Wine is a wonderful drink. It is a deep mix of flavors and aromas, and it takes a certain kind of person to appreciate these in addition to the time and effort put into the wine making process.

Wine is no longer the province of snobby and snooty people who come from old moneyed families though. The new trend is home wine making: people make small batches of wine at home.

Home winemakers are appreciative of wine without the pretentiousness of the traditional wine makers. They like to share wine making instructions and each other's wines, like having a collective wine cellar.

If you want to make wine at home, the best way to start is to ask someone who is already doing it. There are specialty supply stores that deal in the equipment and ingredients for making wine at home.

Often, these are also meeting places for enthusiasts in the surrounding area, so these are good places for picking up information and wine making instructions too.

It would be best to start off with a prepackaged kit; unless you happen to know someone with roots deep in the wine business and they agree to help you.

These packages can range from the very basic to the advanced. If this is your first time, it is recommended that you pick the most affordable package. These kits will have everything you need to make your first home wine.

The equipment is mostly tanks and hoses, nothing too fancy or complicated. Indeed, the winemaking process itself is simple; the complexity happens when you try to achieve particular properties by controlling the many factors.

The beginner packages will also usually include wine making instructions, so do not fret too much. These are common instructions for a 4-week wine kit.

Start off with sterilizing your fermenting tank, usually a 27-liter tank. To do this, you will need some sort of sterilizing powder mix like sodium metabisulphite, which will usually be included in the package.

After cleaning it out, it is time to start making the wine itself. Keep your excitement in check though; you will need to pay attention to some minute details.

Pour the syrup packet into the fermenter and try to get every little bit, then add a little hot water to it. Then start filling it with water, until just below the 23 liter mark. You can use tap water, but using distilled water usually produces a better wine. Stir it vigorously to aerate it, the yeast need this.

Take the temperature of the water; it should be between 20 and thirty degrees Celsius. Add cold or hot water as needed until you get to 23 liters. Add the yeast, but do not stir the mixture. Seal the lid and add an airlock, half-filling it with water.

Try to keep the temperature constant for about a day or two. When the air lock starts bubbling, you know you have done it right. You can then move it to a cooler 18-20 degrees Celsius.

On day 6, clean and sanitize a carboy. Siphon the fermented liquid into it, and add water until you come up to 3 inches from the top. Again, attach the airlock half-filled with water. Leave it in a dark cool place. On around day 20, use your hygrometer to check for alcohol content.

Read your kit's wine making instructions and add any additional ingredients as specified. A specific gravity of .990 to 1.000 is good. If it does not come out like that, leave it for a couple of days and check again. After meeting the required specific gravity, siphon the liquid into the bucket. Try to minimize the amount of sediment at the bottom of the carboy that gets into the bucket. Add any packets as instructed by your kit. Stir for a few minutes to release carbon dioxide.

Carbon dioxide gives wine a sharp taste and cloudiness. Clean and sanitize your carboy, and siphon the liquid back in. For two days after that shake it 3 or four times a day to make sure as much carbon dioxide is expelled.

On the 28th day, your wine is almost ready for bottling or drinking. Dissolve two Campden tablets in a half-glass of water and add it to the wine. Wait for two more days of standing.

After that, the only real thing left to do is to filter out the sediment and bottle it up. Most 4-week wines taste best after aging for 6 months, but they may be enjoyed right away. These are the basic home wine making instructions.

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In spite of the common belief, winemaking is a very simple process that can be done anywhere with the most ordinary ingredients. This art has come to us, the modern man, though ages and ages of wisdom and experience. In ancient times, winemaking was simple, fast and the result was exceptional. In modern days, there are a lot of ways to make wine, some simple on the lines our ancestors, and some as complicated as you would like them.

Thankfully, home made wines have become a fad the world over and with the pleasure of making wine at home, the demand for better ingredients, automation and fast maturity of the wine have grown by leaps and bounds.

The modernization has not, as expected, improved in any way the process of wine making. You can still the best wines in the traditional way at home, with the ingredients that you can pick from the shelf of your kitchen. However, the hi-tech's contribution has been to fast forward the maturity time of the wine. This development has made it possible for people to have their wine, almost immediately after it has been bottled and dispatched to the market. Many love this development because the patience of a human being is not the same today, that had been some hundred years ago.

The second great achievement and gift of science-technology to the making of wine is that the grapes quality has become much better, and much more uniform in taste. Hence, the wine's flavor is fast to develop and better to taste.

What the modern could not do, was to improve in any way the art of wine making. The basic wine making art remains the same.

Extract the pulp of the grapes by soaking and then crushing and pressing
Add your helping ingredients, i.e. yeast, sugar, etc and leave for fermentation for an initial period of about one week
After 7-10 days take the liquid and strain it of the grape skins and other ingredients also allow the liquid to ferment further, while being careful to maintain the temperature at 60-65 degrees Fahrenheit.
Wait till the fermentation totally stops (you will know when the bubbling of the liquid ceases completely)
Strain the liquid again through very fine cheese cotton cloth and let it ferment again - this time for the secondary fermentation. You can repeat this step once or twice at intervals of one or two months
Bottle the resulting liquid and cork them tightly. The bottles will need to be left standing for about five days, after which these should be stored at an angle at 55F for 6-24 months. For white wines, aging should not exceed 12 months.
Sample the wine; if you find it matured, enjoy it. If not, let it age for about six months to one year more.
This is the basic process and no matter what twists and turns you add to it, the process remains this much. The complications that you read in different recipes are most of the times unnecessary and avoidable. Stick to the ancient style of wine-making and you can do no wrong.

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http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Darren_Williger

Winemaking at home is much easier than a lot of people believe. Really, if you can make soup, you can make wine. Granted, there are a number of things that can go wrong with the wine making process, but as long as you are diligent and mindful of sanitizing your equipment, you have little to worry about.

Making delicious wine can be another matter entirely. Wine connoisseurs take into account a number of different variables in what they believe makes a great wine. Making wine that lives up to these heady standards can be difficult, especially if you are unsure of what methods to use.

So, how do we do this without breaking the bank? There are a number of ways to get great ingredients for wine at a very low cost to you. Here are a few ideas and suggestions to get you started:

Winemaking Kits

Most wine supply stores and wine making websites will have a number of different kits available to make wine with. These kits often contain all of the ingredients you need to make a tasty batch of wine. These kits come with detailed instructions on how to prepare your wine, as well as explanations of the additives and other ingredients used in them. If you are new to winemaking, then this is probably the easiest and most cost effective way to go.

Farmer's Markets

If you are wanting to make fruit wine, and you are not wanting to make wine from a kit, then going to your local farmer's market is a great way to procure the fruit you need in the quantities required to make a large batch of wine. There are lots of benefits to going to a farmer's market. You pay low costs for what you get, because you are buying directly from the farmers. The fruit you get is more than likely free of the harmful chemicals and preservatives that get sprayed on produce at the grocery store. It is easier to find organically grown fruit. Best of all, you will be actively supporting your local economy.

Local Wine Supply Stores

This is another great way to support the local economy. There are, more than likely, many home winemakers in your area. Tracking down a local wine supply store will definitely help your wallet, as buying from these stores eliminates the need to pay for shipping and other costs associated with ordering from a website. Also, shopping at a local store allows you to find some great deals from time to time, and you will probably be able to get free advice and suggestions on what types of ingredients and equipment that will work best for you.

Ingredients and additives

There are a LOT of different additives and other ingredients that you can add to your wine. If you know what they do, it may be possible to find a suitable substitution. For instance, if your recipe calls for an acid blend, you might be able to suffice with adding a couple tablespoons of lemon juice. If your recipe has tannins added to it, then perhaps you'd rather add raisins or some strongly brewed black tea, instead of adding the commercially available tannins. There are countless things you can do.

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Airlocks are a vital part of the home winemaker's equipment. Fitting into a bung or rubber stopper that is used as a closure for the carboy (secondary fermenter), an airlock should allow carbon dioxide gas to escape while keeping air out. Many new winemakers don't seem to know exactly what do with an airlock.

I've seen two wrong ways of using the cylinder shaped airlocks:

1. An Empty Airlock

An airlock needs to have liquid in it in order to stop air from entering into the carboy and possibly contaminating the wine. An empty airlock, while allowing carbon dioxide gas to escape, is offering zero protection to the wine as air and bacteria can get in. The liquids that are commonly used include plain water, a potassium metabisulfite and water solution, or vodka.

2. A full Airlock

While a full airlock will offer protection against air getting into the wine, it does not allow carbon dioxide gas to escape. Indeed, while a fermentation is going on, if the airlock is overfilled, the carbon dioxide gas building up in the carboy will cause the rubber bung or stopper to blow out of the opening of the carboy - and you've just lost your protection from air and other contaminants.

The Correct Way:

So how full is "full enough" when using standard cylinder type airlocks? If you look closely at the large cylinder portion (not the tube that is inserted into the bung or stopper), you will see a line about half way between the top and bottom. You should fill the airlock to this line before inserting the internal plastic dome. Then, snap the dust cover over the top.

Doing it the correct way will protect your wine while allowing carbon dioxide to escape. Even over filling too much beyond the line on the airlock can slow down the degassing process.

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