ramamoorthyh
confused soul
Okay folks. How many of you make wine in home? This does not imply that I make wine at my home. Winemaking may or may not be a punishable offense under local excise laws of the state
You will need following ingredients. We may not get the 'foreign' thingys like bung air lock and starter wine yeast, so will have to improvise
with what we get.
Hardware
Two big porcelain pots with lid / called bharani here in Kerala (~ 5 litres).
one wooden spatula.
You will also need one transparent tube of the kind used in aquariums.
Software
Grapes- 2 kg; choose the darkest one; have to be sweetest variety and should be very ripe. sweeter the fruit, better the wine. remove bad /decaying grapes and stalk; it is better to buy 2.5 kgs or even 3 kgs considering we need 2 kgs finally.
Sugar - 2 kgs; this can vary with ripeness of the fruit.
Water - ~ 5 litres; Boil for five minutes and cool to room temperature. Boil water in the night and allow to cool covered, so that beevi will not complain " gas khatam ho raha hain "
Yeast - 15 gms ( one table spoon); preferably wine yeast; I am using normal dried yeast. Buy a packet and use 15 gms and throw away the rest unless you want to bake or something. It can't be kept for long.
Potassium meta-bi Sulphate - available in big department stores in small packets
Preferable - Food grade Ammonium Chloride or we can manage with whole wheat.
Chemistry
Cleanliness is the key to making good wine. period..
Sugar in the fruit and sugar we add are converted into alcohol by the fermentation by yeast. when all sugar available are converted into alcohol, yeast will work with alcohol and oxygen from air to make acetic acid
, which we have to avoid.
So we have to stop fermentation at the point when all sugar available is converted into Alcohol.
METHOD
Clean the bharani/porcelain pot throughly and sun dry it for one full day. Rinse with boiled and cooled water. We need to use only one bharani now. Next one is needed after some 20 days.
take one table spoon of yeast (~15 gms) mixed with a little (half a glass) warm water (Not boiled water here; we need just warm water with lot of oxygen in it) Yeast needs oxygen at this stage.
Lightly crush grapes by hand. (hands should be clean, you can cover hands with clean plastic cover) and add grapes and half sugar layer by layer in the bharani and fill it with boiled and cooled water till it reaches 3/4 volume. Don't fill it to brim.
Add yeast mixture to grapes. Cover the bharani with a clean cotton cloth; add the lid and again add one more layer of cotton cloth and tie with cotton cords in the neck. Do not disturb and keep aside in a cool dry place.
Next day open the bharani, mix once with wooden spatula (so that yeast goes to all the places) and cover the same way as before. If the cover is wet with fermented mixture, change cloth and tie the same way.
Next day add a teaspoon of ammonium chloride, if available. If not add hand-full of wheat tied in a cotton bag. (gyan:-ammonium chloride will act as food for yeast and increase their multiplication, which in turn will accelerate the fermentation; the illegal bootleggers add crushed dry cell battery, which has ammonium chloride in it, in fermentation mixture/ Koda as it is called in Malayalam for better 'kick").
The enzyme in wheat "zymase" will help in converting in sugar to alcohol faster. The carbon dioxide, formed in the process is released. Hence the wine bharani should not be sealed air tight, while fermenting.
Now open and mix once, the fermentation mixture every other day for 15-20 days duration. After 10 days (from the start), add half of the remaining sugar (~1/2 kg) and mix with wooden spatula.
After 15-20 days from the start ( If you are doing it for the first time, keep it to 15 days, later extend the period), When you will see the froth in the bharani decreasing and will have a clear dark liquid, you have to change fermentation vessel.
Here comes the second bharani. Keep the first bharani ( in which we have our fermentation mixture), on a stool/chair and keep the second one on the floor. Do not forget to clean and sundry the second one too.
With the help of transparent tube, siphon off the clear liquid from the first bharani to second one, keeping the tube within the first two inches in the liquid in the first bharani as possible.
As soon as the sludge/muck from bottom of the bharani start to appear on the tube, stop. Liquid falling on the second one should not splash, which will make it airy and is bad for fermentation.
Let it fall by side of the bharani.
Add the remaining sugar (we have some half a kilo of sugar remaining). Top up to 7/8 of the top of the bharani with boiled and cooled water. Again no splashing.
Cover with a layar of cloth, put the lid on and again cover with another cloth and tie up. Keep aside and do not disturb for another 10 days. If you see the cloth layer gets wet, change cloth.
After 10 days, add a teaspoon of Potassium meta bisulphate and lightly mix with the wooden spatula. This chemical will kill the yeast and stop fermentation. We dont want to convert the precious alcohol to acetic acid.
Wine can be bottled a couple of days of adding this chemical. It will kill the yeast in the fermentation mixture.
The wine should be carefully siphoned into clean dark colored bottles ( if dark color bottles are not available, cover the bottles with coloured paper) to the brim and kept in a cool place for at least one month before opening..
This method will make ~ 4 litres of wine.
Cheers..
ramamoorthy
You will need following ingredients. We may not get the 'foreign' thingys like bung air lock and starter wine yeast, so will have to improvise
with what we get.Hardware
Two big porcelain pots with lid / called bharani here in Kerala (~ 5 litres).
one wooden spatula.
You will also need one transparent tube of the kind used in aquariums.
Software
Grapes- 2 kg; choose the darkest one; have to be sweetest variety and should be very ripe. sweeter the fruit, better the wine. remove bad /decaying grapes and stalk; it is better to buy 2.5 kgs or even 3 kgs considering we need 2 kgs finally.
Sugar - 2 kgs; this can vary with ripeness of the fruit.
Water - ~ 5 litres; Boil for five minutes and cool to room temperature. Boil water in the night and allow to cool covered, so that beevi will not complain " gas khatam ho raha hain "
Yeast - 15 gms ( one table spoon); preferably wine yeast; I am using normal dried yeast. Buy a packet and use 15 gms and throw away the rest unless you want to bake or something. It can't be kept for long.
Potassium meta-bi Sulphate - available in big department stores in small packets
Preferable - Food grade Ammonium Chloride or we can manage with whole wheat.
Chemistry
Cleanliness is the key to making good wine. period..
Sugar in the fruit and sugar we add are converted into alcohol by the fermentation by yeast. when all sugar available are converted into alcohol, yeast will work with alcohol and oxygen from air to make acetic acid
, which we have to avoid. So we have to stop fermentation at the point when all sugar available is converted into Alcohol.
METHOD
Clean the bharani/porcelain pot throughly and sun dry it for one full day. Rinse with boiled and cooled water. We need to use only one bharani now. Next one is needed after some 20 days.
take one table spoon of yeast (~15 gms) mixed with a little (half a glass) warm water (Not boiled water here; we need just warm water with lot of oxygen in it)
Yeast needs oxygen at this stage.Lightly crush grapes by hand. (hands should be clean, you can cover hands with clean plastic cover) and add grapes and half sugar layer by layer in the bharani and fill it with boiled and cooled water till it reaches 3/4 volume. Don't fill it to brim.
Add yeast mixture to grapes. Cover the bharani with a clean cotton cloth; add the lid and again add one more layer of cotton cloth and tie with cotton cords in the neck. Do not disturb and keep aside in a cool dry place.
Next day open the bharani, mix once with wooden spatula (so that yeast goes to all the places) and cover the same way as before. If the cover is wet with fermented mixture, change cloth and tie the same way.
Next day add a teaspoon of ammonium chloride, if available. If not add hand-full of wheat tied in a cotton bag. (gyan:-ammonium chloride will act as food for yeast and increase their multiplication, which in turn will accelerate the fermentation; the illegal bootleggers add crushed dry cell battery, which has ammonium chloride in it, in fermentation mixture/ Koda as it is called in Malayalam for better 'kick").
The enzyme in wheat "zymase" will help in converting in sugar to alcohol faster. The carbon dioxide, formed in the process is released. Hence the wine bharani should not be sealed air tight, while fermenting.
Now open and mix once, the fermentation mixture every other day for 15-20 days duration. After 10 days (from the start), add half of the remaining sugar (~1/2 kg) and mix with wooden spatula.
After 15-20 days from the start ( If you are doing it for the first time, keep it to 15 days, later extend the period), When you will see the froth in the bharani decreasing and will have a clear dark liquid, you have to change fermentation vessel.
Here comes the second bharani. Keep the first bharani ( in which we have our fermentation mixture), on a stool/chair and keep the second one on the floor. Do not forget to clean and sundry the second one too.
With the help of transparent tube, siphon off the clear liquid from the first bharani to second one, keeping the tube within the first two inches in the liquid in the first bharani as possible.
As soon as the sludge/muck from bottom of the bharani start to appear on the tube, stop. Liquid falling on the second one should not splash, which will make it airy and is bad for fermentation.
Let it fall by side of the bharani.
Add the remaining sugar (we have some half a kilo of sugar remaining). Top up to 7/8 of the top of the bharani with boiled and cooled water. Again no splashing.
Cover with a layar of cloth, put the lid on and again cover with another cloth and tie up. Keep aside and do not disturb for another 10 days. If you see the cloth layer gets wet, change cloth.
After 10 days, add a teaspoon of Potassium meta bisulphate and lightly mix with the wooden spatula. This chemical will kill the yeast and stop fermentation. We dont want to convert the precious alcohol to acetic acid.
Wine can be bottled a couple of days of adding this chemical. It will kill the yeast in the fermentation mixture.
The wine should be carefully siphoned into clean dark colored bottles ( if dark color bottles are not available, cover the bottles with coloured paper) to the brim and kept in a cool place for at least one month before opening..
This method will make ~ 4 litres of wine.
Cheers..
ramamoorthy
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