Materials and ingredients

This recipe for Concord wine will yield approximately 5 gallons of wine, and the following materials will have to be purchased. You will need one 6 gallon screw-top poly-fermentation bucket, a wooden long handled spoon, a nylon mesh bag, a 3/8 ” siphoning hose, an electric juicer, and a 5 gallon dark glass wine carboy with cork. For the ingredients you will need to purchase 40 lbs. of Concord grapes, 6 ½ lbs. of sugar, 2 tbsp winery yeast, ¾ tsp peptic enzyme, 1 tbsp acid blend, 1tsp wine tannin, and a gallon of water.

Mixing the ingredients

Wash the grapes well; remove any bad grapes and discard all of the stems. You will then run all of the grapes through the juicer, emptying it into the 6 gallon screw- top fermentation bucket that has been lined with the nylon mesh bag. Repeat this process until all of the grapes have been run through the juicer. When you are done, tie the top of the nylon mesh bag and squeeze as much juice from the pulp into the fermenting tank. After you have squeezed the grapes, leave the mesh bag of pulp in the juice and add all the other ingredients except the water, the yeast, and the sugar. Bring the water to a boil on the stove, add the sugar to dissolve it, and set aside until it cools down to 75 degrees. Pour the sugar water to the fermentation tank, secure the lid, and let it sit for 24 hours.

Fermentation

At the end of the 24 hour waiting period, open the fermentation tank and add the yeast. Pull out the nylon mesh bag and squeeze out the juice once again from the grape pulp. The fermentation process takes about 5 days to complete and you will want to occasionally open the vessel and stir it with the wooden spoon daily. At the end of the 5th day, remove the nylon mesh bag and squeeze the juice from the pulp and discard. Then wait for 24 hours and siphon the juice from the fermentation tank into the 5 gallon carboy. This is an important step in the process because you will not want to siphon the sediment at the bottom of the fermentation tank into the carboy. If the wine does not reach the neck of the carboy, add water, then cork the carboy and set in a cool dark area. The wine should be ready to bottle in two months, and while you can drink the wine at that time, it is best to let it age for two years.

Now that you know how to make wine, you can experiment making homemade wine. And after you have successfully brewed wine you can try other wine making recipes.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Cindy_Morse

If you think about it, wine making is chemistry and like any scientific project it sometimes takes a bit of experimentation to obtain successful results. Homemade wine recipes should be looked at as guides. Adjustments may have to be made based on the ingredients used. If anything is off you may have an undrinkable mess on your hands.

At the heart of all home wine recipes is the main flavor ingredient such as grapes, berries and apples or plants like dandelion and clover. Sugar and yeast are vital elements, plus acid, nutrients and water. There are also certain chemicals needed for wine.

Let’s take a look at the fruit, the sugar and the yeast.

One of my favorite blackberry wine recipes calls for 4 lbs. of blackberries. If the berries are exceptionally sweet and flavorful you may need less fruit. If the berries are lackluster you may need to add 1-2 lbs. of additional fruit. Using a larger quantity of fruit will produce a fruitier more flavorful wine and you may decide to modify the recipe even if the fruit is acceptable.

All fruit contains natural sugars and the sugar content is essentially dictated by how long the fruit remains on the vine. The content is expressed in percentages.

Typical supermarket fruit (4-8%) is picked long before it is vine-ripened in order to survive the trip to your grocers without rotting. Frozen fruit (10-13%) has more sugar because it is picked and frozen closer to ripening. Produce picked at a farm or purchased at a farm stand is usually fresh and fully ripened (15-18%) and has the highest sugar content. This is to say that the amount of sugar called for in a recipe may need to be adjusted up or down depending on the starting sugar content of your chosen fruit.

It should be noted that the sugar you add at the beginning of the fermentation process has nothing to do with how sweet the wine will turn out. This sugar is added simply for the wine yeast to turn into alcohol. If wish to have a sweet wine, you will add sugar (along with stabilizers) after the final fermentation.

Yeast is the true work horse of the whole wine making process. Yeast partners with the sugar to begin the fermentation process. Fermentation produces the alcohol. Isn’t that what we’re all here for? The right type of yeast is very important.

Make sure you have yeast that is specifically designed for wine making. No, you cannot use bread yeast. Like sugar, fruit has its own naturally present yeast. Yeast cultivated for wine making comes from the skin, seeds, etc of the spent fruit.

In using a homemade wine recipe you must be careful to consider these points. You will naturally find yourself adjusting ingredients to fit the condition of your fruit and the number of gallons you wish to produce. There are many sources for reliable recipes, but interpreting a recipe and knowing when to make adjustments comes after considerable experience, experimentation and unfortunately, a few dreadful batches of wine.

I’d like to share one of my favorite homemade wine recipes – blackberry. And while you’re there check out the Complete Illustrated Guide to Homemade Wine. This easy to follow book brought my wine making skills to a whole new level. Best of all it contains over 175 delicious recipes for making wine at home.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Debra_Haydel

The term coconut wine or kaong wine should not be mistaken with lambanog or vodka. Wine contains 9-18 % alcohol while vodka contains 35-50%. The usual alcohol content for lambanog is 80 proof or 40%. Wine goes through distillation process to produce 80 proof vodka.

Wild yeast are responsible for fermenting sugars to alcohol. I requires no oxygen during the process. Then, acetic acid bacteria that are naturally present in sap ferment alcohol to vinegar. It requires oxygen to take action. We’re gonna kill vinegar producing bacteria during wine making process.

1. Clean all equipment that will be used for sap collection. This will help reduce microbial contamination. Sap are collected from unopened coconut flower and sugar palm (kaong) male inflorescence. Mixing of two liquid is permissible

2. Collect sap every 5 hours. Longer collection interval allows acetic acid bacteria to convert it to vinegar. Soured juice is not fitted for toddy processing.

3. Transfer to fermentation tank. A narrow mount jar with cotton plug will do. Leave enough head space to accommodate rising bubbles. Fermentation is done when bubbling ceases. Alcohol fermentation occurs in anerobic condition while vinegar conversion occurs only with the presence of oxygen. Avoid air exposure of sap to prevent sourness.

4. Pasteurize for 15 minutes at 75 degree centigrade. Pack immediately in clean jars. It can be consumed immediately but aging will develop its flavor further.

5. If a more flavorful wine is desired, age it for at least one year. The longer the aging, the more delectable it becomes. Then, siphon the clear liquid and fill into sterilized bottles. Label.

Marvin Vicedo is a licensed Agriculturist major in Food Processing and an experienced Researcher.
He is the author of foodrecap.net.

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