Search

  Powered by JRank

How Products Are Made

Volume 1
Made How » Volume 1 » Wine

Wine

Ads by Google
Elicarb™ SW - Single-wall carbon nanotubes Commercial supplies - www.thomas-
swan.co.uk 
Wine Analysis - Specialist Consulting and Analytical Chemists - www.corkwise.net 
Vins de Bordeaux - Le classement d'une dégustation Sélection incroyable !
- www.youtube.com 
Small Brick Machines - Get a small manually operated brick making machine. Call
us - www.profile-engineering.co.za 

Background

Wine is an alcoholic beverage produced through the partial or total fermentation of

grapes. Other fruits and plants, such as berries, apples, cherries, dandelions, elder-
berries, palm, and rice can also be fermented.

Ads by Google
Home Brew Pumps
March 809 , 815, AC-3B-MD, AC-5B-MD
Stock DIstributor of over 35 years
www.tescopumps.com
Livermore Winery Guide
Downloadable winery guides and
reviews. In depth information.
www.GrapeConspiracy.com

Free Winemaking Help

Free additive calculators for
expert and beginning winemakers
www.iwinemaker.com

Fermentors & bioreactors

From China,There is always
a fermenter/fermentor for you
www.blbio.com

Grapes belong to the botanical family vitaceae, of which there are many species. The
species that are most widely used in wine production are Vitis labrusca and,
especially, Vitis vinifera, which has long been the most widely used wine grape
throughout the world.

The theory that wine was discovered by accident is most likely correct because wine
grapes contain all the necessary ingredients for wine, including pulp, juice, and seeds
that possess all the acids, sugars, tannins, minerals, and vitamins that are found in wine.
As a natural process, the frosty-looking skin of the grape, called "bloom," catches the
airborne yeast and enzymes that ferment the juice of the grape into wine.

The cultivation of wine grapes for the production of wine is called "viticulture."
Harvested during the fall, wine grapes may range in color from pale yellow to hearty
green to ruby red.

Wine can be made in the home and in small-, medium- or large-sized wineries by using
similar methods. Wine is made in a variety of flavors, with varying degrees of sweetness
or dryness as well as alcoholic strength and quality. Generally, the strength, color, and
flavor of the wine are controlled during the fermentation process.

Wine is characterized by color: white, pink or rose, and red, and it can range in alcohol
content from 10 percent to 14 percent. Wine types can be divided into four broad
categories: table wines, sparkling wines, fortified wines, and aromatic wines. Table
wines include a range of red, white, and rose wines; sparkling wines include champagne
and other "bubbly" wines; aromatic wines contain fruits, plants, and flowers; and
fortified wines are table wines with brandy or other alcohol added.

The name of a wine almost invariably is derived from one of three sources: the name of
the principal grape from which it was made, the geographical area from which it comes,
or—in the case of the traditionally finest wines—from a particular vineyard or parcel of
soil. The year in which a wine is made is only printed on bottles that have aged for two
or more years; those aged less are not considered worthy of a date. Wine years are
known as "vintages" or "vintage years." While certain wines are considered good or bad
depending on the year they were produced, this can vary by locality.

In general, red wines are supposed to age from seven to ten years before being sold.
Because white and rose wines are not enhanced by additional ageing, they are usually
aged from only one to four years before being sold. And, since the quality of wine can
depend on proper ageing, older wines are generally more expensive than younger ones.
Other factors, however, can affect the quality of wine, and proper ageing does not always
ensure quality. Other factors affecting quality include the grapes themselves, when the
grapes are picked, proper care of the grapes, the fermentation process, as well as other
aspects of wine production.

Most wineries bottle wine in different size bottles and have different product and
Vineyardists inspect sample clusters of wine grapes with a refractometer to determine if
the grapes are ready to be picked. The refractometer is a small, hand-held device that
allows the vineyardist to accurately check the amount of sugar in the grapes. If the
grapes are ready for picking, a mechanical harvester gathers and funnels the grapes into
a field hopper, or mobile storage container. 
Some mechanical harvesters have grope crushers mounted on the machinery, allowing
vineyard workers to gather grapes and press them at the same time. The result is that
vineyards can deliver newly crushed grapes, called must, to wineries, eliminating the
need for crushing at the winery.
graphic designs on their labels. The most common bottle sizes are the half bottle, the
imperial pint, the standard bottle, and the gallon bottle or jug. Most red and rose wine
bottles are colored to keep light from ageing the wine further after they are on the
market.

While viticulture has remained much the same for centuries, new technology has helped
increase the output and variety of wine.

History

Well documented in numerous Biblical references, evidence of wine can be traced back
to Egypt as far as 5,000 B.C. Tomb wall paintings showing the use of wine as well as
actual wine jars found in Egyptian tombs provide evidence of this fact. Because more
northern climates and soil produce better wine, the growth of the wine industry can be
traced from its emergence along the Nile River in Egypt and Persia northward into
Europe and, eventually, to North America.

Though the wines of old were coarse and hard and had to be mixed with water, ancient
Greek wine proved to be somewhat better than Egyptian wine. For this reason,
Egyptians began importing it. Then Roman wines (from what would emerge to be Italy,
Spain, and France) became notably superior. Eventually, French and German wines
grew to be the most desirable, thereby shifting the center of wine production from the
Mediterranean to central Europe. Some of the best wine in the world is still produced in
southern France, particularly in the Bordeaux region, where wine has been made for
more than 2,000 years.

The colonists brought wine production to the east coast of the New World by the mid-
1600s. The earliest account of wine used in the New World may be when the Pilgrims
fermented grapes to celebrate their first Thanksgiving in 1623. Settlers tried to grow
imported grape cuttings they brought from Europe, but unfortunately the European
cuttings had not developed immunities to the North American plant diseases that
eventually killed them. By the middle of the nineteenth century (using the fruits of the
abundant native Vitis labrusca grape plants) wineries were established in Pennsylvania,
Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Alabama, Mississippi, and North Carolina.

In 1697, European cuttings of Vitis vinifera grapes were successfully introduced to

California by Franciscan priests at the Mission San Francisco Xavier. They soon became
the dominant grape species in California wine making. A great boost to California wine
making came from Colonel Agoston Haraszthy, a Hungarian nobleman, who introduced
more high-quality European cuttings during the 1850s. His knowledge made him the
founder of California's modern wine industry.

Today, California and New York state are by far the largest American producers of wine,
and California is one of the largest wine producers in the world. Though many of its
table wines are known for their quality, the enormous wineries of central and southern
California produce gigantic quantities of neutral, bulk wines that they ship elsewhere to
make specific wines, such as dessert wines, or to blend with other wines. They also make
grape concentrates to fortify weaker wines and brandies that use large quantities of
grapes.

Raw Materials

As mentioned above, the wine grape itself contains all the necessary ingredients for
wine: pulp, juice, sugars, acids, tannins, and minerals. However, some manufacturers
add yeast to increase strength and cane or beet sugar to increase alcoholic content.
During fermentation, winemakers also usually add sulfur dioxide to control the growth
of wild yeasts.

The Manufacturing 
Process

The process of wine production has remained much the same throughout the ages, but
new sophisticated machinery and technology have helped streamline and increase the
output of wine. Whether such advances have enhanced the quality of wine is, however, a
subject of debate. These advances include a variety of mechanical harvesters, grape
crushers, temperature-controlled tanks, and centrifuges.

The procedures involved in creating wine are often times dictated by the grape and the
amount and type of wine being produced. Recipes for certain types of wine require the
winemaker (the vintner) to monitor and regulate the amount of yeast, the fermentation
process, and other steps of the process. While the manufacturing process is highly
automated in medium- to large-sized wineries, small wineries still use hand operated
presses and store wine in musty wine cellars.

A universal factor in the production of fine wine is timing. This includes picking grapes
at the right time, removing the must at the right time, monitoring and regulating
fermentation, and storing the wine long enough.

The wine-making process can be divided into four distinct steps: harvesting and
crushing grapes; fermenting must; ageing the wine; and packaging.

Harvesting and crushing grapes

 1 Vineyardists inspect sample clusters of wine grapes with a refractometer to
determine if the grapes are ready to be picked. The refractometer is a small,
hand-held device (the size of a miniature telescope) that allows the vineyardist to
accurately check the amount of sugar in the grapes.
 2 If the grapes are ready for picking, a mechanical harvester (usually a suction
picker) gathers and funnels the grapes into a field hopper, or mobile storage
container. Some mechanical harvesters have grape crushers mounted on the
machinery, allowing vineyard workers to gather grapes and press them at the
same time. The result is that vineyards can deliver newly crushed grapes,
called must, to wineries, eliminating the need for crushing at the winery. This
also prevents oxidization of the juice through tears or splits in the grapes' skins.

Mechanical harvesters, or, in some cases, robots, are now used in most medium
to large vineyards, thereby eliminating the need for hand-picking. First used in
California vineyards in 1968, mechanical harvesters have significantly decreased
the time it takes to gather grapes. The harvesters have also allowed grapes to be
gathered at night when they are cool, fresh, and ripe.

 3 The field hoppers are transported to the winery where they are unloaded into a
crusher-stemmer machine. Some crusher-stemmer machines are hydraulic while
others are driven by air pressure.

The grapes are crushed and the stems are removed, leaving liquid must that flows
 Once at the winery, the grapes are crushed if necessary, and the must is
fermented, settled, clarified, and filtered. After filtering, the wine is aged in
stainless steel tanks or wooden vats. White and rose wines may age for a year to
four years, or far less than a year. Red wines may age for seven to ten years. Most
large wineries age their wine in large temperature-controlled stainless steel tanks
that are above ground, while smaller wineries may still store their wine in
wooden barrels in damp wine cellars.

either into a stainless steel fermentation tank or a wooden vat (for fine wines).

Fermenting the must

 4 For white wine, all the grape skins are separated from the "must" by filters or
centrifuges before the must undergoes fermentation. For red wine, the whole
crushed grape, including the skin, goes into the fermentation tank or vat. (The
pigment in the grape skins give red wine its color. The amount of time the skins
 are left in the tank or vat determines how dark or light the color will be. For rose,
the skins only stay in the tank or vat for a short time before they are filtered out.)
 5 During the fermentation process, wild yeast are fed into the tank or vat to turn
the sugar in the must into alcohol. To add strength, varying degrees of yeast may
be added. In addition, cane or beet sugar may be added to increase the alcoholic
content. Adding sugar is call chaptalization. Usually chaptalization is done
because the grapes have not received enough sun prior to harvesting. The
winemaker will use a handheld hydrometer to measure the sugar content in the
tank or vat. The wine must ferments in the tank or vat for approximately seven to
fourteen days, depending on the type of wine being produced.

Ageing the wine

 6 After crushing and fermentation, wine needs to be stored, filtered, and properly
aged. In some instances, the wine must also be blended with other alcohol. Many
wineries still store wine in damp, subterranean wine cellars to keep the wine cool,
but larger wineries now store wine above ground in epoxylined and stainless steel
tanks. The tanks are temperature-controlled by water that circulates inside the
lining of the tank shell. Other similar tanks are used instead of the old redwood
and concrete vats when wine is temporarily stored during the settling process.

After fermentation, certain wines (mainly red wine) will be crushed again and
pumped into another fermentation tank where the wine will ferment again for
approximately three to seven days. This is done not only to extend the wine's
shelf life but also to ensure clarity and color stability.

The wine is then pumped into settling ("racking") tanks or vats. The wine will
remain in the tank for one to two months. Typically, racking is done at 50 to 60
degrees Fahrenheit (10 to 16 degrees Celsius) for red wine, and 32 degrees
Fahrenheit (0 degrees Celsius) for white wine.

 7 After the initial settling (racking) process, certain wines are pumped into
another settling tank or vat where the wine remains for another two to three
months. During settling the weighty unwanted debris (remaining stem pieces,
 etc.) settle to the bottom of the tank and are eliminated when the wine is pumped
into another tank. The settling process creates smoother wine. Additional settling
may be necessary for certain wines.
 8 After the settling process, the wine passes through a number of filters or
centrifuges where the wine is stored at low temperatures or where clarifying
substances trickle through the wine.
 9 After various filtering processes, the wine is aged in stainless steel tanks or
wooden vats. White and rose wines may age for a year to four years, or far less
than a year. Red wines may age for seven to ten years. Most large wineries age
their wine in large temperature-controlled stainless steel tanks that are above
ground, while smaller wineries may still store their wine in wooden barrels in
damp wine cellars.
 10 The wine is then filtered one last time to remove unwanted sediment.

The wine is now ready to be bottled, corked, sealed, crated, labeled, and shipped
to distributors.

Packaging

 11 Most medium- to large-sized wineries I now use automated bottling machines,

and most moderately priced and expensive wine bottles have corks made of a
special oak. The corks are covered with a peel-off aluminum foil or plastic seal.
Cheaper wines have an aluminum screw-off cap or plastic stopper. The corks and
screw caps keep the air from spoiling the wine. Wine is usually shipped in
wooden crates, though cheaper wines may be packaged in cardboard.

Quality Control

All facets of wine production must be carefully controlled to create a quality wine. Such
variables as the speed with which harvested grapes are crushed; the temperature and
timing during both fermentation and ageing; the percent of sugar and acid in the
harvested grapes; and the amount of sulfur dioxide added during fermentation all have
a tremendous impact on the quality of the finished wine.
Where To Learn More

Books

Adams, Leon. The Wines of America. McGraw Hill, 1978.

Anderson, Stanley F. Winemaking. Harcourt Brace & Company, 1989.

Churchill, Creighton. The World of Wines. Collier Books, 1980.

Farkas, J. The Technology & Biochemistry of Wine. Gordon & Breach Science

Publishers, Inc., 1988.

Hazelton, Nika. American Wines. Grosset Good Life Books, 1976.

Johnson, Hugh. The Vintner's Art: How Great Wines are Made. Simon & Schuster
Trade, 1992.

McGee, Harold. On Food and Cooking. Collier Books, 1984.

Ough, Cornelius S. Winemaking Basics. Haworth Press, Inc., 1992.

Rainbird, George. An Illustrated Guide to Wine. Harmony Books, 1983.

Zaneilli, Leo. Beer and Wine Making Illustrated Dictionary. A. S. Barnes & Company,
1978.

Periodicals

Asimov, Isaac. "The Legacy of Wine," The Magazine of Fantasy and Science

Fiction. July, 1991, p. 81.

Merline, John W. "What's in Wine? (Calling All Consumers)," Consumers' Research

Magazine. November 1986, p. 38.

Oliver, Laure. "Fermenting Wine the Natural Way," The Wine Spectator. October 31,
1992, p. 9.
Robinson, Jancis. "Spreading the Gospel of Oak," The Wine Spectator. August 31, 1991,
p. 20.

Roby, Norm. "Getting Back to Nature," The Wine Spectator. October 15, 1990, p. 22.

— Greg Ling

Ads by Google
Tourism on Chilean Andes - Cultural indigenous destination. Answer the survey!
- kayulof.sepade.org
Own a Private Wine Estate - Your 5-acre Vineyard for $71,500 (Visit our "Wine
Estates" section) -www.gavilanvineyards.com 

User Contributions:

1
Dave Conway

Sep 5, 2011 @ 4:16 pm

The wine industry here in Oregon is growing very fast... The main shortage is a plant to help small
ventors, process and bottle for them. Can you recommend a firm who can supply the entire plant and
equipment from start to finish... receive grapes, process, and bottle for the client.

Thank you for you kind assistance.

Comment about this article, ask questions, or add new information about
this topic:
Name:
E-mail:
Display email publicly

Security Code:
Comment:  (50-4000 characters)

Send

Wine forum
« Wind Turbine
Wool »

Copyright © 2012 Advameg, Inc.

Your Beer and Wine Making Superstore!

Home Website Help Contact Us Shipping Information Policies
 

FRUIT WINE RECIPES

  Hints/Tips  

FRUIT WINE
 ONE GALLON RECIPES
 

YEAST PECTIC
FRUIT AMOUNT SUGAR WATER ACID TANNIN
NUTRIENT ENZYME

15# or 1 1/2 tsp.

Apple 1gallon 1# 4 pts 1 tsp. nutrient (acid 1/4 tsp. yes
juice blend)

8 # or 2 qt.
juice 1; 1/2
cup raisins; 1 tsp.
Apple 1/2 tsp.
3/4 oz 2 1/2 # 4 pts (acid 1/4 tsp. yes
(spiced) nutrient
cloves; 1/2 blend)
oz mashed
ginger root

2 1/2 # 1 1/2 tsp.

1/2 tsp.
Apricot apricots (or 2# 7 pts (acid 1/4 tsp. yes
nutrient
peaches) blend)
3# fresh
banana or 8
oz. dried
3  tsp.
(boiled 30
Banana 2 1/4# 7 pts 1 tsp. nutrient (acid 1/4 tsp. none
min.-throw
blend)
pulp away);
1 1/2 cup
raisins
1/2 tsp.
4#
Blackberry 2 1/4# 7 pts 1 tsp. nutrient (acid none yes
Blackberries
blend)

YEAST PECTIC
FRUIT AMOUNT SUGAR WATER ACID TANNIN
NUTRIENT ENZYME
 2# 1 1/2 tsp.
Blueberry blueberry; 2# 7 pts 1/2 tsp. (acid none yes
1# raisins blend)

2 tsp.
Cherry 6# cherries 2 3/4# 7 pts 1 tsp. (acid 1/4 tsp. yes
blend)
3# 1 tsp.
Cranberry cranberries; 1 3/4# 2 qt. 1 tsp. (acid none yes
1# raisins blend)

1 tsp.
Elderberry 3#
2 1/4# 7 pts 1 tsp. (acid none none
(fresh) elderberries
blend)

5 oz dried 1 1/2 tsp.

Elderberry
elderberries; 2 1/4# 1 gallon 1 tsp. nutrient (acid none yes
(dried)
1# raisins blend)

YEAST PECTIC
FRUIT AMOUNT SUGAR WATER ACID TANNIN
NUTRIENT ENZYME
2 1/2#
Gooseberry 2 1/4# 7 pts 1 tsp. nutrient none none if needed
gooseberries
Wild 6# wild
2# 6 pts 1 tsp. nutrient none none yes
Grapes grapes
1 1/2 tsp.
Peaches 2 1/2 # 2# 7 pts. 1 tsp. (acid 1/4 tsp. yes
blend)
1 1/2 tsp.
Plums 3# 2 1/2 # 7 pts. 1/2 tsp. (acid 1/4 tsp. yes
blend)
3 pts
pineapple
Pineapple juice 2# 5 pts none 1/2 tsp. 1/4 tsp. yes
unsweetene
d
Raspberry 2 1/2 - 3# 2# 7 pts. 1 tsp. 1/2 tsp. 1/4 tsp. yes
(acid
 blend)
2 qt. 2 1/2 tsp.
Watermelo
watermelon 1 1/2# 2 qt. 1 tsp. (acid 1/8 tsp. none
n
juice blend)

YEAST PECTICENZYM
FRUIT AMOUNT SUGAR WATER ACID TANNIN
NUTRIENT E

GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS
1. WASH FRUIT, REMOVE STONES AND BRUISED PARTS.
2. WEIGH/MEASURE FRUIT
3. CHOP, SMASH, OR CRUSH FRUIT AND STRAIN INTO PRIMARY
FERMENTOR
4. KEEP ALL PULP IN STRAINING BAG, TIE AND PUT INTO FERMENTOR.
5. STIR IN ALL OTHER INGREDIENTS EXCEPT FOR YEAST
6. ACID pH SHOULD BE ABOUT 3.0-3.4.  ADD MORE ACID TO LOWER pH IF
NEEDED.
7. COVER PRIMARY WITH A CLEAN CLOTH TO ALLOW CAMPDEN TABLET
SO2 TO EVAPORATE.
8. 24 HOURS AFTER CAMPDEN TABLET ADDITION, REHYDRATE YEAST IN
WARM WATER FOR 5 MINUTES,  AND PUT INTO FERMENTOR
9. PUT COVER ON FERMENTOR.
10. STIR DAILY AND AGITATE PULP BAG
11. AFTER 5 DAYS, REMOVE PULP BAG (STRAINING LIGHTLY) AND SIPHON
WINE OFF SEDIMENT AND INTO GLASS SECONDARY
12. TOP OFF TO NECK OF FERMENTOR WITH WATER
13. ATTACH AIRLOCK
14. AFTER FERMENTATION (ABOUT 3 WEEKS AND A SPECIFIC GRAVITY OF
1.000) SIPHON OFF SEDIMENT AND INTO CLEAN GLASS SECONDARY
AND TOP OFF WITH WATER TO MINIMIZE HEAD SPACE
15. SIPHON AGAIN IN ABOUT 2 MONTHS AND TOP OFF.
16. IF YOU DESIRE A SWEETER WINE, YOU ADD POTASIUM SORBATE AND
SWEETEN TO TASTE.
17. SOAK CORKS IN CAMPDEN TABLET WATER FOR 24 HOURS AND
BOTTLE.

Home | About WineWorldFDW | Fruit Wine | Wine Making | Wine Recipes

Freezer System | How a Still Works |  Forum | My hobby | Contact Us
Fruit Wine

Here are the benefits of my wine making experiences with fruit. My orchard consists of pears, apples and grapes so I will
concentrate on making wine with these. You can use other fruits in a similar way.

I have found over the years that over ripe fruit are best. Your problem is that over ripe fruit attracts insects, so it is best to
pick the fruit as late as possible but before it is a windfall or gone soft. The fruit needs to be stored until you are ready to
use it, and then ripened until it is over ripe.

Storing and Ripening your Fruit

Ideally you should store the fruit until the onset of winter when the insects are out of the way. You can do this by wrapping
the fruit in paper so that insects will not be able to attack the fruit.

There are two easy ways to over-ripen the fruit:

 • Transfer the fruit separately into plastic bags, keeping the top of the bag open. Store in a cool area like a garage until
the fruit is weeping into the bag, it will look disgusting by now and soft to touch. Don't worry about it freezing, frosts are
bound to occur. It will be early January before you start the next process.
 • The second way is to generate heat to turn the fruit over ripe quickly. If you grow your own tobacco, a tobacco curing
chamber will do this for you in a matter of hours. If not place the fruit in a hot conservatory or greenhouse, or even an
oven. Remove and wait until the flesh has gone extremely soft and brown, and the fruit can be crushed by hand.

Sugar and Yeast

Once you have put the pulped fruit and juice into the fermenting container, add enough water to just cover the fruit. Boil
up 2 teaspoons of tea (or 2 teabags) for every gallon of wine and add this to the fermenting container. Adding the tea adds
tannin, which will vastly improve the taste of your wine and is essential if you want your wine to keep.

You also need to add sugar and yeast. Ideally you should use about 1 kilo of sugar for every gallon of wine, but do not add
it all at once. The yeast will convert the sugar into alcohol, and once the alcohol content is high enough, it will kill off the
yeast. If you have added a lot of sugar and the alcohol level kills off the yeast before all the sugar is converted, then you
will end up with a sweet wine. If you don't add enough sugar and the yeast is killed off then you will have a dry wine. A
wine hydrometer can tell you the specific gravity of your wine (how much sugar remains in the liquid) and therefore how
much sugar to add to give you the desired sweetness.

Most fruits as mentioned have natural sugar in them and without adding extra sugar, these can be turned into a wine of
about 4% to 6% volume alcohol. This is a low alcohol content and the wine will not keep for long, although it could be
drunk young. Most home wine makers prefer to make a stronger wine of about 12% to 17%, so sugar is needed to bring
the alcohol content up to a level high enough to store longer.

If you have a hydrometer, calculate the amount of sugar required to give you the sweetness of you wine require. If your
hydrometer reads 990, then this will be a dry wine and you will need to add sugar if you want to sweeten it. If your
hydrometer reads 1020 then it will be a sweet wine. You will need to use the hydrometer several times while your wine is
fermenting to test whether you need to add more sugar. Ideally you should aim to use 1 kilo of sugar per gallon (4.5
litres) of wine. If you do not have a hydrometer, you will have to rely on guesswork and experience. If your wine is too
sweet, you can use less sugar in the next batch. If it's too dry, then you can use more sugar in the next batch.

You can either use a special wine yeast from a home brew shop, or you can create your own yeast. Wine yeasts can be
added straight into the fermenting bin, but it is better to start them off in some warm fruit juice (the juice from your fruit
is ideal) and then add it to your fermenting container once the yeast is bubbling. Yeast is found naturally in the bloom of
grapes, so you can create your own yeast by crushing a few grapes into some warm natural fruit juice. Orange juice works
well. Once this is bubbling, add it to your fermenting bin.

Making the Wine

Once your fruit is over-ripened, crush it to a pulp and add it to your fermenting container, with the juice. I use a 13 gallon
plastic drum as my fermenting container, but any similar plastic drum will do, even if it is smaller. Your drum will need a
lid, and this will need to be airtight to prevent infection by insects, although it need not be 100% airtight during the winter
when the insects have gone.

Add some of the sugar to the fermenting bin and stir it in very well until it has all dissolved. Then add your yeast and your
wine should start fermenting. You should ideally keep the fermenting bin at around 21C, so keeping it in your living room
should be fine. Wine will continue to ferment at lower and higher temperatures, so don't worry if you don't have room in
your living room. Fit the lid onto the fermenting bin and leave the wine to ferment for about 4 to 7 days. Every day, test
your wine with the hydrometer and add more sugar if necessary, remembering to stir well to dissolve the sugar. You will
need to stop adding sugar when the fermenting stops due to too much alcohol and hopefully the wine we be sweetened to
suit your palate.

After a few days, you need to draw off the liquid into fermenting jars (demijohns), leaving the fruit pulp behind. The
easiest way is to pour the liquid through a strainer or a sieve. 2 or 3 thicknesses of muslin will do the job just as well.
Squeeze the juice out of the remaining pulp to get as much juice as possible from the fruit. Fill the fermenting jars to
within a couple of inches of the top and fit a bung with an airlock. The bung and airlock will allow the gases produced by
the fermenting to escape and prevent unwanted bacteria and insects attacking your wine. Leave your jars to continue
fermenting, testing with the hydrometer and adding sugar as necessary. Again you can keep these jars in the living room
to allow the wine to continue fermenting.

Racking
Your wine will appear cloudy due to the yeast in the wine. After about 3 months or so, the wine will begin to clear as the
yeast settles to the bottom of the jar as sediment. Once cleared, you should syphon the wine from the jar into a second
jar, being careful not to transfer the sediment. This is known as racking. Again, fit a bung and airlock and leave the wine to
continue fermenting. Your wine will still contain some yeast and this will multiply and your wine will again turn cloudy.
After about 3 months, the wine should have cleared again and you should rack the wine a second time. You can now bottle
the wine.

Bottling
Before bottling, ensure that your wine has completely finished fermenting. If the wine continues to ferment in the sealed
bottles, then the gases produced by the fermenting will cause the bottles to explode. The racking will help prevent
continued fermentation by removing the yeast. You can tell if the wine has finished fermenting by leaving it in the
fermenting jar after the second racking and fitting a bung and airlock. If the wine turns cloudy, then there is still yeast in
the wine and it is still fermenting. You can stop the fermenting by adding one crushed Campden tablet for every gallon of
wine. If the wine is not fermenting, then bottle the wine and seal the bottles with airtight caps or corks. If using corks,
store the bottles on their sides to keep the cork wet and stop it from shrinking.

Cloudy Wine
Most wines will clear of their own accord, although it may take some time. Some fruits such as pears, and some vegetables
such as parsnips, will produce a cloudy wine that won't clear easily. Leave the wine as long as possible to see if it clears on
it's own. If not you may wish to try using a commercial fining product or a powder filter. You should check what is available
at your local home brew winemaking shop and ask their advice according to which fruits you have used. Another method is
to stir some raw egg white - the particles which cause the cloudiness will hopefully stick to the egg white, and you can
then strain the egg white from the liquid to leave a clear wine. However, this is not a reliable method.

Over-sweet Wine
If you have wine too sweet to drink, don't worry as you can rectify this. Start a new batch of wine the same as the over-
sweet batch and introduce the yeast culture from a wine still fermenting. Then add the over sweet wine to the new one,
and follow the instructions above. Be more careul with the sugar this time and hopefully your wine will taste just right!

Home | About WineWorldFDW | Fruit Wine | Wine Making | Wine Recipes

Freezer System | How a Still Works |  Forum | My hobby | Contact Us 

©2001-2002, Plantation House, All Rights Reserved

Site built by Surrey Web Design
Home Wine Making With Fruits

It seems as though when we think of home wine making, we think of grapes. Walk into
your local liquor store. The racks are filled with countless wines produced from Pinot
Noir, Zinfandel, Cabernet and other notable grapes.

But what about wines made from fruits other than grapes? Since the development of
home wine making as a hobby, it has become very easy for the individual home wine
maker to make wines from affordable fresh fruits of the garden variety.

And, don’t equate these wines to back-shed hooch. Today, you can make tremendous
homemade fruit wines, apricot wines that rival the complexity of any $20
Chardonnay, red currant wines that go just as good with prime rib as a hearty bottle of
store-bought Merlot.

Fruit wine making is no more difficult than making wines from fresh grapes. The
basic process is the same, and consideration is given to the same aspects as when
preparing grape juice for home winemaking.

Grape juice is naturally well-suited for wine making and needs little adjustment prior
to fermentation. In many parts of the world, California included, wine making grapes
supply enough sugar and are low enough in acid to produce stellar wines without
doing much of anything to them except to let them ferment, but none the less they are
still checked and at times slightly modified.

With fruits other than grapes, adjustments are almost always necessary during the
wine making process but are very easy to accomplish:

1. the amount of fruit used per gallon needs to be determined,

2. the amount of available sugars needs to be tested and adjusted.
3. the fruit juice’s acidity needs to be tested and adjusted.

While this may seem like a lot to concern yourself with, in fact it is very easy and
requires little time to do. The trade off is it allows you to take just about any fruit you
can imagine and produce a notable wine that quite often will surprise the winemaker
who made it.

FRUIT HOME WINE MAKING - HOW MUCH FRUIT TO USE?

The list of home wine making fruits you can use to create these wines is endless.
Strawberries, plums, watermelons, peaches, blackberries, gooseberries, boysenberries,
grapefruits, pears, pineapples, persimmons are all very suitable for fruit home wine
making, but this list is far from complete.

As with any wine you must start the home wine making process by evaluating the
fruit. No wine can be better than the fruit used to make it. Careful attention should be
given to its quality. Doing so will repay you many times over in the form of
consistently superior wine.

Molds and bruises should be minimal. The fruit should also be rinsed off before it is
crushed; just as if you where cooking with it. In most cases the fruits used for home
wine making should be fully ripe. When fruits are used too early they have a tendency
to result in wines that lack that particular fruit’s character. For example, a homemade
pear wine will taste more like an apple wine unless the pears are allowed to become
slightly over-ripen.

Unlike grape wines which are usually made from pure grape juice, home-made fruit
wines are usually diluted with water before starting the wine making process. The
main reason is that certain fruits, such as elderberries, are simply too strong in flavor.
The second reason is that some fruits are too high in acid and would produce a wine
that is too sharp tasting. An example of this would be gooseberry and blueberry.

On the other hand, apple wines are made with pure apple juice, no water added, and
they need additional fruit acid added back to them. So as you might start to gather,
there is no general rule of thumb that can be applied when it comes to determining the
amount of fruit or water to use when making a homemade fruit wine.

After having said all this, the following list gives some general ideas as to the amount
of wine making fruit to use to make 5 gallons of homemade fruit wine.

Apricots . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18 lbs.

Blackberries . . . . . . . . . . 15 lbs.
Blueberries . . . . . . . . . . . 13 lbs.
Currents. . . . . . . . . . . . . .12 lbs.
Elderberries . . . . . . . . . . 10 lbs.
Gooseberries. . . . . . . . . .11 lbs.
Peaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 lbs.
Pears . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 lbs.
 Persimmons . . . . . . . . . . 15 lbs.
Pineapple . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 lbs.
Plums . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 lbs.
Raspberries . . . . . . . . . . 15 lbs.
Strawberries . . . . . . . . . . 16 lbs.
Watermelon (Centers) . . 18 lbs.

These are just guidelines. In reality, there is no single correct amount of fruit to use in
home wine making. This is because you may like your fruit wines heavy like a dessert
wine; or light and crisp. For example, if a home wine making recipe calls for 13
pounds of blueberries for 5 gallons of homemade wine, you might go up to 18 or 20
pounds if you feel you would like your wine heavier like a Burgundy. Or, you might
use 10 pounds if you prefer lighter bodied Blush wines. But, deviating a fruit wine
making recipe much beyond this would not be sound.

Just as can be the case with grape wine making, leaving the pulp with the juice for the
first week or so of fermentation will also intensify the wine’s body, character and
deepen its color. The pulp is where a lot of a fruit’s character lies.

During this fermentation period the pulp is broken down and a considerable part is
liquefied with the aid of Pectic Enzymes. Natural tannins and other goodies that reside
in the pulp are eventually released into the juice. By utilizing the pulp in this manner,
not only are you producing a homemade fruit wine with more body and character.
But, you are producing a wine that is more stable and will retain its flavor and color
for longer periods of time.

FRUIT WINEMAKING - TESTING AND ADJUSTING AVAILABLE

SUGARS

The second factor you should give consideration to when preparing a fruit juice for
home wine making is its beginning sugar level. 

Fermentation is when yeast consumes the available sugars in your juice and turns that
sugar into half alcohol and half CO2 gas by weight.

The amount of sugar you start off with determines the amount of alcohol you’ll end
up with, minus any sugars that didn't ferment. It’s that simple. 
This is where a wine making hydrometer turns into your best friend. The hydrometer
helps you to determine how much sugar you have in your juice, as well as, how much
alcohol that sugar can make. Furthermore, it helps you to determine how much sugar
to add to your fruit juice.

The wine making hydrometer is simply a glass tube with a weight on one end that
floats. You take a sugar level reading with it by observing how high or low it floats in
the juice. Most wine making hydrometers have a scale on them called “Potential
Alcohol”. By reading this scale at the beginning of fermentation, you will know if you
need to add more sugar, depending on the alcohol level you desire.

Now we come to the question, “What type of sugar is best to use when adjusting your
juice’s sugar level?”. This is somewhat of a loaded wine making question that
wineries have been able to dodge for the most part. This is because they have the
luxury of obtaining all the sugars their juices need naturally from the grape. So, there
hasn’t been much research done on the subject. But, there have been many opinions
expressed.

My opinion is, “Consider all of them!”. Different sugars add different characters.
Cane sugar, corn sugar, beet sugar, brown sugar, rice sugar, fructose, even powdered
malt and sugars I can’t even think of, all have a place in fruit home wine making. It
depends on the person's preference and the situation in which the sugar is to be used.
If your not sure what to use, stick with the cheapest -- cane sugar or corn sugar. But,
by all means feel free to experiment.

Honey, is a whole ‘nother ball of wax when it comes to fruit home wine making.
“Pyment” is a term used for fruit wines with a little honey added to them. Honey in its
simplest form, has the advantage of adding an “herbal” finish to a homemade wine.
And, when using honey that’s spun off a particular blossom, the resulting creation can
be tremendous. For example, raspberry juice with Raspberry Blossom-spun honey can
make an extraordinarily well rounded fruit wine.

You can also use concentrated fruit juices along with your fresh fruit juice as a source
of additional sugar. This method will also increase the body of the wine and intensify
the wine’s fruitiness. So, if a lighter fruit wine is desired, this would not be
appropriate. Concentrated fruit juice also will increase the acid level of a juice. This
may be good or bad depending on whether the juice needed the acid or not. Which
takes us to our next fruit wine making topic.

 
FRUIT WINE MAKING  - TESTING AND ADJUSTING ACIDITY

Having the proper amount of acid in your wine has two distinct benefits. Not only will
it enhance the wine’s overall character and balance, but it will also significantly aid
the fermentation process.

Acidity varies drastically from fruit to fruit. You’ll never pucker eating a banana, but
it has acid just as raspberry or lime. . . only less of it. Couple that with the fact that the
amount of fruit you use for each gallon of fruit wine varies too, and it starts to become
clear that adjusting your acidity is a necessity to fruit home wine making.

There are two basic ways to check your juices acidity level. The cheapest and quickest
way is to use pH testing strips (litmus papers). They are, for the most part accurate
enough for the home winemaker. However, it is not the most accurate way to check
acidity levels. pH strips test for all acids in the juice regardless of how tart they are to
taste. So, you can get deceptive readings from time to time when it comes to pH
verses imparted flavor.

The second and most accurate way to test a juice’s acidity is by doing a titration. With
just a few minutes of practice you can easily master the procedure. A wine making
titration kit measures acid in relation to how sharp it actually tastes on the tongue.

If a wine has too much acid, it tastes sharp/sour/bitter. If a wine doesn’t have enough
acid, it tastes flat/bland/lifeless. As one of my customers put it, “it tastes Kool-Aidy.”
After testing and adjusting your juice’s acidity level it should taste naturally fruity.

The three fruit acids commonly used for adjusting a juice’s acidity are: tartaric, citric
and malic. You can buy them individually or buy them blended together as anAcid
Blend. The later is most commonly used in fruit home wine making and is what is
called for in most fruit wine making recipes. All of these wine making fruit acids
come in a granulated form that is easy to dissolve.

FRUIT WINE MAKING - READY TO FERMENT

Once you have prepared your juice with the appropriate amount of fruit, and have
adjusted the sugar level and the acid level as well, you now have a juice that is very
similar to grape juice. In fact, the home wine making process from here on is exactly
like making wine from grape juice. And, you can now call your prepared fruit juice a
“Must.” This is just a fancy wine making term used by winemakers for a juice that is
ready to ferment or is currently fermenting.

I will not go into much detail on the fermentation process as it is outside the scope of
this article, and also because there is nothing special to fruit wine making in this area.
Add a suitable wine making yeast and appropriate wine making nutrients and let the
must ferment just as you would any grape wine. For a good condensed look at the
winemaking process see The Seven Easy Steps of Wine making.

FRUIT WINE MAKING - FINAL ADJUSTMENTS

To me, one of the most enjoyable parts of home wine making is getting it ready to
bottle. This is a time when a average homemade wine can be molded into something
spectacular. Yet, I see many home winemakers, even very experienced ones, gloss
over this procedure. The impression many home winemaker’s have is that once the
home wine making process is complete, they have no further control over outcome. In
reality, nothing could be further from the truth.

There is a vast array of things you can do to adjust a homemade fruit wine’s flavor for
the better. While it does take time to learn what to adjust and why to adjust it, you’ll
never learn by ‘not’ experimenting.

You can sweeten your fruit wine a little or a lot. You can blend it with other fruit
wines. You can do a final acid adjustment by taste. You can add spices such as ginger
or cinnamon. You can add oak chips for a barrel aged affect, flavor enhancers, or body
enhancers. You can even fortify your wine with Vodka or Grain Alcohol. This may
sound a little like cheating, but when it comes to home wine making, if you don’t
consider these options you’ll only be cheating yourself. 

There is one critical rule I highly recommend following when making these
adjustments, that is “test in small amounts”. For example, if you have a 5 gallon batch
ready to bottle, take a measured half gallon off and experiment with that.

If you don’t get the results you want. blend it back with the other 4 1/2 gallons and
move on. If you like what you did, duplicate the adjustment to the other 4 1/2 gallons.
Not only is using this method less likely to ruin the wine, but is also makes it less
intimidating for the beginning fruit winemaker.

One of the primary things you can do to a fruit wine at the bottling stage is to sweeten
it to taste. If the home wine making process went as planned the wine should be dry
tasting. Typically garden type fruits do not do well extremely dry so at least a touch of
sugar before bottling is recommended. You’ll find that a little bit of sugar will
enhance the fruity character of the wine significantly. A wine making stabilizer such
as potassium sorbate should also be used when sweetening a wine. This is to help
eliminate the chance of re-fermentation in the bottles.

And, as mentioned before you can experiment with the type of sugar(s) used to do the
sweetening. Just as when you where preparing your wine making juice for
fermentation. 

The correct amount of sugar for sweetening a wine cannot be determined by a wine
making hydrometer but only by taste. “Balance” is the key word here. And only
experience will help in obtaining balance in a wine.

The same holds true for other flavor adjustments. Balance should be the focus. If for
example you have made a pumpkin wine and come up with the idea of adding
pumpkin spice to it before bottling, adding too little pumpkin spice will only
complicate the wine’s flavor to an annoying degree. It will be detected as a slight off-
flavor. Adding too much pumpkin spice will turn the pumpkin wine into spice wine
with an annoying amount of pumpkin in it. The pumpkin spice should compliment the
pumpkin flavor not complicate it or overwhelm it. Blending fruit wines can be fun.
Just like Robert Mondavi's Opus wines which is a special blend of grape wines
produced annually and consistently considered one of the top wines on the market.
You can make your own specially blended fruit wines. With blending, it is possible to
take two or more average wines and blend them into something of remarkable taste.

I’m personally not a big banana fanna, but I always have some banana wine in bulk
storage. The reason is it blends quite well with many fruit wines. It adds significant
body without imparting an assertive flavor of any kind. So, you could take a
homemade blackberry wine, for example, and increase its body and cut its
astringency by blending a little banana wine with it.

Elderberry wine also blends well with other fruit wines. It tends to deepen the berry
character, and can add a Nouveau-Beaujolais twist, so to speak, to a wine such as
raspberry. That’s a couple of examples of why you should consider blending. Another
reason is maybe you accidentally ended up with a blueberry wine that is to sharp or
sour tasting. Don’t pour it down the drain; make another batch of blueberry wine, but
only make it lower in acid this time and then later blend the two together.

The real point here is to have fun; be creative, and don’t be afraid to try what’s on
your mind. The most it could cost you is a half gallon of wine. The benefits will most
 assuredly be experience and quite possibly a wine that will dazzle you, your friends,
and even the winery down the road. 

In summary, fruit home wine making can open new doors to the individual wanting to
make a little wine but is unable to obtain the wine making grapes to do so. By
understanding a few basic wine making principals, you can easily turn readily
available garden fruit into stupendous wine that can be shared with family and friends.
And have a little fun along the way.

Make sure you check out our huge selection home wine making supplies and home wine
making equipment.

Order by Phone: 800-353-1906Mon - Fri: 8 AM - 5:30 PM CSTSat: 9 AM - 1 PM CST

Your Cart: No Items In Cart 

VIEW CART
 LOG-IN
 
 CUSTOMER SERVICE
 
 ORDER STATUS
 
 QUICK ORDER
 HOME
 WINE MAKING
o WINE MAKING KITS
o WINE MAKING JUICES
 NIAGARA MIST FRUIT BLEND KITS
 CALIFORNIA CONNOISSEUR KITS
 EUROPEAN SELECT KITS
 HERON BAY PREMIUM KITS
 KENRIDGE CLASSIC KITS
 CHEEKY MONKEY KITS
 LEGACY PREMIUM BLEND KITS
 HERON BAY ULTRA PREMIUM
 KENRIDGE SHOWCASE KITS
 VINTERRA PURE JUICE KITS
 KENRIDGE FOUNDER'S SERIES
 COUNTY FAIR FRUIT BASES
 SUNCAL VINEYARDS
 ALEXANDER'S SUN COUNTRY
o WINE MAKING INGREDIENTS
 WINE YEAST
 YEAST NUTRIENTS
 ACID BLEND / FRUIT ACIDS
 WINE TANNINS
 PECTIC & STARCH ENZYMES
 FINING AGENTS / CLARIFIERS
 WINE SULFITES / STABILIZERS
 TOASTED OAK CHIPS
 DRIED BERRIES & HERBS
 MISC. WINE INGREDIENTS
o WINE MAKING SUPPLIES
 WINE AIRLOCKS
 RUBBER STOPPERS / CAPS
 SIPHONING & RACKING
 PLASTIC TUBING CLAMPS
 SIPHONING HOSE
 RACKING CANES
 PLASTIC STOPCOCKS
 WINE BOTTLING SPIGOTS
 SIPHON KITS
 CLEANERS & SANITIZERS
 WINE ACID & SULFITE TESTING
 WINE BOTTLES
 WINE BOTTLE CORKS
 WINE BOTTLE LABELS
 WINE BOTTLE DECORATION
 TAPERED CORKS STOPPERS
 WINE BOTTLE STOPPERS
 GLASS JUGS
 SCREW CAPS
o WINE MAKING EQUIPMENT
 WINE PRESSES
 CRUSHERS / DE-STEMMERS
 WINE FERMENTERS
 PRIMARY FERMENTERS
 FERMENTATION CARBOYS
 COLLAPSIBLE JUGS
 STAINLESS STEEL FERMENTERS
 WINE FERMENTATION BAGS
 FERMENTER ACCESSORIES
 WINE FILTER SYSTEMS
 WINE BOTTLE CORKERS
 WINE BARRELS / SPIGOTS
 FRENCH OAK BARRELS
 BARREL BUNGS
 BARREL SPIGOTS
 BARREL MAINTENENCE
 WINE TESTING EQUIPMENT
 WINE HYDROMETERS
 HYDROMETER TEST JARS
 WINE MAKING THERMOMETERS
 WINE ACID & SULFITE TESTING
 WINE REFRACTOMETERS
 WINE THIEFS
 SCALES
 SIPHON & BOTTLING WINE
 TRANSFER PUMPS
 SIPHONING HOSE
 RACKING CANES
 BOTTLE FILLERS
 PLASTIC STOPCOCKS
 PLASTIC TUBING CLAMPS
 SIPHON KITS
 PLASTIC SPIGOTS
 FUNNELS & STRAINERS
 STIRRING SPOONS / PADDLES
 CLEANING EQUIPMENT
 STEAM JUICERS & PITTERS
 WINE CORKSCREWS & ACCESS.
o WINE MAKING BOOKS
 BEER BREWING
o HOMEBREWING KITS
o BEER BREWING INGREDIENTS
 MALT EXTRACTS
 BEER EXTRACT KITS
 BEER RECIPE KITS
 BREWER'S BEST RECIPE KITS
 BREWER'S BEST BOLD KITS
 BREWER'S SPRING BEER KITS
 MALT BARLEY GRAINS
 HOME BREWING HOPS
 BEER YEAST
 BEER ADDITIVES
 BEER FININGS / CLARIFIERS
 BREWING WATER TREATMENT
 BEER YEAST NUTRIENTS
 BEER FLAVORINGS
 CORN SUGAR / BEER ADJUNCTS
o BEER BREWING SUPPLIES
 BEER BOTTLES
 BEER BOTTLE CAPS
 CLEANERS & SANITIZERS
 SIPHONING & BOTTLING BEER
 SIPHONING HOSE
 RACKING CANES
 BOTTLE FILLERS
 PLASTIC TUBING CLAMPS
 PLASTIC STOPCOCKS
 STIRRING PADDLES & SPOONS
 HOME BREW AIRLOCKS
 RUBBER STOPPERS / CAPS
 BOTTLE BRUSHES
 BEER BOTTLE CAPPERS
o BEER BREWING EQUIPMENT
 BREW POTS & ACCESSORIES
 BEER BOTTLING EQUIPMENT
 HOME BREW FERMENTERS
 FERMENTATION CARBOYS
 PRIMARY FERMENTERS
 FERMENTER ACCESSORIES
 CLEANING EQUIPMENT
 SIPHONING & BOTTLING BEER
 RACKING PUMPS
 SIPHONING HOSE
 RACKING CANES
 BOTTLE FILLERS
 PLASTIC TUBING CLAMPS
 PLASTIC STOPCOCKS
 BEER BOTTLING SPIGOTS
 BEER TESTING EQUIPMENT
 HOME BREW HYDROMETERS
 HYDROMETER TESTING JARS
 HOME BREW THERMOMETERS
 PH METERS
 SCALES
 FUNNELS & STRAINERS
 GRAIN MILLS
 STIRRING SPOONS / PADDLES
 BOTTLE BRUSHES
 HOME BREW AIRLOCKS
 RUBBER STOPPERS / CAPS
 PLASTIC SPIGOTS
o HOME BREW BOOKS
 OTHER BEVERAGES
o LIQUEUR MAKING
o SODA POP MAKING
 SODA POP BOOKS
 SODA POP INGREDIENTS
 SODA POP BOTTLES
 BOTTLE CAPPERS / CAPS
 BOTTLE CLEANING
 PLASTIC BUCKETS / FAUCETS
 MIXING PADDLES / SPOONS
 SIPHON HOSE / TUBING
o ALCOHOL DISTILLING
 RESOURCES & GUIDES
o WINE MAKING ARTICLES
o FAQS
o WINE SELECTOR TOOL
o WINE RECIPES
 E.C. KRAUS BLOG
 ABOUT US

 SEARCH

FREE SHIPPING // On Orders Over $25 // View Details

 Home: 
 Home Wine Making With Fruits

Home Wine Making With Fruits

It seems as though when we think of home wine making, we think of grapes. Walk into your local liquor store. The racks
are filled with countless wines produced from Pinot Noir, Zinfandel, Cabernet and other notable grapes.
But what about wines made from fruits other than grapes? Since the development of home wine making as a hobby, it has
become very easy for the individual home wine maker to make wines from affordable fresh fruits of the garden variety.

And, don’t equate these wines to back-shed hooch. Today, you can make tremendous homemade fruit wines, apricot wines
that rival the complexity of any $20 Chardonnay, red currant wines that go just as good with prime rib as a hearty bottle of
store-bought Merlot.

Fruit wine making is no more difficult than making wines from fresh grapes. The basic process is the same, and
consideration is given to the same aspects as when preparing grape juice for home winemaking.

Grape juice is naturally well-suited for wine making and needs little adjustment prior to fermentation. In many parts of the
world, California included, wine making grapes supply enough sugar and are low enough in acid to produce stellar wines
without doing much of anything to them except to let them ferment, but none the less they are still checked and at times
slightly modified.

With fruits other than grapes, adjustments are almost always necessary during the wine making process but are very easy
to accomplish:
1. the amount of fruit used per gallon needs to be determined,
2. the amount of available sugars needs to be tested and adjusted.
3. the fruit juice’s acidity needs to be tested and adjusted.
While this may seem like a lot to concern yourself with, in fact it is very easy and requires little time to do. The trade off is it
allows you to take just about any fruit you can imagine and produce a notable wine that quite often will surprise the
winemaker who made it.

FRUIT HOME WINE MAKING - HOW MUCH FRUIT TO USE?

The list of home wine making fruits you can use to create these wines is endless. Strawberries, plums, watermelons,
peaches, blackberries, gooseberries, boysenberries, grapefruits, pears, pineapples, persimmons are all very suitable for fruit
home wine making, but this list is far from complete.

As with any wine you must start the home wine making process by evaluating the fruit. No wine can be better than the fruit
used to make it. Careful attention should be given to its quality. Doing so will repay you many times over in the form of
consistently superior wine.

Molds and bruises should be minimal. The fruit should also be rinsed off before it is crushed; just as if you where cooking
with it. In most cases the fruits used for home wine making should be fully ripe. When fruits are used too early they have a
tendency to result in wines that lack that particular fruit’s character. For example, a homemade pear wine will taste more
like an apple wine unless the pears are allowed to become slightly over-ripen.

Unlike grape wines which are usually made from pure grape juice, home-made fruit wines are usually diluted with water
before starting the wine making process. The main reason is that certain fruits, such as elderberries, are simply too strong
in flavor. The second reason is that some fruits are too high in acid and would produce a wine that is too sharp tasting. An
example of this would be gooseberry and blueberry.

On the other hand, apple wines are made with pure apple juice, no water added, and they need additional fruit acid added
back to them. So as you might start to gather, there is no general rule of thumb that can be applied when it comes to
determining the amount of fruit or water to use when making a homemade fruit wine.

After having said all this, the following list gives some general ideas as to the amount of wine making fruit to use to make 5
gallons of homemade fruit wine.

Apricots . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18 lbs.

Blackberries . . . . . . . . . . 15 lbs.
Blueberries . . . . . . . . . . . 13 lbs.
Currents. . . . . . . . . . . . . .12 lbs.
Elderberries . . . . . . . . . . 10 lbs.
Gooseberries. . . . . . . . . .11 lbs.
Peaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 lbs.
Pears . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 lbs.
Persimmons . . . . . . . . . . 15 lbs.
Pineapple . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 lbs.
Plums . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 lbs.
Raspberries . . . . . . . . . . 15 lbs.
Strawberries . . . . . . . . . . 16 lbs.
Watermelon (Centers) . . 18 lbs.
These are just guidelines. In reality, there is no single correct amount of fruit to use in home wine making. This is because
you may like your fruit wines heavy like a dessert wine; or light and crisp. For example, if a home wine making recipe calls
for 13 pounds of blueberries for 5 gallons of homemade wine, you might go up to 18 or 20 pounds if you feel you would like
your wine heavier like a Burgundy. Or, you might use 10 pounds if you prefer lighter bodied Blush wines. But, deviating a
fruit wine making recipe much beyond this would not be sound.

Just as can be the case with grape wine making, leaving the pulp with the juice for the first week or so of fermentation will
also intensify the wine’s body, character and deepen its color. The pulp is where a lot of a fruit’s character lies.

During this fermentation period the pulp is broken down and a considerable part is liquefied with the aid of Pectic
Enzymes. Natural tannins and other goodies that reside in the pulp are eventually released into the juice. By utilizing the
pulp in this manner, not only are you producing a homemade fruit wine with more body and character. But, you are
producing a wine that is more stable and will retain its flavor and color for longer periods of time.
 

FRUIT WINEMAKING - TESTING AND ADJUSTING AVAILABLE SUGARS

The second factor you should give consideration to when preparing a fruit juice for home wine making is its beginning sugar
level. 

Fermentation is when yeast consumes the available sugars in your juice and turns that sugar into half alcohol and half CO2
gas by weight.

The amount of sugar you start off with determines the amount of alcohol you’ll end up with, minus any sugars that didn't
ferment. It’s that simple. 

This is where a wine making hydrometer turns into your best friend. The hydrometer helps you to determine how much
sugar you have in your juice, as well as, how much alcohol that sugar can make. Furthermore, it helps you to determine
how much sugar to add to your fruit juice.

The wine making hydrometer is simply a glass tube with a weight on one end that floats. You take a sugar level reading
with it by observing how high or low it floats in the juice. Most wine making hydrometers have a scale on them called
“Potential Alcohol”. By reading this scale at the beginning of fermentation, you will know if you need to add more sugar,
depending on the alcohol level you desire.

Now we come to the question, “What type of sugar is best to use when adjusting your juice’s sugar level?”. This is
somewhat of a loaded wine making question that wineries have been able to dodge for the most part. This is because they
have the luxury of obtaining all the sugars their juices need naturally from the grape. So, there hasn’t been much research
done on the subject. But, there have been many opinions expressed.
My opinion is, “Consider all of them!”. Different sugars add different characters. Cane sugar,corn sugar, beet sugar, brown
sugar, rice sugar, fructose, even powdered malt and sugars I can’t even think of, all have a place in fruit home wine
making. It depends on the person's preference and the situation in which the sugar is to be used. If your not sure what to
use, stick with the cheapest -- cane sugar or corn sugar. But, by all means feel free to experiment.

Honey, is a whole ‘nother ball of wax when it comes to fruit home wine making. “Pyment” is a term used for fruit wines with
a little honey added to them. Honey in its simplest form, has the advantage of adding an “herbal” finish to a homemade
wine. And, when using honey that’s spun off a particular blossom, the resulting creation can be tremendous. For example,
raspberry juice with Raspberry Blossom-spun honey can make an extraordinarily well rounded fruit wine.

You can also use concentrated fruit juices along with your fresh fruit juice as a source of additional sugar. This method will
also increase the body of the wine and intensify the wine’s fruitiness. So, if a lighter fruit wine is desired, this would not be
appropriate. Concentrated fruit juice also will increase the acid level of a juice. This may be good or bad depending on
whether the juice needed the acid or not. Which takes us to our next fruit wine making topic.
 

FRUIT WINE MAKING  - TESTING AND ADJUSTING ACIDITY

Having the proper amount of acid in your wine has two distinct benefits. Not only will it enhance the wine’s overall character
and balance, but it will also significantly aid the fermentation process.

Acidity varies drastically from fruit to fruit. You’ll never pucker eating a banana, but it has acid just as raspberry or lime. . .
only less of it. Couple that with the fact that the amount of fruit you use for each gallon of fruit wine varies too, and it starts
to become clear that adjusting your acidity is a necessity to fruit home wine making.

There are two basic ways to check your juices acidity level. The cheapest and quickest way is to use pH testing
strips (litmus papers). They are, for the most part accurate enough for the home winemaker. However, it is not the most
accurate way to check acidity levels. pH strips test for all acids in the juice regardless of how tart they are to taste. So, you
can get deceptive readings from time to time when it comes to pH verses imparted flavor.

The second and most accurate way to test a juice’s acidity is by doing a titration. With just a few minutes of practice you
can easily master the procedure. A wine making titration kit measures acid in relation to how sharp it actually tastes on
the tongue.

If a wine has too much acid, it tastes sharp/sour/bitter. If a wine doesn’t have enough acid, it tastes flat/bland/lifeless. As
one of my customers put it, “it tastes Kool-Aidy.” After testing and adjusting your juice’s acidity level it should taste
naturally fruity.

The three fruit acids commonly used for adjusting a juice’s acidity are: tartaric, citric and malic. You can buy them
individually or buy them blended together as an Acid Blend. The later is most commonly used in fruit home wine making
and is what is called for in most fruit wine making recipes. All of these wine making fruit acids come in a granulated form
that is easy to dissolve.
 

FRUIT WINE MAKING - READY TO FERMENT

Once you have prepared your juice with the appropriate amount of fruit, and have adjusted the sugar level and the acid
level as well, you now have a juice that is very similar to grape juice. In fact, the home wine making process from here on is
exactly like making wine from grape juice. And, you can now call your prepared fruit juice a “Must.” This is just a fancy wine
making term used by winemakers for a juice that is ready to ferment or is currently fermenting.

I will not go into much detail on the fermentation process as it is outside the scope of this article, and also because there is
nothing special to fruit wine making in this area. Add a suitable wine making yeast and appropriate wine making
nutrients and let the must ferment just as you would any grape wine. For a good condensed look at the winemaking
process see The Seven Easy Steps of Wine making.
 

FRUIT WINE MAKING - FINAL ADJUSTMENTS

To me, one of the most enjoyable parts of home wine making is getting it ready to bottle. This is a time when a average
homemade wine can be molded into something spectacular. Yet, I see many home winemakers, even very experienced
 ones, gloss over this procedure. The impression many home winemaker’s have is that once the home wine making process
is complete, they have no further control over outcome. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth.

There is a vast array of things you can do to adjust a homemade fruit wine’s flavor for the better. While it does take time to
learn what to adjust and why to adjust it, you’ll never learn by ‘not’ experimenting.

You can sweeten your fruit wine a little or a lot. You can blend it with other fruit wines. You can do a final acid adjustment
by taste. You can add spices such as ginger or cinnamon. You can add oak chips for a barrel aged affect, flavor enhancers,
or body enhancers. You can even fortify your wine with Vodka or Grain Alcohol. This may sound a little like cheating, but
when it comes to home wine making, if you don’t consider these options you’ll only be cheating yourself. 

There is one critical rule I highly recommend following when making these adjustments, that is “test in small amounts”. For
example, if you have a 5 gallon batch ready to bottle, take a measured half gallon off and experiment with that.

If you don’t get the results you want. blend it back with the other 4 1/2 gallons and move on. If you like what you did,
duplicate the adjustment to the other 4 1/2 gallons. Not only is using this method less likely to ruin the wine, but is also
makes it less intimidating for the beginning fruit winemaker.

One of the primary things you can do to a fruit wine at the bottling stage is to sweeten it to taste. If the home wine
making process went as planned the wine should be dry tasting. Typically garden type fruits do not do well extremely dry
so at least a touch of sugar before bottling is recommended. You’ll find that a little bit of sugar will enhance the fruity
character of the wine significantly. A wine making stabilizer such as potassium sorbateshould also be used when
sweetening a wine. This is to help eliminate the chance of re-fermentation in the bottles.

And, as mentioned before you can experiment with the type of sugar(s) used to do the sweetening. Just as when you where
preparing your wine making juice for fermentation. 

The correct amount of sugar for sweetening a wine cannot be determined by a wine making hydrometer but only by taste.
“Balance” is the key word here. And only experience will help in obtaining balance in a wine.

The same holds true for other flavor adjustments. Balance should be the focus. If for example you have made a pumpkin
wine and come up with the idea of adding pumpkin spice to it before bottling, adding too little pumpkin spice will only
complicate the wine’s flavor to an annoying degree. It will be detected as a slight off-flavor. Adding too much pumpkin spice
will turn the pumpkin wine into spice wine with an annoying amount of pumpkin in it. The pumpkin spice should compliment
the pumpkin flavor not complicate it or overwhelm it. Blending fruit wines can be fun. Just like Robert Mondavi's Opus wines
which is a special blend of grape wines produced annually and consistently considered one of the top wines on the market.
You can make your own specially blended fruit wines. With blending, it is possible to take two or more average wines and
blend them into something of remarkable taste.

I’m personally not a big banana fanna, but I always have some banana wine in bulk storage. The reason is it blends quite
well with many fruit wines. It adds significant body without imparting an assertive flavor of any kind. So, you could take a
homemade blackberry wine, for example, and increase its body and cut its astringency by blending a little banana wine with
it.

Elderberry wine also blends well with other fruit wines. It tends to deepen the berry character, and can add a Nouveau-
Beaujolais twist, so to speak, to a wine such as raspberry. That’s a couple of examples of why you should consider blending.
Another reason is maybe you accidentally ended up with a blueberry wine that is to sharp or sour tasting. Don’t pour it
down the drain; make another batch of blueberry wine, but only make it lower in acid this time and then later blend the two
together.

The real point here is to have fun; be creative, and don’t be afraid to try what’s on your mind. The most it could cost you is
a half gallon of wine. The benefits will most assuredly be experience and quite possibly a wine that will dazzle you, your
friends, and even the winery down the road. 

In summary, fruit home wine making can open new doors to the individual wanting to make a little wine but is unable to
obtain the wine making grapes to do so. By understanding a few basic wine making principals, you can easily turn readily
available garden fruit into stupendous wine that can be shared with family and friends. And have a little fun along the way.
Make sure you check out our huge selection home wine making supplies and home wine making equipment.

 RESOURCES & GUIDES

 E.C. Kraus Blog
 About E.C. Kraus
Your Shopping Cart
You have no items in your shopping cart.

Why Shop With Us?

 Competitive Pricing
 Huge Selection of Items
 Secure Online Checkout
 45 Years of Experience

The Resource Center

View All Articles, FAQs & Guides

About E.C. KrausLearn More

Since 1966, this is all we’ve done, provide home wine making supplies by mail. With over 40 years of experience under our
belt, we have the homemade wine recipes and know-how to put you on the road to successful home made wine making. If
you want to learn how to make homemade wine, our website is packed with wine making articles and other information.
Shop E.C. Kraus
 Wine Making
 Beer Brewing
 Liquer Making
 Soda Pop Making
 Virtual Catalog
 Quick Order Form
 Gift Cards

Resources
 Articles
 Winemaking FAQs
 Wine Selector Tool
 Wine Wisdom
 Wine Recipes
 E.C. Kraus Blog

E.C. Kraus Links

 About E.C. Kraus
 Contact Us | Call: 800-353-1906
 Request a Free Catalog
 Join Our eNewsletter


Customer Service
 Contact Us
 Ordering
 Help/Support
 FAQ
 Shipping Policy
 Privacy & Security
Receive our free eNewsletter with recipes, articles, sales & more.
Enter E-mail Addr
SIGN-UP
Stay Connected
 Like us on Facebook and share your DIY stories.
 Follow us on Twitter for deals and coupons!
 Read the Wine Making Blog for tips, ideas and stories!





GoDaddy Secure

Copyright © Kraus Sales, L.L.C. 2002 - 2012. All Rights Reserved.

  Home      
 Fruit or Juice Concentrate?
 Wine
Making Training Learning How to Make
Articles
Homemade
 History of
Wine Making
How To Make Homemade Wine From Fruit
 Fruit or Juice
Concentrate or Juice Concentrate
 Ingredients
Needed
 Equipment   
Needed
 
 Fermentation  
Process  
 
 Wine
 
Clarification
 
 Bottling and  
Aging Wine  
Some people want to try learning how to make  
 Everthing homemade wine using an inexpensive process that they can easily  
About Corks  
replicate whenever and wherever they want to. To do this right, you
 Reasons for  
need to have the capacity to follow detailed instructions to the letter  
Failure
– that is how you can get the correct results each and every time  
 Buy Wine  
you attempt to prove you do know how to make wine to everyone.
Making  
Equipment  
Use the Right Equipment Even When  
 
 FREE Learning How to Make Homemade Wine  
Shopping Tips
From Home   
 
 E-Books  
Anyone who wants to make homemade wine has to use the correct
 FAQ equipment – this is the most basic rule to follow. As in many of our  
projects, using the wrong equipment will give us results different
 Free E- from the ones we want. So always strive to acquire the proper  
course
equipment as you learn how to make homemade wine. You can
 
 Forum always re-use the equipment afterwards anyway.
 
 Tip &Tricks The best equipment are those made from glass, followed by those
built from plastic parts. Should you decide to buy plastic equipment,  
 Wine Making be sure it is made from food-grade plastic because the wine blend
Starter Tips  
may react with the plastic otherwise.
 Fermentation
& Process Tips
Sterilize Equipment First
 Understanding
Wine Yeast Because bacteria and rogue yeasts may alter the final wine blend
 Racking & results, you need to sterilize the equipment thoroughly to kill these
Clarification Tips
  Site Map  
organisms. That is why glass is highly preferred as your equipment
material.
 Links
 

Three Basic Ingredients

To make any type of wine (white or red), you will need a juice of
some sort, sugar and then yeast. Be sure your yeast is vintner’s or
winemaker’s yeast and not the baking type of yeast – those are two
different types altogether so don’t get confused.

Using Fruit
If you want to learn how to make wine from home using fruit, you  

may have to chop the fruit well (without the rind and pith) or squash  
it finely first. Majority of recipes that teach you how to make wine
from home using fruit will ask you to use sugar too – use cane sugar
for best results, not beet sugar.

Even if you use fresh fruit, this fruit has to be sterilized first before it
is usable for recipes teaching you how to make wine. So do cook
and sterilize your fruit first, pulp and juice combined – but do not add
the yeast while your fruit is still hot because that will kill the vintner
yeast cells. You can choose between using liquid yeast or the
powdered yeast but both are equally acceptable when used
correctly.

Using Frozen Fruit Juice Concentrate  

Frozen fruit juice concentrate is an alternative if you have no fresh  

fruit or have no time to use fresh fruit. It can help you make wine the  
quickest and simplest way possible. Some of the best type of fruit
juice concentrate brand in the market right now may be purchased
on-line from Winemaking Equipment Store.

Always use frozen fruit juice concentrate because it lacks the

potassium sorbate substance that can keep your must from
fermenting. To save money, you can buy your juice in bulk
containers measuring five gallons each, like the Syrah or Merlot
juices. Otherwise, you can purchase the Vintner’s Harvest juice
packaged in either a 46-ounce can or in a 92-ounce can.

Putting the Wine Blend into Fermentation

Containers
Your wine blend is called the “must” by winemakers before it has
 
become real wine. It should be placed within very sterile
  
fermentation containers but always use sterile utensils and
measuring equipment as well – even one tainted spoon can wreck  
the quality of your must. This is crucial when being taught how to
 
make homemade wine.
 
Your sterile fermentation containers should be air-tight. You can add
 
the metabisulphite solution via an airlock (an s-shaped instrument
that fits into the cover of your sterile fermentation containers) so that  
there is no need to keep opening and closing the fermentation
container.

Never expose your fermentation container filled with must to direct

sunlight during the fermentation process. The must-filled
fermentation container has to be stashed away in a place whose
atmospheric temperature ranges from 65 degrees to 75 degrees
Fahrenheit in warmth. Fermentation should last up to two weeks at
the most.

Racking Your Must

It is imperative that you do racking of the must and do it right.
Racking is the process by which you will siphon off the liquid wine to
separate it from the sediments that have congealed at the bottom of
your wine fermentation container. The liquid wine will then be
transferred into sterile bottles whose covers have also been
sterilized – even cork covers have to be sterilized properly. Always
use glass wine bottles with cork covers – plastic wine bottles are
unacceptable. If you are making rose and red wines, green bottles
have always been used for these types of wine.

All wine bottles should have smooth bottle openings with zero
cracks or rough edges around the mouth of the bottle. If you insist
on using plastic bottles, you may find that they cannot withstand the
sterilization process and may even melt – that is why glass bottles
have always been used traditionally to make wine. If you have a lot
of wine bottles to sterilize, you may either a) heat the bottles in an
oven (but be careful not to overheat them until they crack); b) pour
boiling water into and onto the bottles and their cork tops to sterilize
well; and/or c) use a pressure cooker to mass sterilize many bottles
at one time.

Do not overfill your wine bottles but just put in enough must to reach
up to one centimeter to one half-inch below the cork bottom. If there
are minor bits of sediment that seem to be present, you can use
winemaker’s filter paper to screen or sieve out these sediments from
 the must that is being transferred to the wine bottles.

At this point, your must has to “rest” meaning you need to stash it
away to let it age properly and become real wine. If you are patient
and have done your job correctly, the wine you produce will be of
sufficient quality that you can be proud of. The next step in
learning how to make wine is knowing the required ingredients.
Please read our free article on ingredients needed.

WINEMAKING

Making Wines from Wild Plants

The one thing I learned from Euell Gibbons' love affair with nature is
that every day there's something to harvest in the wild for my crock. Jack Keller

In Stalking the Good Life, the late naturalist Euell Gibbons wrote about wild
berries. "Actually," he wrote, "I begin picking berries about the time the last
spring snow melts away." He then describes in one chapter a succession of
harvests of wild wintergreen berries (teaberries), strawberries, red raspberries,
black raspberries, wineberries, dewberries, blackberries, blueberries,
huckleberries, squaw huckleberries (deerberries), and elderberries. Elsewhere in
the book he describes harvests of wild barberries, black haws, cherries,
chokecherries, cranberries, grapes, juneberries, wild raisins, squashberries,
shadbush berries, serviceberries, sarvisberries, sugar pears, and sugar plums.
These are just some of the berries -- but a sampling of what is out there --
growing in the wild and available to be harvested and turned into wine.

No matter where you live in the world, you live but a short walk or drive away
from more edible wild plants than you probably ever imagined. Ancient man was
successful as a species because he was capable of eating a very large variety of
plants and animals. Many plants bear fruit or other components that can be
made into wine suitable for just about any palate. On the pages that follow, I will
be describing but a few of the thousands of wild edible plants in the United States
and Canada which are suitable in one way or another for winemaking. Readers
living outside this geographic area should not turn away. Many of the plants
featured herein have relatives scattered all over the globe, and I have consistently
tried to identify the genus (and species) of each plant featured so that distant
relatives can be identified and recipes adapted to suit them. See "Adapting
Recipes," below, for tips on how to do this.

At the end of the text portions of this section, I have listed a few recipes for
making wine from wild edible plants. This list is presently small, but will grow in
time. Please check back from time to time to see how it has grown. If you want to
see a particular recipe there that isn't, send me an  email requesting it. I may not
respond immediately, but I will respond.

Adapting Recipes

Okay, you're out walking in the woods and come across a thick stand of
salmonberries. You pull a couple of plastic bags from your day pack and an hour
later you're heading for home with 8-10 pounds of sweet (but slightly tart), fresh
fruit. You check your well-thumbed copy of First Steps in Winemakingand strike
out. Then you fire up the computer and start burning up the search engines.
Nothing! What to do? Well, hopefully you've got a bookmark set to  The
Winemaking Home Page and are therefore in luck. No, I don't have a
salmonberry wine recipe (yet), but I can tell you how to make salmonberry wine.
More acurately, I can tell you how to adapt a recipe to serve your purposes, and
that's better than nothing.

The first thing you do is ask yourself, "What is a salmonberry similar to?" By
similar, I mean most like in type of fruit, taste, pulp, firmness, color, skin or rind
if that applied, and type plant. It is unwise to compare fruit from vining plants
with fruit from bushes or trees unless there simply is no alternative. So, let's
compare the salmonberry with similar berries.

Well, it looks like a salmon-colored blackberry, but tastes more like a red
raspberry, wineberry or thimbleberry. Except, in reality, it tastes like none of
these. Still, it comes closer in taste to a red raspberry than a blackberry,
wineberry or thimbleberry. We might be able to narrow it down further, but this
will do--quite nicely, actually. Start with a red raspberry wine recipe and go
from there. But first, there are a few things you need to think about.

Fruit Content

With few exceptions, the more fruit you use in making a wine, the fruitier tasting
it will be. This can be good or it can be too much. If good, so much the better. If
too much, you have a problem. You can blend it with a complementary but
weaker tasting wine or with a "second" wine made from the same fruit pulp as
the first batch--if you happened to have made one. There really isn't much more
you can do. Why is this important?

It's important for two reasons. When making a wine by recipe that specifies a
varied quantity--such as 4-6 lbs--you can be assured that using the lesser
quantity will make an acceptable wine, but using the larger quantity will make a
fruitier wine. If you opt to use the larger quantity, you would be wise to also
make a "second" batch using the pressed pulp from the first batch. This will
always make a weaker wine, but one that is almost always acceptable on its own
merit. More importantly, you'll have that "second" wine to use in blending with
the first batch should its taste be too strong for you.

But it's also important when adapting a recipe for another ingredient. If the
substituted ingredient lacks the fullness of flavor of the original ingredient called
for in the recipe, you'll need to adjust the quantity upwards to make up for what
is naturally lacking. In the case of substituting salmonberries for red raspberries,
I can tell you right off that salmonberries lack the flavor and aroma raspberries
are so famous for. Thus, you'll want to adjust the quantity upwards, but not too
much. Berry wines should be subtle, not overpowering. My red raspberry recipe
calls for 3-4 lbs of fruit. If using salmonberries instead of raspberries, use 4-5 lbs.
Another thing to consider about fruit content is that when using less fruit rather
than more, the lesser amount, if within the recipe limitations, will usually
produce a wine that more closely approximates the taste of grape wine, albeit the
approximation may take a leap of imagination. What I mean is this: in truth,
grape wines do not taste like grape juice, and fruit wines should not taste like
fruit juice. My favorite peach wine recipe calls for 3 lbs of peaches per gallon,
but I will reduce the amount of fruit to 2-1/2 lbs for an exceptionally flavorable
crop. Conversely, for a weakly flavored crop I might increase the amount to 3-
1/2 lbs.

Sugar Content and Supplementation

More than anything else, it is the conversion of sugar into carbon dioxide and
alcohol by the action of yeast that makes wine. A critical amount of sugar
simply must be present or you are wasting your time and ingredients. When this
amount is absent, you must add sugar.

The amount you must add, of couse, depends on how much is there to begin with.
You determine this by using a hydrometer to measure the  specific gravity (S.G.)
of the diluted liquor. What I mean by diluted liquor is the combined ingredients
in the recipes less the sugar and yeast. If you measured the S.G. of the fruit juice
alone and added sugar to attain a starting S.G. of, say, 1.095, that reading would
be meaningless the moment you added water and other ingredients. So, combine
the ingredients less the sugar and yeast, measure the S.G., and then add sugar to
raise the S.G. accordingly.

This is especially important when adapting a recipe to a substitute ingredient.

The substitute ingredient almost certainly will not contain  exactly the same
natural sugar as the ingredient specified in the recipe. You then adjust the sugar
content accordingly. This will probably mean an amount close to that called for
in the recipe, but not exactly the same amount.

Sugar can be added in several forms and several ways, but usually this boils
down to adding refined sugar or adding honey. Unless a recipe specifically calls
for honey, I always use sugar, and unless it specifically calls for light or dark
brown sugar, I use finely granulated white cane sugar. Cane and beet sugar are
both sucrose and are chemically the same. Unrefined brown sugar can still be
found, but it is imported these days and usually costs more than domestic brown
sugar. Domestic brown sugar is really refined sugar with molasses added. It will
affect both taste and color of the wine, but for some wines it is required. Corn
sugar is dextrose, preferred for beermaking but tradionally avoided by
winemakers. Terry Garey and a few others say you can use it if you want to, but
long ago I was taught "vinters scorn what comes from corn;" this ditty may be
unfounded, but I've never wanted to risk a batch of wine testing its veracity.

Honey is another subject altogether. It comes in many, many flavors, depending

upon the flowers the bees predominately visited while collecting pollens and
nectares used to make it. These flavors do affect the wine, but so does the honey
itself. Honey tends to mellow out a wine and contributes ever so slightly to body.
Some people prefer it for that reason alone, while others prefer it for ecological
reasons. I use it only when the recipe calls for it, when Iknow the wine will
otherwise be thin, or when I want to impart a specific flavor to the wine--such as
heather, clover, orange, or mesquite.

My problem with honey is that it slows down the clarification process

considerably. Honey contains pollen, and pollen takes a long time to settle out.
Even when settled, it can easily be lifted from the lees by the siphoning action of
racking, and then it must again settle out. If you filter your wine, this is much
less a problem than if you don't.

Acidity

Salmonberries are just a little bit more tart than red raspberries. This means it
contains something red raspberries don't contain, or lacks something red
raspberries don't. Tartness is usually caused by acid, but it could be caused by
tannin, pectin, or simply a natural flavor. In the case of salmonberries, it's acid.
If the difference were great, you'd want to adjust the amount of added acid in the
recipe to be adapted downward, but in this case the difference is so slight as to be
negligible. Indeed, the amount of acid blend you might remove from the red
raspberry wine recipe is so small that it might easily be absent depending upon
how you measure 1/2 tsp. A pinch less might be justified, but that is only about
20-30 grains of the crystalline blend, and that is not worth fretting about.

On the other hand, if the berries were  unusually tart, you might cut the amount
of acid blend used by 1/8 to 1/5. You wouldn't want to reduce it by more, as acid
is essential to the health and reproduction of yeast.

Acidity should not generally be a worry if you have compared your fruit wisely
and correctly. If in doubt, however, use an acid testing kit and adjust acidity to
no more than 0.60% tartaric.
  Prickly Pear Cactus 

"Be careful with the spines or the wine could have a bite!"

The Texas prickly pear cactus is the Opuntia lindheimeri. The broad leaves, called pads
or nopalitos, produce pretty yellow to red flowers in spring, which in turn produce red to
purple fruit in fall. Both the pads and fruit are edible, but both have tufts of spines
protecting them. The spines can be long and large on the pads, but those on the fruit are
usually extremely small but just as painful. The peeled fruit has an aroma similar to
watermelon. The fruit is the part of the cactus from which wine can be made.

One word of caution. There is a substance in the pigmented fruit of the prickly pear cactus
that nearly 1% of the population has an allergy to. The U.S. Food and Drug
Administration's Center for Food Safety & Applied Nutrition lists the Opuntia species of
the Cactaceae genus on their "Vascular Plants List" of the "Poisonous Plants Database."
This listing simply means that toxic effects have been associated with the plants listed by
one or more researchers and should not be cited as a definitive conclusion of safety or
toxicity. I have drank large quantities of this wine and suffered no ill effects, but you may
be among the 1% that would suffer. Thus, you have been advised....

PRICKLY PEAR CACTUS WINE

 5-6 lb. prickly pear fruit

 2-1/2 lb. granulated sugar
 1 tsp. acid blend
 1 gallon water
 wine yeast and nutrient

Put prickly pear cactus fruit in large crock or pail. Pour one gallon boiling water over fruit.
Wait two minutes (to loosen skin) and drain off water. Allow fruit to cool and carefully peel
skin off, being especially watchful not to touch spines. Cut fruit into pieces not larger than
one inch, put in pot, add 1/2 gallon water, bring to boil. Reduce heat to maintain gentle boil
for 15 minutes. Cover pot and allow to cool to luke warm. Pour fruit and juice into large
nylon grain-bag (fine mesh) or sieve and squeeze juice into primary fermentation vessel.
Discard pulp. To juice, add sugar, acid blend, yeast and nutrient and stir to dissolve sugar.
Cover well and set in warm place for seven days, stirring daily. Siphon off lees into
secondary fermentation vessel, top up with water, fit airlock, and let stand three weeks.
Rack and top up, then rack again in two months. Allow to clear, rack again if necessary,
and bottle. May taste after one year, but improves with age. [Author's own recipe.]
 Last update was November 2nd, 2000.

If our website has helped you in your wine or mead making endeavors 
and you feel moved to contribute to help offset our expenses, you may...

         

         

         

         

Wild Plums
Plums grow wild almost everywhere in the United States, much of Canada, and
throughout Europe and Asia. In fact, they are so widespread that I must assume
wild plums grow everywhere but in artic conditions.

The common American plum (Prunus americana) is found in stands from

Connecticut to Montana and south into Mexico. It is a small, rather twisted,
thorny tree or shrub growing in thickets, along roadsides, on riverbanks, and in
drained lowlands. Its blossoms have a distinctive fragrance and usually appear in
April or May. The fruit ripen from green to yellow to red in August and
September and fall when ripe. The Texas wild plum (Prunus texana) blossoms as
early as late February or early March and will completely ripen and experience
fruit drop by May or as late as June. Both the American and Texas wild plums
are small with tasty pulp and astringent skins.

The Canada plum (Prunus nigra) has slightly larger, tastier and less astringent
fruit than its American cousins, The Canada plum has larger flowers and the
fruit ripen earlier -- usually in August. It is found in thickets and along woodland
edges from Quebec to Manitoba and south to Ohio and Iowa.

The Beach plum (Prunus maritima) is found only along the Atlantic coast from
New Brunswick to Virginia, sometimes extending inland as far as 20 miles. The
Chicksaw plum (Prunus angustifolia) ranges from New Jersey to Indiana and
southward and is found in woods and thickets. The Wild Goose plum (Prunus
munsoniana) is found in thickets from Kentucky to Missouri and southward and
is most common in the Mississippi River floodplains. The Hortulan plum
(Prunus hortulana) is restricted to moist woods and thickets in the middle
Mississippi Valley and is rather rare. The California plum (Prunus subcordata) is
found only in northern California and southern Oregon. The Cherry plum
(Prunus cerasifera), or myrobalan, is native to Asia and ripens a red or yellow
fruit.

Closely related to plums and occupying the same genus are cherries. But that is
considered another fruit and will be covered separately.

Most wild plum trees grow from 5 to 15 feet high and are not particularly
attractive. They have twisted, omni-directional branches, often with significant
thorns. Many species have a tendency to sprout offspring from their spreading
roots, which leads to thick stands of intertwined, thorny branches. The fruit,
when ripe, is typically globular and small, from 3/4 to 1 1/2 inches in diameter.
Some wild species grow to 2 1/2 inches in diameter, but the tendency is to grow
small fruit. The fruit drops after ripening and is easily picked.
Domesticated and hybrid varieties do not propagate true from their seed. If
germinated, the seed will usually produce the rootstock upon which the hybrid or
cultivar was grafted. More often than not, this is a wild plum or a variety only
slightly removed from the wild.

Wild plums make an excellent wine, but, like cherry wines, it must be aged for
some time to "come into its own." When fermentation ends, wild plum wine is
almost undrinkable and the winemaker will be tempted to either over-sweeten it
to overcome its astringency or toss it out altogether. Either course of action
would be a mistake. The correct action is to simply put the wine in a dark, cool
place and forget about it for at least one year. Plum wine is best when fermented
slightly sweetened, but it does okay as a sweet or dessert wine and is very good
with glazed or stuffed fowl, especially wild fowl. Personally, I like it fermented to
dryness (S.G. 0.990) or semi-dryness (S.G. 0.995 to 1.000).

The following recipes should be considered guidelines only. All will make decent
wine from any wild plum chosen, but different plums will make different wines
and different trees will produce different plums from one year to the next.
Astringency and sugar content are the primary considerations. Very astringent
wild plums contain more acid but you should not reduce the acid blend
appreciably. The sweetness of the flesh will not greatly affect the natural sugar
content of the plums, but it will have a slight affect (you might have to add or
reduce sugar added by 1/4 pound). One authority (W.H.T. Tayleur) warns that
both sugar and acid content can vary as much as 300% between a good season
and a bad one. He recommends testing the pH of juice extracted from a few
specimens and adjusting to about 3.3. Sugar should be added to achieve a
beginning S.G. of 1.085 to 1.095.

WILD PLUM WINE (1)

 4 lbs ripe wild plums

 2 lbs finely granulated sugar
 1 cup red or white grape concentrate
 1 tsp acid blend
 1 tsp pectic enzyme
 1/4 tsp tannin
 1 crushed Campden tablet
 water to one gallon (about 5-6 pints)
  1 tsp yeast nutrient
 1 packet Bordeaux or Burgundy wine yeast

Put 1/2 gallon water on to boil. Meanwhile, wash, sort, destem, and destone the
fruit. Chop if large and save all juice. Transfer fruit and any juice to nylon
straining bag in primary graduated (marked) by pints to one gallon, add grape
concentrate, boiling water, cover and allow to cool to lukewarm. Add crushed
Campden, recover and wait 12 hours. Crush fruit by hand by squeezing bag. Mix
in half the sugar, stirring well to dissolve. Lift the bag of fruit and allow to drain
about two minutes, then add water to bring liquid up to 7 pints. Return bag to
liquid, measure and note S.G., and then add acid blend, tannin, pectic enzyme,
and yeast nutrient. After 12 hours, add yeast. Twice daily squeeze bag of pulp.
After 7 days of fermentation, drip drain bag of pulp 2-3 hours, squeezing gently
at end to coax additional juice from bag. Add drained juice to primary and use
hydrometer chart to determine how much additional sugar to add to achieve S.G.
of 1.095 (find previously measured S.G. on chart and determine how much sugar
to add to that to achieve target S.G. of 1.095). Add sugar and stir well to dissolve.
Allow to settle overnight and then rack into secondary and fit airlock without
topping up. After 7 days top up. Rack after one month, top up and refit airlock,
and repeat after additional two months. When wine clears, wait one additional
month, rack, top up, refit airlock, and set aside for bulk aging. Check water level
in airlock monthly. After 6 months stabilize, wait 10 days, rack if needed,
sweeten to taste and bottle. Do not drink for one year.[Adapted recipe from
W.H.T. Tayleur's The Penguin Book of Home Brewing & Wine-Making]

WILD PLUM WINE (2)

 3 lbs ripe wild plums

 2-1/2 lbs finely granulated sugar or 2-1/2 lbs light honey
 1-1/2 tsp acid blend
 1/2 tsp pectic enzyme
 1/8 tsp tannin
 7 pts water
 1 tsp yeast nutrient
 1 packet Montrachet or Champagne wine yeast

Boil water with sugar or honey, skimming if necessary. Meanwhile, wash, destem
and destone the plums, saving any juice. Over primary, pour into nylon straining
bag and tie closed. Use the fat end of a sterilized baseball bat or piece of
hardwood to mash the plums. Pour the sweetened water over the mashed fruit.
When cooled to room temperature (about 4 hours), add acid blnd, tannin, yeast
nutrient, and pectic enzyme. Cover primary with plastic wrap. After 12 hours,
add yeast. Stir daily, punching down the bag of plums and squeezing gently.
After 7 days, remove bag of fruit and allow to drip drain (do not squeeze). Add
drained liquid to primary and check specific gravity. When S.G. reaches or falls
below 1.020, rack into secondary, top up if required and fit airlock. After 14
days, rack into clean secondary, top up and refit airlock. Rack again in two
months and again when wine clears. When S.G. measures 0.990, stabilize and
wait 10 days. Rack, sweeten to taste and bottle. This wine should age in the bottle
one year before tasting. If still astringent, wait additional year. [Adapted recipe
from Terry Garey's The Joy of Home Winemaking]

WILD PLUM WINE (3)

 6 lbs ripe wild plums

 3 lbs finely granulated sugar
 1/2 lb barley
 1 large orange (juice only)
 1/2 tsp pectic enzyme
 1 gallon water
 1 tsp yeast nutrient
 1 packet Bordeaux, Tokay or Sauterne wine yeast

Bring 1 gallon water to boil. Add barley and set aside, covered, for two days.
Strain and discard barley (or use in soup). Bring half the water back to a boil.
Meanwhile, wash, sort, destem, destone, and chop the wild plums, saving all
juice. Transfer plums to primary and add boiling water, cover and allow to sit 5
hours. Strain and add the other half of water to pulp. After one hour strain this
and combine the two lots of water and bring it to a boil. Pour this over the sugar,
stirring to dissolve. When cool, add pectic enzyme, juice of orange and yeast
nutrient. Cover and wait 12 hours and add yeast. When fermenting vigorously,
gently transfer to secondary and fit airlock. When wine begins to clear, rack for
first time, top up and refit airlock. Set aside for 4 months. Stabilize, wait 10 days
and rack. Sweeten if required and bottle. Do not drink for one year.[Adapted
recipe from C.J.J. Berry's First Steps in Winemaking]