition while monthly racking takes place until fermentation has ended. This wine can be enjoyed young or is better after about six months.

Homemade Wine Making With Low Alcohol Content

Few people know this but a high percentage of alcohol is not everything. Some wines are made in the region of eight to eleven percent alcohol. There are wines made, of course, a good deal stronger than the others made for commercial consumption.

Apparently, a good percentage of alcohol ensures that wines keep well and that the lower percentage of alcohol wines those under twelve percent might begin to ferment again at any time. This is true in a case where a stray yeast spore, either left in the homemade wine or one reaching it at some later stage, will begin to reproduce and live on any sugar present. At this time, only the very driest of low percentage of alcohol wines will keep and these must be so dry that no unfermented sugar remains at all. However, not all of us like bone-dry wines.

Some people prefer teir wines to be medium dry to medium sweet or even sweet. Fortunately, the wines made based on the recipes in winemaking books must keep well because they contain enough alcohol to destroy any yeast or bacteria that may reach them and provided the maximum alcohol has been reached, and if all procedures have been followed this will have been achieved.

Your aim in making low alcohol wines is to add just enough sugar to make the amount of alcohol needed and to allow the wine to ferment right out. The wine will be dry if you use less than two and a quarter pounds of sugar in one gallon. Note: if two gallons are being made, double the amount of sugar. Suppose you have decided on making wine of ten percent of alcohol, the amount of sugar must be one pound fourteen ounces per gallon.

Very well then, you can now take any recipe in your winemaking book but not those containing dried fruit as these contain lots of sugar instead use one pound and fourteen ounces of sugar. If invert sugar is being used, remember that invert sugar contains some moisture, so for every pound of household sugar, you must use one and a quarter pounds of invert sugar. In addition, invert sugar is typically supplied in tins containing seven pounds or in blocks by whatever weight is ordered. If weighing this proves awkward, dissolve it and measure it again by the pint, considering that one pint represents two pounds of sugar.

Lance Pacheco

Welcome to TypePad! This is a sample post you can edit or delete later.