Welcome to the Hillyheights wine-making
site. This site will give you
a step-by-step guide on how to make wine from home-grown grapes. It is
written with the UK in mind and is all from the experience of growing
grapes for wine in our infamously unpredictable, sometimes dismal
climate, but the methods may clearly be useful for those from warmer,
sunnier climes.
Step 1 Growing the
grapes
There are various varieties of grapes that grow well in the UK, but I
find Seyval Blanc particularly good, and there are also some red
varieties that grow well too. If you use red grape you will still get
white wine unless you add a step to get the colour out of the skins.
Hopefully, you're reading this site because you already have a vine
that provides you with pounds of lovely grapes that you were wondering
what to do with. If you haven't got a vine yet, we sometimes have some
young vines, so feel free to register an interest at
vines(a)hillyheights,co,uk.
Step 2
Harvesting
In the UK grapes are likely to be ready the first or second week in
October just as the leaves show the first hint of turning. Don't be
tempted to pick them too soon; it's better that some get a little
over-ripe. Once you've picked all the bunches, remove the grapes whilst
sorting through and removing any mouldy ones which could taint the wine.
Step 3 Squeezing
Next comes the hard task of getting all that grape juice out. It won't
work to just try and squash them in a press; they simply won't burst
because a
sphere is the strongest shape of all. There's nothing for it but to put
your hands in a break all the grapes. After that you can use a press, a
fine net bag, or just a large sieve to get the juice.
Collect the juice in demijohns which hold about
one gallon each and make five to six bottles.
Step
4 Checking the sugar
content
The sugar content of the grape juice is a vital figure in wine making.
You will be turning all this sugar to alcohol, so when you measure the
sugar, this is same as measuring the final alcohol content and this
needs to be correct. If the wine's too weak it may not keep well, and
if
it tries to get too strong, it may be difficult to get it to stop
fermenting. The sugar content is found by measuring the density, which
requires a hydrometer. A hydrometer is really the only piece of
really specialist kit that you need. They float in the wine at a
level that gives you the density by reading a number at the liquid's
level. The sort of number you can expect is between 1.050 to 1.090.
This number is called the "specific gravity"; water has an SG of
exactly 1. The sugar
content is obtained from a table,
here,
but it's not as
important as knowing how much sugar to add...
Step 5 Add some sugar (if required)
It is possible to make wine of various strengths, but about 11% is
probably about best as it will keep well and taste good. Take a look at
this
TABLE, on the
left is the density
figure from the hydrometer
reading. The next column is the sugar content, but it's the following
two columns that you need. They tell you how much sugar to add per unit
volume of wine. The only reason for the two columns is that some people
like pints and ounces and others are metric. The first column tells you
how many ounces of sugar to add per pint of wine (please note that
these are UK pints which are 1.25 of a US pint), and the second column
is grams of sugar per litre of wine; use which ever column you prefer.
To add the sugar put it in a saucepan and add enough water to cover it
by about 1" (25mm). Heat the mixture to make a thick syrup. You can
stop heating as soon as all the sugar grains are gone. The syrup can
then be added immediately to the grape juice.
Step 6 Reducing
the acidity
This step is optional but a good idea for UK grapes as
they can be a
bit too acidic. All wine is acidic and it's vital for the taste, but many
people don't like their wine too acidic. The solution is calcium
carbonate, or chalk. The chalk to use is called precipitated chalk,
which is bought from wine-making shops; this may be
harder to obtain than some of the other ingredients. The amount to add
is
about 16g per gallon, 3.5g per litre, but this is far from critical. Once
you've worked out how much is required, it's fairly easy to estimate
the required weight as a proportion of the size of the pot, which is
likely to be 50g. Add the required amount of calcium carbonate to each
vessel and mix in by either stirring or shaking.
Step 7 Killing the natural yeasts
You may well have read about sterilising a lot of things when making
home wine, but so far this hasn't been mentioned. This is because
there's not a lot of point in being particular about grapes that have
come from the garden. The problem now is if you just leave the grape
juice, it would probably start fermenting. However, these natural
yeasts
are likely to result in a vinegar-tasting wine. The solution is
something called Campden tablets. These are mainly
sodium
metabisulphite, Na
2S
2O
5, and react
with the acid wine to release sulphur dioxide which kills the yeast and
many other unwanted organisms. Campden tablets are easy to obtain from
any wine-making outlet and are a standard size. Add
about one tablet to each UK gallon or 5 litres of grape juice. To add
the tablets crush them to a powder between two teaspoons and drop them
in. Then give the vessel a swirl. Do not inhale the gas given off,
especially if you are asthmatic; follow the instructions on the pot.
Step 8 Wait 48 hours
Now put an airlock filled with water into a bung
in the top of vessel as shown. Put your soon-to-be wine in a warm
place, like an airing cupboard, and wait for around 48 hours for
the effect of the Campden tablet to wear off. The wine will produce
some
gas, but this doesn't mean that its started to ferment as the chalk
will
be releasing carbon dioxide as it removes some of that excess acid.
Step 9 Adding the wine yeast
Wine yeast can be bought in either little sachets or in pots. I much
prefer the sachet as the pots won't keep from one year to the next.
Choose either a hock or what's known as "formula 67"; I use hock. You
will only need one sachet per year. Put 4oz or 125ml or water into a
jam-jar and boil the water in the jar in a microwave. Take the jar out
and put the lid over the top but don't do it up. Put the jar in warm
place and wait a few hours for the water to cool to the warm place's
temperature. Now open your sachet and put the contents into the water
and give it a good
shake with the lid
on. Then loosen the lid and put
it
back in the warmth and wait for about 4 to 6 hours. Don't leave the lid
screwed on or the jar will go bang. There's sugar and nutrient in with
the yeast, so it'll start to grow in the jar. After the 4 to 6 hours,
the yeasty water will have gone foamy. Give it a good shake, and share
the contents equally amongst your wine vessels. Replace the airlock.
Step 10 Fermentation
There's nothing to do now but wait. After a few hours the wine should
be
bubbling away, and bubbles of carbon dioxide should be going
through the airlock every few seconds. It'll take between a few days
and couple of weeks for these to stop. Once they have, the wine can
start
to clear. I never do anything here. I don't decant
the wine into other
vessels but leave the wine over its lees to settle. This is what is
meant by a "sur lie" wine or "on the lees" in English for an English
wine. If all has gone well, the wine will clear totally in a few weeks
and you'll be able to see right through a whole demijohn. If you can
see though that much wine, it will look crystal clear in a glass or
bottle. The picture here shows two giant fermenters, but whilst these
make bigger
quantities easier, it can be hard to tell if the wine is clear. Don't be
tempted to hurry, keep water in the airlock and don't
open the vessel. Just wait until it has totally settled.
Sweetening
If you want sweet wine, there are some extra steps to do, which are
listed
HERE.
Otherwise you will make a
dry wine.
Step 11 Adding preservative (Optional)
In resent years, I've started to add some preservative,
potassium sorbate, to my dry wine. As mentioned on the
sweetening page, this
is vital for a sweet wine, but it's optional for the dry. You can ignore this step if you're making a sweet wine
as adding potassium sorbate is already covered.
Adding a little potassium sorbate will stop the wine
re-starting its fermentation or undergoing any form of "secondary fermentation". Personally, I'd advise following this step,
but others may feel that they want a purer product.
Potassium sobate is sold in most wine-making shops as "fermentation stopper".
You need to add 1/2 a teaspoon for each UK gallon (4.5 litres) of wine. Syphon your wine into another clean vessel.
It's important that the vessels are clean, so use baby's sterilising fluid and then rinse well.
I use a wine filter to catch any little bits of sediment that are disturbed,
but it's very important that the wine is already absolutely clear.
Don't expect the filter to do any clearing for you; it won't. Take a look at Step 12, bottling, for syphoning hints.
Step 12 Bottling
Before bottling, you need to start some corks steaming; see below. Once
totally clear, the
wine is ready for
bottling. You can re-use wine
bottles that have been thoroughly rinsed and cleaned with baby's
sterilising
fluid and then rinsed well. Syphon the wine into the bottles. A special
tube, as
shown in the photograph to the left, is a very good idea as it makes
not over-disturbing
the sediment easy. As it's very hard not to disturb the sediment at all,
I always use a filter. However, this is the only reason I use a filter
as the wine is always totally clear without it. Never expect a filter
to clear wine for you; it won't.
Step 13 Corking
Corks are bought from wine-making outlets and are put in using a
corker, which is a tampered tube and plunger. The corks need to be
softened to make
this easy and I have found a method of doing this: steaming them. They
will be soften in about an hour and can be taken one at a time and used
hot. The hot corks are very easy to push into the
bottles using the corker; see right.
Alternatively, you can buy metal lever-type corkers which will have no
trouble forcing a dry cork into the bottle.
Step 14 Finishing touches
Your wine is now finished and bottled, but for a finishing touch, it's
a
good idea to shrink professional-looking caps onto your bottles. Once
again these are easy to obtain from a home-brewing shop. They are put
on with the steam from a kettle as shown. The final thing to
do is to put on the label.
Step 15 Keeping the
Wine
In order to keep the cork wet and the air out, your wine must be kept
on its side. Wait at least six months before opening your first bottle.
Crystals may form in your wine; these are nothing to worry about;
READ HERE.
Step 16 Drinking the Wine... No
instructions required.
Equipment list
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wine(a)hillyheights,co,uk
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This site is (c) 2004-2006 Colin
Hill
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