Dry (table) wines are obtained in the process of fermentation of natural juice without adding sugar. For the preparation of dry drinks, only juices of the first extraction are used. Recipes for such wine may differ in terms of technology, but there is only one ingredient in them - grapes.
The taste of such wines is very light, harmonious, soft. The drink is moderately tart with a pleasant acidity. The sugar content does not exceed 1% (approximately 4 g/l). There are varieties in which the sugar content is zero. Homemade dry wine is distinguished by a light fruity-herbal aroma.
What are we talking about?
For the manufacture of dry wines, white and dark grape varieties are used. White wines have warm golden colours. Dry red wines are characterized by various shades of garnet and ruby.
Semi-dry wine, which, like dry wine, belongs to table varieties, contains 3–8% sugar (4–18 g/l), and its strength is 12–14%. To obtain dry and semi-dry wines, you can use the same recipes.
To make dry wine at home, you need grapes with a sugar content of at least 15%. The best option is 20-22% sugar or more. Sugar content is an important indicator for obtaining high-quality dry wine, since the recipe (production technology) of such a drink excludes the addition of sugar.
The strength of homemade dry wines also depends on the sweetness of the grapes: 0.6% alcohol is obtained from 1% sugar. Thus, from berries with a sugar content of 15%, you can get wine with a strength of up to 10%.
The sweetness of the berries depends on the grape variety, the season (weather conditions under which the grapes ripened), and the region. In colder climates, the berries will be less sweet.
Acidic and very tart berries are not suitable for the production of dry wines, as there may be problems with the fermentation process, and the young wine will be weak and not very tasty.
Important. All utensils and tools that are used in the production of wine must be clean. Containers must be thoroughly washed with soda, poured over with boiling water and dried; it is advisable to sterilize glass bottles and containers for wine. For winemaking, enameled (without defects), glass, wooden utensils, as well as containers made of stainless steel and high-quality food-grade plastic are used.
dry wine recipe
This recipe is suitable for white and red wines. It is worth noting that white wine can also be made from dark grape varieties, while red wines require grapes with dark berries. Making a drink is troublesome, but not difficult. To make dry wine at home, you will need one product:
- grape.
Material preparation
To make high-quality dry wine, grapes of one of the technical varieties are used (for example, Aligote, Sauvignon, Chardonnay). Ripe grapes for winemaking are desirable to collect in dry, warm weather.
Grapes are separated from the branches of the brush, carefully sorted out. Unripe, spoiled, rotten fruits should not get into the wine preparation. The preparation of raw materials is a crucial stage, poor-quality berries and combs will give the drink an unpleasant bitter aftertaste and a heavy sour smell. It is almost impossible to improve the quality of a product made from poor wine material.
Important. Grapes for wine preparation cannot be washed. On the skin of the berries are microscopic fungi - wild yeast. These beneficial microorganisms are essential for fermentation. Water washes away a significant part of the wine yeast. Very dirty or dusty fruits can be wiped with a dry cotton cloth.
Wine preparation
Prepared berries must be crushed. This can be done by hand or with the help of improvised means. It is important to crush each grape without damaging the seeds. Grape seeds contain a significant amount of tannins, which can give the drink excessive astringency. Therefore, many experienced winemakers do not recommend crushing grapes with a press.
This recipe will use both juice and grape pomace. Substances contained in the pulp and skin of grapes will help to form a richer taste and aroma.
Fermentation on the pulp
Fill 3/4 of a suitable wide-mouth container with grape mass. Cover with cotton cloth or gauze.
At this stage, the technology for white and red dry alcoholic beverages is different, but the difference is insignificant, so the recipe is used to make two types of wine.
Dry white wine. The juice is infused on the pulp at 20–25 ° C for no more than a day (if the berries are dark, then insist for 3–5 hours, otherwise a pink drink may turn out). Next, pour the liquid into a clean bowl, squeeze the juice from the pulp. Strain the juice (must) through gauze (it must be folded in several layers). Pour the wort into a fermentation vessel with a narrow neck (suleyu).
Dry red wine. This drink is obtained from dark grapes by fermentation on the pulp. The container with wine harvesting must be left for 3-5 days in a room where the temperature is constant and is in the range from 18 to 30 ° C. Within a day, as a result of rapid fermentation, the pulp will “float” to the surface, forming a foamy “cap”. It must be constantly “drowned”, thoroughly mixing the contents of the container two to three times a day. If this is not done, the wort will deteriorate (turn sour).
Fermentation on the pulp is accompanied by abundant foam, the juice gradually acquires a rich ruby hue and a recognizable wine smell. The liquid should be drained, the lightened pulp should be squeezed out. Strain the resulting grape must, pour into the suleya.
Fermentation
The wort should occupy only 2/3 of the volume in the fermentation vessel. One third of the empty space is required for the accumulation of tartaric (carbon dioxide) gas and foam, which will form during rapid fermentation.
A must is installed on a vessel with must, which prevents contact of the liquid with air, but allows the tartaric gas, which is intensively formed during fermentation, to escape freely.
The water seal must be installed correctly, it must hermetically seal the bottle and reliably protect the contents from contact with air.
The shutter can be made independently. There are very simple and reliable options, for example, at home, you can use a regular surgical glove. It must be well fixed on the neck (this can be done with adhesive tape), and in one of the fingers make a hole with a needle for the release of wine gas.
The container with fermenting wort should be placed in a room with stable temperature conditions (fermentation should take place at 17–28 °C). The fermentation tank should not be exposed to direct sunlight, it can be covered with a thick cloth.
The period of active fermentation depends on the quality of the wine preparation and fermentation conditions, it can take from 20 to 60 days.
During fermentation, the liquid gradually brightens, a dense sediment accumulates at the bottom. The completion of the fermentation process is indicated by the absence of bubbles in the water seal or a deflated rubber glove.
Important. Do not miss the end of fermentation, so as not to overexpose the wort on the lees. This can adversely affect the quality of the drink.
Maturation
From the sediment, young wine must be promptly drained into a clean dish. This operation must be done with great care. This can be done with a thin hose. In this case, the containers must be installed at different levels. Fill the vessel with young homemade wine to the very top and tightly seal (no air should enter the container).
Wine can be put on maturation in a large bottle, in suliya and even in wine bottles.
The taste of young dry wine is quite sharp. In order to balance the flavor bouquet and maximize the best qualities of the drink (taste / aroma / color), the wine is sent for maturation in a cool room (kept at 6-16 ° C).
It takes at least 30 days for dry white wine to mature, dry red drinks are aged for at least two months, but experienced winemakers recommend aging red wines longer (up to six months) before drinking. Over time, their taste and aroma only improve.
The maturation of the wine requires constant monitoring, as sediment may continue to form at the bottom of the container. In a red drink, this process is more intense. As it accumulates, the bottle is opened, the wine is carefully poured from the sediment into a clean container. If the wine has matured in a large container, then after the precipitation has stopped, it can be bottled, placed horizontally where it is dry and cool (wine cellar, cellar, refrigerator) for storage. Under the right storage conditions, the shelf life of such a drink is from 3 to 5 years (red wine is stored longer).
Semi-dry wine
To obtain a semi-dry wine, you can use recipes for dry wines, followed by a forced stop of fermentation so that not all sugar is fermented in the must. That is, to prepare a natural semi-dry drink, a recipe with a single ingredient without added sugar is also used. In the must or its cooling, due to this, a certain part of the grape sugar is preserved, which makes the drink more refined, pleasant and aromatic.
There are recipes for semi-dry wines in which the amount of sugar in the original product is increased by gradually adding beet sugar.
The above recipe allows you to get high quality dry natural wine at home. This tasty and healthy product, when consumed in small amounts (no more than 150–200 ml per day), improves well-being, mood, and has a positive effect on health. For example, homemade white wine is indicated for the prevention of cancer, red wine regulates blood pressure.
Making wine at home is a painstaking task that takes a lot of time and requires compliance with the recipe. Despite the complex process, this business can be mastered by everyone. Our article is devoted to where to start and how exactly you can get wine.
The painstaking work of making wine consists of several phases. Of course, you should start with sorting the grapes, even slightly damaged ones will not work. We take only good whole berries, remove them into branches, but they should not be washed, as the yeast contained on the surface of wild fruits will disappear.
A special press is used to crush the fruits, or you can do it manually. It is important not to touch the bones, because this will make the wine bitter.
After pressing, the resulting mixture is infused for 2 days. Then it should be filtered and passed through cheesecloth. You can add sugar if you like. Now the liquid needs to be put to ferment. The tank in which it is located must be sealed with a water seal or put on an ordinary rubber glove on the neck.
After the transformation, the liquid is poured into another tank, while the resulting precipitate does not need to be poured. This can be done carefully by using a special thin hose in the valve.
The completion will be bottling the drink and holding it until fully ripened. The longer the shelf life, the finer the wine will be.
Classic grape wine Isabella
Sweet wine from a popular type of grape with a strength of 9-12%
Required Ingredients: Isabella grapes - 15 kg, sugar - 3 kg, water as needed.
Cooking progress. Selected selected berries are put under a press or squeezed out by hand. The substrate obtained after pressing, insist for 3-4 days, stirring 2 times a day. The next step is to drain the liquid. If the wine turns out to be sour for your taste, then add water, at the rate of 50-500 ml per 1 liter of the resulting drink. Pour into a container, leaving 1/3 of the total volume, pour sugar in a ratio of 100 g per 1 liter. We tightly cork with a water seal or put a glove on the neck, having previously made a hole in one phalanx. We put in a dark place with an air temperature of + 16- + 22ᵒC. After 5 days, pour out half of the remaining granulated sugar. After another 5 days, pour out all the remaining sugar. The cooking process should take 35-70 days.
As the air leaves the glove and the contents of the bottle become light, sediment will appear at the bottom, now it's time to pour it into another container without disturbing the sediment. If desired, you can pour it with sugar and leave for 7 days. Bottles should be kept cool for six months, then bottled and sent to a cellar or refrigerator for a shelf life of up to 5 years.
Unpretentious wine made from grapes
The recipe is very easy to prepare, even a novice winemaker can handle it.
Required Ingredients: grapes - 10 kg, sugar - 2.5-3 kg.
Cooking progress. Select good berries and crush them with a press. Next, cover the resulting mixture with a fabric that conducts air well and leave for 5 days, stirring twice a day. The next step is straining: pour through gauze into a container and squeeze out the berry cake. Pour in sugar, mix thoroughly. Fasten the glove to the neck and leave to ferment for 3 weeks. As the air leaves the glove, you need to pour the contents into a clean container without disturbing the sediment. We insist another 1 month in a cool room. Once every 10 days, pour into a clean vessel, leaving sediment at the bottom. After a month, pour the wine into bottles and store for another 1 month.
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White wine at home
Light wine with a unique aroma and memorable taste.
Required Ingredients: grapes of noble varieties - 10, sugar - 3 kg.
Cooking progress. Ideal varieties Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Rieslin. We send the grapes under the press and leave for 5 days, stirring once a day. Then strain into the reservoir, squeeze the berries through cheesecloth. Add sugar to taste, depending on your personal preferences and the sweetness of the berries themselves. We cork with a water seal and put in a dark and chilled place for fermentation for 21 days. After this time, you can pour the wine without touching the sediment. Leave for another 4 weeks to improve taste.
Homemade wine from red grapes
If you follow the recipe, you will get a very tasty wine with a bright aroma and a rich flavor bouquet.
Required Ingredients: grapes - 5 kg (Pinot Noir, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Isabella varieties), sugar - 1.5 kg.
Cooking progress. To create this wine, it is better to take Cabernet Sauvignon, Isabella, Merlot, Pinot Noir grapes. The berries that you selected must be pressed. We filter the juice into a saucepan and squeeze the berries there. We put on low heat and heat it up, pour out 750 g of sugar, stir until it is completely dissolved. Berry cake is placed in a vessel and poured into it with sweet juice. Cover and insist for 5 days. Do not forget to stir the mixture 2 times a day. Then we filter and squeeze again, pour everything into a clean bottle, pour out the rest of the necessary sugar and close it with a water seal. We leave for further fermentation for another 21 days. When the process is completed, pour again into a clean container, without affecting the sludge. We cork and clean in a place inaccessible to sunlight for 28 days. During this period, every 10 days it is necessary to pour the drink into a new tank, without sediment. Next, you should place the vessel with wine for at least another 28 days in the refrigerator.
Light grape wine
When water is added, the taste of the wine becomes more delicate and light. It is important to keep the right proportions.
Required Ingredients: grapes - 5 kg, sugar - 3 kg, water - 12 l.
Cooking progress. Prepare enameled dishes, squeeze the fruits you have selected in it. Cover and leave for 3 days, stir the mixture twice a day. We filter through cheesecloth into a bottle and squeeze out the rest, add 1/3 of granulated sugar, stir thoroughly, close with a hydrolock and leave to ferment for 1-2 months in a dark place. Once every 7 days it is necessary to pour into a new container, without precipitation. The remaining sugar must be added in the first 10 days. Dilute with water after another 7 days. After the fermentation process is completed, you can bottle the drink and put it in a cool and dark place. The taste will be better if it brews longer.
Dry grape wine at home
To make dry wine, you need grape varieties that contain 20% sugar.
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Required Ingredients: black or white grapes.
Cooking progress. The selected grapes are placed under a press and crushed. The resulting composition is left to infuse at room temperature. The white variety should cost at least a day, and the dark one from 3 to 5 days, during which time the berry cake should rise to the surface of the mixture. Then we filter and squeeze the juice into a vessel, close it with a water lock and send it to wander in a dark place for 10-25 days. When the period is over, it is necessary to pour into another tank without affecting the sediment and put in a cooling place. White wine is infused for 1 month, red wine for 2-3 months. 
Grape wine Moldova
Properly prepared drink will be sweet, concentrated red color with the right tart aftertaste.
Required Ingredients: grapes - 30 kg, sugar - up to 5 kg, water - up to 10 liters.
Cooking progress. Press the selected fruits, set to infuse for 4 days, gently stirring twice a day. Strain into the tank, squeeze out the cake, add sugar, put on a glove on the neck and leave to ferment for 1-2 months in a place inaccessible to light at room temperature. Then we pour it into another vessel and put it in a cool place for six months to mature.
Homemade grape wine Lydia
By following the recipe, you will get a good drink that will delight you with a quality taste and sweet strawberry aroma.
Required Ingredients: grapes - 10 kg, sugar - 3 kg.
Cooking progress. We crush the berries you have chosen, put everything in the tank, cover and leave, at room temperature away from the light, infuse for 5 days. After straining, the pulp is no longer needed, pour the juice into a vessel and pour sugar, mix thoroughly. We close and set to wander in a darkened room for 21 days. We remove the drink from the sludge, fill the bottles with it. We put the containers in the cellar or pantry until the taste ripens for up to 40 days.
Homemade grape wine without sugar
So that the drink does not turn out to be too sour, you should choose sweet grapes for its preparation.
Required Ingredients: grapes of white varieties.
Cooking progress. The grapes that you have chosen are pressed and defended for 12-18 hours in a cool place. Then we filter and remove the processed pulp. Pour everything into a bottle, cork with a water seal and put at room temperature for 21 days. After that, everything must be poured into another container, hermetically sealed and removed for another 21 days. After that, you need to repeat the procedure and also leave it for 1 month and pour it again without affecting the sediment. If the drink turns cloudy, it must be placed in a completely dark and chilled room with a temperature of 0- + 6ᵒC, preferably not less than 2 weeks. Pour the clear finished wine into bottles and place in the cellar for storage.
Grape wine in a jar
You can also prepare drinks in non-designated bottles, especially when you don’t have them on hand. For these purposes, you can use a regular jar.
Required Ingredients: grapes - 10 kg, sugar - 2.5 kg.
Cooking progress. Remove grapes from twigs and remove all stalks. Press everything in an enamel bowl, cover and leave for 4-5 days, stirring twice a day. Next, you should pass everything through a sieve, squeeze out the pulp and pour everything into jars. Pour granulated sugar into jars with juice in equal amounts and stir. Put rubber gloves on the jars, having previously made one hole in each of them. Set aside for fermentation for 14-21 days. Remove gloves, strain without touching the sediment at the bottom. Then you need to pour into bottles and put away for 1 month in a cool room. Every 10 days we pour the drink into another container. At the end of 30 days, you can try the resulting drink and put it in the cellar.
Wine is an ancient alcoholic drink that is highly valued today. Now there is a huge variety of ways to prepare it with varying technologies and ingredients. However, the most traditional and even healthy are dry wines. They are prepared without adding sugar and are not diluted with water.
There is an opinion that it is impossible to make good dry wine at home, because this requires grapes with the required percentage of sugar content. However, this is misleading. With the proper recipe, dry wine can be easily prepared at home.
To make dry wine, you need sweet grapes. Merlot, Pinot Noir, Cabernet Sauvignon, Senso are best suited for red, Muscat, Chardonnay, Tokay, Aligote, Riesling are best suited for white. It is also important to note that artificially bred varieties, which have a few percent more sugar content, should not be used to make wine in the same way as semi-wild varieties. Be sure to find out what the sugar content of the grapes you will be using is. This can be done using a special device - a refractometer, or using tables on the Internet. The natural sugar content must be at least 20 Brie.
Also, do not use any iron containers when preparing, as it will oxidize the drink. Give preference to enamelware.
Mash the grapes only with your hands or with a sieve, but do not use a press so as not to crush the seeds.
dry red wine recipe
For cooking you will need:
- Grapes of sweet varieties.
- Enamelware.
- Wide-mouthed bottle or jar.
The first stage is the preparation of grapes and the production of must. Berries must be cleaned of dust with a piece of cloth, but in no case washed, sorted out. Next, you need to crush the grapes. The resulting juice together with the pulp is called the must, and the pulp itself is called the pulp.
The second stage is preparation for fermentation. The wort is poured into bottles with a narrow neck, filling 3/4 of the volume of the container and covering it with gauze. Red wine must be defended for 3-5 days at a temperature of 28C.
The third stage is fermentation. Squeeze the pulp through gauze, strain all the liquid and pour into a container with a narrow neck. Fill containers 2/3 full. Install a water seal or a rubber glove with a small hole on the neck. With this you will know when the carbon dioxide is completely out of the wine. Usually the duration of fermentation is 10-25 days. The temperature should be 16-20C.
The last stage is the maturation of the wine. Carefully pour the wine into bottles so as not to touch the sediment. Cork them and move them to a cellar or basement with a temperature of 10-15C. Red wine matures for about 1 month.
The technology for preparing white wine is practically the same, except that the must must stand for only 1 day at a temperature of 20-25C.
Also remember that the wine may not become clear immediately. Check it every 3 weeks for sediment and if it appears, strain the wine and cork again.
This way you can make your own drink. But remember that alcohol should not be abused.
Winemaking is an art that takes years to master. Nevertheless, anyone can easily make homemade dry wine. The result is unlikely to be masterpieces, but with the right approach, the taste of the drink will surely pleasantly surprise the author and his loved ones. There are simple ways to make dry wine from grapes at home that do not require scarce components and sophisticated equipment. Only grapes, natural fermentation and a natural product as a result. Below is one of the simple recipes and a brief description of how to make dry wine from grapes yourself.
The consumption of products for a conditional recipe will be as follows:
- 10 kg of grapes;
- 50-200 grams of sugar per 1 liter of finished juice (if the grapes are not sweet enough).
The best raw material for cooking wines will be technical grades: hard-skinned, sweet and juicy. But this does not mean at all that the use of table grapes is unacceptable. You just have to make sure it's sweet enough. Otherwise, you will have to use sugar in the cooking process.
You need to prepare containers and dishes ahead of time. Cooking containers must be sterile and dry. Otherwise, mold spores remaining on the dishes may develop into fungus and spoil the taste. Barrels, bottles, buckets and basins must be fumigated with sulfur (this is the traditional method used in industry) or simply rinsed boiled water and wipe dry with a cloth. Containers in which milk was stored are not recommended for making wine, even thorough washing is unlikely to make them suitable.
- Vintage.
- Processing of raw materials.
- Pulp section.
- secondary fermentation.
- Adding sugar.
- Removal from sediment.
- Ripening.
- Bottling and storage.
Vintage
Microorganisms necessary for the winemaking process are provided by nature itself - they live on the skin of berries. In order to preserve wild yeast, grapes must be harvested in dry, sunny weather. Before the collection should be 2-3 days without rain. Only ripe bunches are suitable for making wine. Unripe berries contain too much acid. They can spoil the taste of the finished drink.
overripe, inclined to acetic fermentation and can spoil the whole must. Do not pick up fallen berries. They will add an unpleasant earthy flavor to the wine that is almost impossible to correct. Harvested grapes become unsuitable for winemaking after two days, so it is better not to postpone the processing of raw materials.
Raw material processing
Harvested grapes must be carefully sorted out. It is necessary to prevent unripe, rotten and moldy berries from getting into the raw material. It is also important to remove the ridges and leaves - they give an unpleasant, pungent smell of greenery to the wine. A small amount of grapes will be ideal to knead with your hands. This will make sure not to damage the bones, which contain substances that add bitterness to the drink. To make white wine, the skins are removed from the must. Accordingly, in this case, fermentation is complicated by a deficiency of natural yeast. For simplicity, this recipe describes how to make red wine.
As dishes for the wort, it is best to use a wooden barrel or enameled containers. Contact of future wine with any metals should be avoided. Only food-grade stainless steel is allowed in the process, which is not subject to juice oxidation. For the primary fermentation vat, polyethylene containers are perfect - they easily washable and do not retain odors. The criterion for choosing the size of a pot or basin for primary fermentation is simple: squeezed juice with pulp should take up no more than ¾ of the volume. Mixing will be convenient and correct with a wooden tool.
After that, you need to place the wort in a warm place with a stable temperature of 21-25 ° C. Within a day, alcoholic fermentation should begin - the process of processing sugar into alcohol by yeast.
- eliminate drafts in the room in which the vat is located;
- it is desirable not to impede the access of air to the container (it is acceptable to use gauze to protect the wort from insects);
- make sure that there is no reason to have an excess of carbon dioxide in the air (even a candle burning nearby can interrupt the process);
- regularly monitor the surface and “knock down” the growing cap from the surfaced peel by stirring.
Pulp separation
After a few days, the pulp will brighten, sourness will appear in the smell, and the hiss of the must will become audible. These are sure signs that the fermentation process has started and it's time to squeeze pure juice from raw materials. For this, ordinary gauze (preferably sterile or pre-sterilized) is useful, through which you can strain the puree and squeeze out the solid residue. Pure juice must be drained into a container for secondary fermentation.
Narrow-necked glass bottles are ideal for this purpose, and should be selected so that they remain about five centimeters empty. It is convenient to pour the wort using a large funnel. All procedure filtering and moving the juice from one container to another, not only removes impurities, but also saturates with oxygen, which contributes to the activity of yeast at this stage.
Secondary fermentation
Now you need to protect the fermenting juice from atmospheric air and ensure an unhindered exit for excess carbon dioxide. To do this, the bottle is sealed with a water seal. The latter is easiest to build from a tube, a can of water, a lid or a cork. Popular as a water seal is an elastic rubber glove with a puncture in the finger, worn on the neck. There are very convenient and inexpensive factory solutions. The design of the lock is not critical for the process, it is important to provide easy access to the wort if necessary.
After organizing the water seal, it is necessary to ensure a stable temperature for fermentation in the range of 22–25 ° C. The temperature must not be allowed to drop below 16 °C. From the cold, natural yeast can die without completing the fermentation process. Their vigorous activity will be noticeable by the bubbles of carbon dioxide coming out of the water seal, or by an inflated glove. There is always a risk that, for various reasons, yeast can stop fermentation.
You can restart the process with sourdough. It can be prepared from 150 g of unwashed raisins and 50 g of sugar. You need to put them in a bottle, pour a third of water, close with a cotton plug and leave for 3-4 days in a warm place. During this time, the raisins should ferment. After the liquid is drained, mixed with a liter of wort and added to the bottle of secondary fermentation. This should restart the process.
Adding sugar
The sweetness of wine and the percentage of alcohol in it is controlled by the content of sugar in the must. Yeast converts it into alcohol in a ratio of two volume parts to one. This means that a fully fermented grape with 22% sugar will result in a wine with 11% alcohol. Wine with an alcohol content of less than 9% is usually acidic and does not keep for a long time. Since the yeast ferments weakly, already at an alcohol volume of over 12%, and dies at a concentration of 15%, it can be assumed that all the sugar in the must over 24% will not be processed into alcohol and will remain in the finished wine.
There are few regions in Russia where grapes with 24% sugar are available. Most likely, when making wine from local raw materials on your own, the juice will have to be sweetened. It is almost impossible for an inexperienced winemaker to determine the initial sugar content in grapes for taste, tables of content by variety in non-wine-growing areas are not applicable. The best solution to the problem is the acquisition of a hydrometer and the development of the necessary calculation methods.
To maintain active, sweetness should be in the range of 15-20%. In order not to go out of this range, sugar must be added in parts. A few days after the start of fermentation, you can taste the must. And, if it turns out to be sour, add 50 grams of sugar per 1 liter of future wine, after preparing the syrup from a couple of liters of must in a separate container. Shake the bottle well afterwards. You will most likely have to sweeten several times until the sugar content stops dropping (about 2-4 weeks). The latter will mean that active fermentation has come to an end and it's time to move on to the next stage.
Removal from sediment
Dead yeast collects at the bottom in the form of a light sediment. The process of separating pure wine from it is conveniently done using a siphon, by pouring wine through it from one container to another. You need to start removing at the moment when the fermentation process has practically stopped. The cloudy part remaining after transfusion can be discarded. During the first separation, the wine is allowed to slightly saturate with oxygen, which will be used by the remaining yeast to complete the fermentation. This is easy to do by pouring it from the siphon hose in free fall.
After completion, the bottle is closed with a water seal and after two or three weeks the wine is again removed from the sediment. In some cases wine maybe ferment very slowly for a few more months and remain cloudy. It may happen that it will have to be removed from the sediment three or four more times. In this case, it is desirable to exclude aeration by immersing the siphon hose to the bottom of the container being filled.
Ripening
After the fermentation stops, you can adjust the sweetness of the drink. The result of the stage is dry wine. Add sugar to it if it tastes sour. If it tastes sour, you can add sugar. Thus, we get a semi-sweet wine. Sugar will no longer be processed by yeast into alcohol and all will remain in the drink. The technologies for sweetening wine and must are no different and are described above.
Production of young wine is completed. It is ready to use. But the taste of the drink will only benefit if it is allowed to mature. For most homemade wines, a period of one and a half months to a year is enough, at a temperature of 10-16 ° C. A dry, dark basement will be a great place to mature. It is important to protect the wine from contact with atmospheric oxygen. This condition will be provided in the same bottle under a water seal. The next step is bottling.
Bottling and storage
Before bottling, bottles, corks and siphon should be sterilized. Bottling should be done without aeration, leaving a little void at the neck. It is better to store bottles in a cool place and without access to light. If used for blocking natural cork, it must be in constant contact with the wine to ensure that it stays moist. Otherwise, it can dry out and let in oxygen, which will surely spoil the drink.
A simplified description of how to properly prepare grape wine has come to an end. The wine recipe is sure to be excellent. At least because it will be done with your own hands. Feel free to experiment. And remember that alcohol abuse is harmful to your health.
Attention, only TODAY!
The desire of many people to eat the most healthy food has not bypassed home winemaking. Increasingly, when making your own wine, recipes are being used that do not involve the addition of additional sugar.
Be prepared for the fact that natural grape wine made at home without added sugar will turn out completely dry. This means that all the natural sugar contained in the grapes will be processed by the yeast into alcohol.
Dry wine is, in fact, the basic product of winemaking, when grape juice, fermented under natural conditions without diluting it with water and adding sugar, turns into an alcoholic drink. All other wine recipes - sweet, sparkling, fortified, dessert and so on - are just taste experiments and artificial interference in the technology of the fundamental process. Dry wine is considered the purest and healthiest, and the recipe for making it is extremely simple.
Usually, to make grape wine at home according to the classic recipe, amateur winemakers use natural yeasts for fermentation, which are found in abundance on the skins and ridges of berries. This is the same whitish plaque visible to the naked eye. When harvesting, carefully cut the clusters and place in a wide flat container for carrying, being careful not to rub off the coating. Berries should never be washed before crushing. With this gentle handling, the wild yeast will survive on the surface as much as possible and provide you with a quality fermentation.
The alcohol content of a drink obtained with the help of wild yeast cannot be more than 12–13 °. And this is quite understandable, since the maximum sugar content of technical grape varieties under favorable ripening conditions is 20–22 Brie. And we know that about 0.6% of alcohol is obtained from one gram of sugar. There are new varieties of grapes with a sugar content of up to 28-32 Brie, but these are mostly table varieties, eaten and not used for winemaking.
For the production of dry red wines, technical grape varieties such as Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir and others are suitable. For whites, respectively, Chardonnay, Tokay, Riesling, Muscat and others. This is a world classic. But in our time, many technical varieties have been bred for central Russia. Table varieties, as mentioned above, are unsuitable for making wine, but technical varieties are quite eatable, and wine is prepared, of course. Grapes, bred specifically for central Russia, ripen quickly, managing to gain the required amount of sugar over a not very long and warm summer, to put it simply, to ripen. These varieties, which is very important, are frost and disease resistant.
So, if you are going to plant grapes on your plot for the purpose and enjoy them, and make natural wine without any additives, including sugar, you need to choose the sweetest variety with a natural sugar content of at least 20 Brie. With such a sugar content, you will not have to indulge in any tricks when making wine at home. You can find out which varieties are grown for wine production in your area by talking to local winemakers.
If you already have grapes, you need to determine its sugar content. What is it for? To understand what kind of wine we can count on in terms of alcohol content. What for? The fact is that if the grapes you have have too little sugar content, for example, as in the well-known Isabella, about 17 Brie, then at the output we will get a wine with an alcohol content of about 10 °, and in unfavorable years, when the summer is cold and rainy, and even less so. Such low-alcohol drinks are very unstable, they are poorly stored and are subject to many diseases and vices.
There are many recipes for unsweetened grapes. As a rule, sugar is added to the wort from it, thus increasing the alcohol content. A sufficient amount of alcohol, as well as a large amount of sugar in dessert wines, is a good preservative-stabilizer that blocks the action of pathogenic bacteria. Of course, you can save wine with a low alcohol content, but for this you will have to apply at least pasteurization.
How do you know how much sugar is in your grapes? To do this, you can use tables that are easy to find on the net, which present the main characteristics of different grape varieties, including sugar content. But these are pretty average values. As noted above, the place of cultivation, climatic conditions, the location of the vineyard on the cardinal points and more are of great importance. Therefore, for a more accurate measurement, home winemakers use a special device that measures the sugar content of the must by its density, it is called a refractometer.
If you are the proud owner of a sweet grape, you can easily make a great wine at home without adding sugar using one of the recipes below.
We remind you that according to the white method, you can make a drink from both white and red grapes. But according to the red method, that is, fermenting juice on the pulp, they make wine exclusively from dark grape varieties.
Natural wine from grapes according to the white method without added sugar
Preparation for making wine according to this recipe is the same as for all the others. The only thing that should be taken especially carefully is the time of harvest. Grapes should ripen, but in no case overripe. A couple of weeks before the scheduled date, try the berries hanging from different sides of the vineyard, at different heights, for sweetness. As soon as you feel that the sweetness does not increase, and the acidity stays at the same level for a couple of days, it's time.
Harvested grapes, not mine, immediately carefully sort through, separating unripe, rotten and moldy berries and removing the ridges. Then squeeze the juice from the berries. To do this, you can use a clean bag of sugar. Load the berries into a bag and place it in a large saucepan or bowl. Start squashing the grapes through the bag with your hands or with a kitchen masher, whichever is more convenient. After crushing the berries, twist the bag, thus squeezing the juice through the pores of the bag. This should be done as quickly as possible to avoid oxidative processes that change the color of the juice. The resulting liquid will be very cloudy, with pieces of skin, scraps of combs and other suspended particles. It is necessary to let it stand in a cool place for 12-18 hours, and then drain it from the sediment. It is better to defend the juice in the refrigerator, at low temperatures, oxidative processes slow down, which will prevent the juice from turning brown. Draining from the sediment, we send the juice for fermentation in an open container at a temperature of 16–20 ° C. Compliance with the temperature regime is extremely important when making wine without the addition of sugar. If fermentation occurs at a higher temperature, it will go much faster, from this the wine can lose up to 2% of potential alcohol. At lower temperatures, fermentation can drag on for a long time, be very sluggish, and then you have to “cheer up” it, which is also undesirable.
Pre-washed dishes for fermentation are filled with juice by three quarters of the volume. Since in this recipe fermentation occurs without the participation of the pulp, bottles with a narrow neck are suitable. Partial filling of dishes leaves room for carbon dioxide, which is produced by yeast during alcoholic fermentation. Carbon dioxide at the beginning of fermentation forms a protective barrier, preventing contact of the wort with oxygen, but gradually it becomes less and less. In order for excess carbon dioxide to come out, and oxygen not to be able to contact the future wine, a water seal is installed on the dishes or a medical glove is put on, puncturing 1-2 holes between the fingers with a needle.
The wine will ferment for about three weeks. The end of this process will be indicated very rarely by bubbles emerging through the water seal or a fallen glove. At the end of rapid fermentation, the wine is drained from the sediment using a siphon into a clean dish. When draining, avoid contact of the wine with oxygen, so that it does not oxidize.
Now comes the turn of "silent" fermentation, which takes place without intensive gas evolution. The container is filled to the top with wine, tightly closed and left for fermentation for about another three weeks. Then it must be drained from the sediment again, and again a month later. Each time when pouring, add wine to the top from small bottles prepared in advance from the same batch. This is extremely important to prevent acetic acidification of the wine.
With each new precipitation, the wine should become more and more transparent. If, nevertheless, it is cloudy, carry out cryostabilization, leaving the vessels with wine at a temperature of 0 + 6 ° C for a couple of weeks. Tartar will precipitate, the turbidity will go away.
Your white wine is ready. You can enjoy it in a friendly company or bottle it and send it to a cellar or other dry room with a temperature of + 13-15 ° C for storage.
Natural wine from grapes according to the red method without added sugar
To make red wine, it is fermented on the pulp. The pulp is the pulp obtained after pressing the grapes, consisting of juice, pulp, skin, seeds of berries and in some cases bunch twigs. A separate question that you must answer for yourself is the separation of the combs. To do it or not, everyone decides for himself, depending on his taste preferences. The branches contain tannins, which then pass into the wine and give it astringency.
We collect the grapes, as indicated in the recipe above. We prepare in advance clean dishes for fermentation. It should be a vessel with a wide mouth, since fermentation on the pulp involves stirring the must several times a day. If the bottle is with a narrow neck, it is extremely inconvenient to do this.
We sort through, do not wash, and begin to press. The main thing is to crush all the berries and not damage the bones. Then we fill three-quarters of the volume of dishes with the resulting wort, cover with gauze and leave to ferment. The gauze will prevent wine flies from appearing. Fermentation will begin in a few hours. A cap will rise to the surface, consisting mainly of peel and other hard particles. It must be knocked down, periodically, three to four times a day, stirring the wort. On the fourth or fifth day, the skin will give the wine most of the coloring pigment and become whitish, then the must must be filtered, passed through a cloth or other filter, and squeezed out the pulp. Pour the resulting liquid into the fermentation vessel by three quarters. At this stage, bottles with a narrow neck can already be used. Put a water seal on the throat or put on a glove. The stage of "stormy fermentation" will begin. After its completion, we drain the wine from the sediment and then proceed according to the previous recipe.
That's basically it. The recipe for making natural wine without adding sugar, water and chemicals is extremely simple.
If you have tried your young wine made according to the first or second recipe and found that there is very little alcohol in it, but, for example, it turned out to be a lot of wine, and you plan to store it for some time without changing the taste of the resulting drink by adding alcohol or sugar, pasteurize wine bottles. This will protect your drink from souring and other troubles.
