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Tuesday 7 July 2015

Home Brewing Wine


Of course in such a blog as this your bound to find some kinda home brew post, well it's true, you've found it. However, home brewing itself has evolved since your Dad tried last, and the process has certainly been refined since those days!

What do you need to buy to home brew? - 2 x 25 Litre (5 Gallon) fermenting vessles, stick on thermometer, 1 meter length (or slightly longer) of siphoning tube, 60cm spoon (for stiring the fermenting vessle), wine kit (your own preferential choice of wine grape), bubbler (an airlock), hydrometer (to identify alcoholic content of brew), sterilising powder and empty screw top bottles (from recycling bins?). You can buy all this for a relatively cheap one off price and once you've got it you won't need to buy it again.

Tell me about the financials? - The cost of my preferred wine kit is €39.95 and I get around the 28 bottles from that kit (that's €1.43 per bottle!). Of course you'll have to factor in with that the cost of your equipment but ultimately,  it's negligible.


Enlighten me on the process? - Of course some wine kits will differ, however this is the basic process. Sterilise all of your equipment for at least 15 minutes, rinse well then rinse again (you don't want to waste €40 the price of your wine kit!). Fill up one of your fermentation vessles with at least three 1.7 litre kettles of boiling water, add 6 litres of cold water, add the juice from your wine kit, then top up to 5 Gallons with either boiling water or cold water so that the temperature of the fermentor is between 20-30 degrees C. Add your yeast and then leave fermenting for a week. Dip with your hydrometer and check levels, leave fermenting if not ready (according to the hydrometer).

After fermenting has finished, it's a case of siphoning your wine from one fermenting vessel to another. Avoiding all of the sediment at the bottom of the initial fermenting vessel. Once in the second vessel you then need to try and remove all of the CO2 (by heavy stirring, or even by using a hand held food blender!) Adding your stabliser (to kill off any remaining yeast) and then adding your clearing agents. Once that's happened, and it will take a few days, it's time to bottle your brew.

Using a clear (and sterilised) bottle, bottle your home brew wine, if it looks slightly cloudy stop at this point and tip it back into your fermenting vessel and then leave it a few more days until it's completely clear. Once clear you now have 28'odd bottle of home brew wine. You could drink it now however it really does taste much nicer if you leave it for three weeks in a cool, dry, dark area.

Happy brewing!




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