BENEFITS OF HOME WINEMAKING

• You control what goes into your wine

• You make your wine as sweet, dry or off dry as you chose
• Making your own wine is very cost effective and you can make a gallon (5 bottles) of wine for as
little as $2.00 or for FREE if you grow your own fruit
• You determine and control the alcohol content
• You can make it natural, avoiding all chemicals or additives
• You can make it organic by choosing organic fruit
• You can make it vegan by avoiding all animal by products commercially used to clear wine
• You can use herbs (peppermint, lavender)
• You can use roots (ginger)
• You can use teas (loose leaf or bagged)
• You can use flowers (hibiscus, rose petals)
• You can use any fruit that is easily accessible to you and/or traditional winemaking grapes
• You can use fresh fruit or purchase100% fruit juice
• You can blend any of the above
• Winemaking is a fun and rewarding hobby that can potentially evolve into a business.
• In the US, a two-person adult household can make up to 200 gallons per year

ESSENTIAL WINEMAKING EQUIPMENT

• 2-Gallon Food Safe Plastic Fermenter & lid

• 1-Gallon Glass Carboy & lid
• Straining Bags
• Equipment Cleaner
• Equipment Sanitizer
• Funnel
• Auto Siphon
• Mixing spoon
• Yeast
• Hydrometer and test jar
• Airlock and rubber stopper set
• Bottle brush
HOW TO MAKE WINE
Winemaking can be as simple or as complex as you want to make it but need not be
complicated. Recipes have been developed over the centuries which pretty much
make this a simple process of measuring, smushing, fermenting and transferring.
There are many winemakers who try to make this process seem tedious and highly
technical, but I’m here to get you from fruit to wine as simple as possible. Although
it doesn’t hurt to know about the finer, more exacting points of winemaking, those
things will be there for you to learn at your leisure once you get the basics down and
are ready to experiment.
The essential steps can be summarized as follows:
1. Select the fruit then extract the flavor, color and aroma by chopping, crushing,
pressing or boiling.
2. Add sugar & yeast to the fruit then ferment, covered for 3-10 days in a primary
fermentation bucket at no less than 73 degrees.
3. Strain the liquid from the sediment then put the liquid in a secondary
fermentation vessel (carboy/jug) and cover or plug . Allow fermentation to
proceed until all bubbling ceases.
4. Siphon the wine off the sediment (lees) into another clean secondary
fermentation vessel (bucket) Repeat after one month and again before bottling.
Wine should be clear.
5. When wine is clear and all fermentation has stopped, transfer the wine into
bottles and cork.

CHEMICALS & ADDITIVES IN COMMERCIAL WINE

Pesticides

• Insects and fungal diseases are a major problem in most vineyards and they
are treated before they cause serious damage. The solution is to spray the
vines with chemicals that destroy the pests.

• Some vineyards use organically-approved pesticides like natural sulfur and

hydrogen peroxide, as they do not leave any toxic residues on the grapes.
However, the majority of vineyards use man-made chemical pesticides
because they are more powerful and require less effort.

• You should be aware that the grapes used in winemaking are not washed.

• This may come as a surprise to many people, who would naturally assume
that grapes are washed after picking, and prior to fermentation to remove all
traces of pesticides, herbicides, fungicides.
 • Sadly, that is not the case. The obvious question is "Why not wash the
grapes?" Unfortunately, this is not possible, as grapes are normally 'machine
harvested' and the grape skins are damaged by the picking equipment and
grape juice is released. In other words, the collection containers are filled with
damaged grapes in a sort of liquid mush, and there is no way that the grapes
can be washed.

Sulfites in Commercial Wine

• Many people are affected by wine allergies caused by the addition of

Sulphur Dioxide. This is a chemical that goes under different names
including "Preservative 220" and "Sulfites". These are all the same term
for Sulphur Dioxide and it is the chemical that has been proven to cause
most of the allergies experienced by wine drinkers. Note that while #220 is
the most commonly used, any number between #220-226 is a sulfite.

• As a simple rule, any wine that is capable of being shipped long distances
and stored in hot tropical 90-degree temperatures, will need high levels of
preservative sulfites to stop the wine from deterioration.

Animal Products in Commercial Wine

• Fining is a winemaking process that aims to clarify and stabilize a wine,

whereas a fining agent is one of a range of special materials added to the juice
to coagulate or absorb and quickly precipitate the particles (sediment)
suspended in the juice.

• Fining is considered important in commercial winemaking because by

encouraging these microscopic particles out of the wine, the wine is less likely
to become hazy or cloudy after bottling and therefore more visually appealing.
Fining also removes hydrogen sulfide and bitter flavors.

• Popular animal-derived fining agents used in the production of wine include:

Blood and bone marrow. Casein (milk protein) Chitin (fiber from crustacean
shells) Egg albumen (derived from egg whites) Fish oil. Gelatin (protein from
boiling animal parts) Isinglass (gelatin from fish bladder membranes)

• In terms of wine labelling, products like gelatin and isinglass (which is derived
from fish) do not need to be listed so if you’re trying to avoid all animal
derived products in wine, the wine label will not tell the you the information
you seek.

• Is fining necessary? Nope. Not really. Most young wines, if left long enough
under good conditions, will eventually achieve the same state of clarity as
fining can achieve within months.
 Bone Char in Commercial Wine
▪ It can be difficult to choose an appropriate wine if you are vegan. In addition to
animal products used in the fining process, sugar is another ingredient that can
make a wine non-vegan.

▪ Bone char is widely used by the sugar industry as a decolorizing filter, which
allows sugar to achieve its white color. The bone char is made from the bones of
cattle from countries like Afghanistan, Argentina, India and Pakistan. The bones
are sold to traders who then sell them to the U.S. sugar industry.

▪ Bone char is a porous, black, granular material produced by charring animal

bones. It’s prepared by almost incinerating animal bones to leave activated
carbon - a bit like making wood charcoal.

▪ Bone char is used in many types of sugar including brown sugar and
confectioner's sugar.

▪ Due to health concerns, the FDA prohibits the use of bones from the United
States’ meat industry which is why the bones are imported. Also, the bones are
required to come from animals that die of natural causes, but no one is
monitoring that.

▪ Fortunately, if you are vegan, there is “zero bone char sugar” available for you to
make your vegan wine, including pure can, raw and organic sugar which is found
in most grocery stores.

CLEANING AND SANITIZING

• There is just one rule when it comes to clean and sanitized equipment. You
MUST do it. Plain and simple.

• Cleaning and sanitizing are important because wild yeast and bacteria are all
around us. In the air, on the kitchen counter and on your wine making
equipment.

• That bacteria can produce off flavors, spoilage and turn our creation to vinegar if
they get into our wine and begin to grow.

• Cleaning and sanitizing equipment is not fun nor is it the sexy part of wine
making, however, it is necessary.