complete beginner

SSBrew - 728
Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
400d

400d

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 20, 2009
Messages
583
Reaction score
3
hi there,

what is the best internet beginner turorial for wine making from scratch? I found so many of them, but they are all very partial and confusing.... I need something that will describe whole process from fresh fruit to glass with easy to understand instructions...

thank you
 
400d said:
describe whole process
Click to expand...
A good cook can make wine from a recipe, but a good chef can make wine out of anything.

Instead of having a fish aquarium, think of it as a yeast aquarium. If you provide the correct environment (food, temp, etc), they will thrive and make a good wine maker happy.
 
AZ_IPA said:
not the easiest website to navigate - but a ton of info:

http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/
Click to expand...

Yep, I agree! If you scroll to the bottom, start with the button for "basics" and then "advanced" and then take a look at "requested recipes". He has recipes for everything- and good ones!

The techniques are easy, but you can't skip them so make sure you read over the basics and then click onto the "step 1" in depth part.

As AZ_IPA said, the site is hard to navigate at first, but it's worth sticking with it!
 
+1 for Jack Kellar's site. Lots of good info, lots of recipes with detailed steps. He has obviously spent a LOT of time thinking and writing about this topic.
 
I gotta say, no matter how good the site is, you just won't understand some stuff until you either see it, or you do it. It just never made sense to me, no matter how much I read, until I actually did it myself.

You have some options for starting out:

- Take a class from a local winery or LHBS.

- Amazon.com has some good, cheap wine kits. Make one of those (they have good instructions and include everything but bottles) and *then* read Jack Keller. It will make a lot more sense after you've done it once.

- Check out how "craigtube" does it on YouTube... a lot of people have issues with how he does it, but it does give you a chance to see the things that the books just explain. There are other videos, too, like this one where a different guy makes wine from frozen raspberries.



Any of these are a good way to get started and really learn how to make your own wine. They all have upsides and downsides, but reading about brewing can only get you so far until you start learning from your own mistakes. ;)

Good luck, and enjoy!
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Justibone said:
Check out how "craigtube" does it on YouTube...
Click to expand...

I thought that was nasty washing dishes in his fermenter. He didn't wait 12 hours from campden to pectin either. A 6.5 gallon pail for a 1 gallon batch would leave a heck of alot of head space for oxidation. Grinding the spoon around on the bottom of the bucket will scratch it up and cause cleaning problems. Pectic enzyme converts pectin into methyl alcohol (wood alcohol). As pretty as the video looks, it's more of a what not to do video.
 
CampFireWine said:
I thought that was nasty washing dishes in his fermenter. He didn't wait 12 hours from campden to pectin either. A 6.5 gallon pail for a 1 gallon batch would leave a heck of alot of head space for oxidation. Grinding the spoon around on the bottom of the bucket will scratch it up and cause cleaning problems. Pectic enzyme converts pectin into methyl alcohol (wood alcohol). As pretty as the video looks, it's more of a what not to do video.
Click to expand...

That wasn't craigtube... craigtube uses kits.

You're right, this guy makes a lot of mistakes (didn't squeeze his fruit bag so his OG was 1.035!) and doesn't even know what a hydrometer is called. BUUUUT... he put something up on YouTube so newbs could see what he was doing.

1) Pectinase can still work in the presence of campden. Not as well, but it can still work. Jack says, "It is best to wait a few hours after adding sulfites (Campden tablets or potassium metabisulfite) before adding pectic enzyme, as its action is retarded by an excess of sulfur dioxide." http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/adding.asp

2) Waaaaay too much headspace, but at this early point oxygen could be helpful. Will 1 gallon of wine make 5.5 gallons worth of CO2? Probably. 1 mole of CO2 ~ 22 L, 40 g worth.

3) I don't think scratches are as big a deal as some other people think. Also, I'm not sure sugar is quite hard enough to cause severe scratches, I think it might just cause the relatively harmless surface ones.

4) Didn't you just say his pectic enzyme wasn't going to work anyways? ;)

See, a complete noob doesn't even know these simple things, and they also don't know that 1) most things are opinion/preference, and 2) most mistakes are minor.

Watching it in action gives one a much more clear idea of how things are done, though -- even if you don't necessarily want to emulate *exactly* what you see.
 
400d, read the tutorials and about wine making on jack's site, pick a simple recipe, read it until you understand it and go for it! All you need for equipment at this point is a fermentor, an airlock and bung, a kettle and some time.
 
Ya'll aint helpin.

400d this is how you'll get it.

Get some kind of juice. get an empty food grade container... like a milk jug. clean/sanitise it best you can (if its glass use extremely diluted bleachwater then rinse like nuts). Pour juice in container. put yeast (ANY kind) in a half cup of water for a half hour. Pour yeastwater in container. cut up and toss in half a handful of raisins Or some yeast nutrient. Pour in a cup or two of sugar if its a nonsweet juice (this isnt really anecessary step). Put a baloon on the top with a couple pinpricks in it. A week from now once the balloon is deflated siphon the liquid away from the yeast in the bottom (you can switch it to a clear container first and let it resettle then do this). Put it in the fridge for a coupledays. Rerack it (siphon off the nonyeast). Taste.

Youve just used one of the oldest winemaking techniques on the planet.
Now that you have something thats alcoholic and drinkable.. NOW you can go spend some money and try more advanced techniques.

A note things like specialty yeast, sanitiser, etc will make things much easier and youll have less wine go bad. Buy yourself some bubbers, carboys etc later. YOu can honestly get all the stuff that REALLY helps at your lhbs for 10 bucks. After that its just gravy.
 
Cdreid said:
Get some kind of juice. get an empty food grade container... like a milk jug. clean/sanitise it best you can (if its glass use extremely diluted bleachwater then rinse like nuts). Pour juice in container. put yeast (ANY kind) in a half cup of water for a half hour. Pour yeastwater in container. cut up and toss in half a handful of raisins Or some yeast nutrient. Pour in a cup or two of sugar if its a nonsweet juice (this isnt really anecessary step). Put a baloon on the top with a couple pinpricks in it. A week from now once the balloon is deflated siphon the liquid away from the yeast in the bottom (you can switch it to a clear container first and let it resettle then do this). Put it in the fridge for a coupledays. Rerack it (siphon off the nonyeast). Taste.

...

A note things like specialty yeast, sanitiser, etc will make things much easier and youll have less wine go bad. Buy yourself some bubbers, carboys etc later. YOu can honestly get all the stuff that REALLY helps at your lhbs for 10 bucks. After that its just gravy.
Click to expand...

If anyone brews this, all I have to say is: enjoy your hooch. :cross:

They have a saying in construction: you can have it fast, cheap and good. Now pick two.

The same can be said for brewing. Fast and cheap (like above) makes not-very-good wine. You can do it cheap and good, but it takes more work; you can do good wine fast (and easy) if you buy the kits and equipment.

There are as many ways to brew as their are brewers, but I for one would not want to drink juice fermented in a milk jug with a balloon on top if the alternative is still pretty cheap (less than $10 for an airlock, bung and wine yeast) and potentially sooooooo much better.

Me and Cdreid aren't disagreeing, btw, but rather emphasizing our own preferences. I think a noob's first wine should have a reasonable chance of being good, and he's emphasizing the low barrier to entry. I tried to make that kind of wine once... it was terrible. We used bread yeast and had no idea about flocculation. There was some kind of funky side product from the quick-rise yeast that made the wine taste like crap, and we ended up trying to filter it through a Brita. Easy, fast and cheap is NOT a good way to start out making wine, IMO, because you have no idea how good homemade wine can get, and I'm certainly glad that I didn't go through the rest of my life thinking that the concoction I made that one time was what homemade wine was like.
 
I actually agree somewhat with Cdreid

however this is what I recomend doing. Find your local home brew shop. Get an airlock and a gasket fitted for that airlock and a package of winemaking yeast, I prefer EC-1119 but just pick one really.

Now go to the grocery store and pick up a gallon container of your favorite juice in a plastic container. Look at the ingredients it should be nothing but water, juice, sugar, citric acid, and maybe high fructuse corn syrup. Any preservatives will inhibit fermentation.

Next take the cover of the juice off, place a bag over the top of the opening, drill a hole in the cover to fit the gasket, insert the gasket, wash, insert the airlock to make sure snug fit.

Pour out a bit of juice to make a bit of room, add yeast, cover with the cover and airlock, pour a bit of water into the airlock or better some vodka, place in a warm dark place and check on it occasionaly until the wine is crystal clear....do not rush this, crystal clear. Open container and syphon wine into another container and seal or drink. Congrats you just made a wine for little investment! Does it taste like a fine wine? No, does it taste like a good wine, maybe, is it hootch, probably not! But it gets you started.

Investment costs
Airlock $1.25
Gasket $0.10
Juice $4.00
Yeast $1.95

education value priceless!!
 
Just FYI i agree with both Justibone and Brewpahl.

My post was the easiest way to do it. It isnt rocket science and hobbyists make it scary for newbies so the point was to show a newbie that he could make drinkable stuff within a weekish (two weeks is realistically the minimum if you have taste buds).

If I were asked by a close ffriend how to do it without a lot of fuss etc id tell them this: 1. Be Clean. IM messy in rl but in cooking or fermenting im extraordinarily clean. If i touch something it doesnt go near the liquid or containers i use til its cleaned. 2. Patience. plan on 2 weeks minimum for something drinkable. The more time the better stuff. A month is good. A year is for people with better taste buds than i have. 3. The thing yo uthink will make awesome wine will suck. The stuff you hate will make Awesome wine (im addicted to ultrahigh alcohol orange wine). 3. A hydrometer is the shiznat mostly to let you fiddle with your brew and check its %. Its also useful in making better wine/beer. 4. Airlocks are awesome. A balloon works just as well. BUT you can watch an airlock bubble and it will let you know when its "done". 5. "Pro" yeasts are worth the money. Ec-1118 is a fantastic all around yeast and doesnt add weird flavors. Safale us-05 is a really Mellow yeast used for a lot of stuff (and relatively "expensive"). My two favs.

Other than that: Sterilise the he** out of everything and be patient. Finally : Racking. Rack and cold crash. wait a week. rerack. The better the racking the better the wine/beer.
 
wooda2008 said:
Being poor as dirt, we only ever mouth siphoned. We stripped our teeth with a 30 second swish and swallow of 100 proof vodka to sterilize. Bleh!
Click to expand...

Ewww, nasty!!

Still, poor as dirt or not, can you afford water? ;)

Here's the easy (clean) way to siphon: fill the hose with water, placing a sanitized thumb over the bottom (lower) end. Make sure water tension is holding the water in the top end. When none shakes out, then put that end (it should be sanitized, too) into the wine/beer you want to siphon to the other container. Now, remove your thumb and let the water in the siphon hose flow out (into a cup, or the dishwasher, or on the ground -- whatever). When the color changes, and it's not water anymore but instead your precious, precious fermented beverage then put the bottom of the hose in the receiving container. Simple. And no contamination with mouth bacteria!

(100 proof is pretty nasty stuff, and it should kill most bugs, but if it doesn't penetrate all parts of your mouth, etc., germs can still hide out. Saliva also dilutes it. One more thing, contact time is a factor. Never, NEVER mouth-siphon gasoline, btw.)
 
Cdreid said:
Just FYI i agree with both Justibone and Brewpahl.

My post was the easiest way to do it. It isnt rocket science and hobbyists make it scary for newbies so the point was to show a newbie that he could make drinkable stuff within a weekish (two weeks is realistically the minimum if you have taste buds).

If I were asked by a close ffriend how to do it without a lot of fuss etc id tell them this: 1. Be Clean. IM messy in rl but in cooking or fermenting im extraordinarily clean. If i touch something it doesnt go near the liquid or containers i use til its cleaned. 2. Patience. plan on 2 weeks minimum for something drinkable. The more time the better stuff. A month is good. A year is for people with better taste buds than i have. 3. The thing yo uthink will make awesome wine will suck. The stuff you hate will make Awesome wine (im addicted to ultrahigh alcohol orange wine). 3. A hydrometer is the shiznat mostly to let you fiddle with your brew and check its %. Its also useful in making better wine/beer. 4. Airlocks are awesome. A balloon works just as well. BUT you can watch an airlock bubble and it will let you know when its "done". 5. "Pro" yeasts are worth the money. Ec-1118 is a fantastic all around yeast and doesnt add weird flavors. Safale us-05 is a really Mellow yeast used for a lot of stuff (and relatively "expensive"). My two favs.

Other than that: Sterilise the he** out of everything and be patient. Finally : Racking. Rack and cold crash. wait a week. rerack. The better the racking the better the wine/beer.
Click to expand...

Other than using the airlock for "timing", I'd agree with you. Also, a backup hydrometer is good to have. As long as you have a backup, yours will never break... but when you don't have a backup you are DOOOOOOMED! ;)
 

Similar threads

U
Slugs on grapes
Replies
1
Views
333
SoCalPlumber
SoCalPlumber
Brooothru
Residual Sugar
Replies
4
Views
285
Brooothru
Brooothru
C
what canna do with it?
Replies
5
Views
395
fluketamer
F
SoCalPlumber
Apple Wine & more
Replies
2
Views
348
SoCalPlumber
SoCalPlumber
jigmee7276
Kiwi wine inquiry
Replies
3
Views
1K
PettyFlamwell
PettyFlamwell

Latest posts

Back
Top