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If You're Making Wine from Scratch
from: Maxx Guide to WineDuring the winemaking process you may end up with some fruit you'd like to make into a batch of wine. If you don't have a recipe handy, you may be tempted to just throw some things together to create your own wine recipe. If you're an experienced wine maker, this may not be a problem as long as you include important ingrediants such as sugar and yeast.
However, there are some important guidelines you should keep in mind to ensure this batch turns out well.
First, consider how much produce will need to be used. If you've only made wine using grapes previously, you may be believe you can use the same amount of any other produce you used when making grape wine. This isn't true, however. The main reason is that some produce is stronger than others.
Your main goal when making wine is to achieve balance. When using very strong and/or produce that contains a high amount of acid. you'll need to make sure you balance this with water for dilution purposes. In general, the stronger the fruit, the less you'll require. If you've used the same amount of elderberries to make a batch of wine as would have used for grape wine, you'll likely be rewarded with wine that's practically undrinkable.
To make an average five gallon batch of wine, however, you'll need to add enough water to constitute five full gallons. If you're using wine grapes, you don't typically need to add any water to make up your full five gallons.
On the other hand, if you're using, say, ginger root, which is a much stronger flavor, then you'll need to use a fair amount of water since you'll typically be using less of the actual produce.
In addition, you going to need to decide how much, if any, sugar will be required for your developing recipe. Using a lot of produce means you may not need to add any sugar because the produce could have enough of its own to support the fermentation process. If you aren't sure whether the produce needs to have sugar added, use a hydrometer to test the juice.
A hydrometer is a simple and easy device to use that contains a scale referred to as the Potential Alcohol. This scale measures the potential amount of alcohol that can be produced from the juice in terms of percentages from zero to twenty, which gives you a clude about how much alcohol can be produced from the sugar level already present.
For instance, if you get a reading of 4 on the hydrometer, you'll know there's enough sugar to produce 4% alcohol content in your wine. This isn't enough alcohol for most people, so you'll need to add some sugar.
If you want to increase the level to about 12%, then begin adding sugar gradually and testing at intervals until the hydrometer reaches a reading of 12. In most cases, one pound of sugar will raise the alcohol level by approximately 1%.
But keep in mind that it usually isn't a good idea to try to produce wine with an alcohol content of more than 13% since a higher alcohol content may interfere with the stability and balance of the wine.
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