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How to make inexpensive wines from common grocery store items

Not every one of us can afford to have a glass of good wine on our tables with our meals. However, if it were possible, everybody would love to the accompaniment of this beverage. Wine is a drink that has celebrated from time immemorial. There are records that show it brewing and presence on the favorite list from the time man has learnt to cultivate his food.

This beverage is highly recommended for consumption for men, women and even children. The red grape wine in particular has shown some exceptional aging reversal properties, as well as many medical benefits if taken regularly because it is extremely rich in antioxidants.

For those who cannot buy wine, all is not lost. Anyone can make a reasonably good wine with ingredients of your kitchen shelf. This article will show you how to do this. With a little practice you will be able to brew your own inexpensive wine which in taste can compete with the best.

What you will need for your home-made wine

1. Half a cup of sugar
2. 144 ounces of grape juice (about three cans) – ensure that these are 100 percent grape juice and have no other additives
3. A measurement container where could measure one gallon of liquid
4. Two-three ordinary balloons
5. Water – it is recommended to use distilled water, but you could use your normal tap water to further cut the costs
6. A pin which will be used to make a few holes in the balloon(s)
7. Wine yeast. However if you do not have it, your normal baker’s yeast will do just as well, or the yeast you use to make bread. The baker’s yeast is the least expensive
8. For the beginners, who need a bit more orientation and help, it would be good if you ensure you have with you, a measuring cup, a rubber band or a tight rope, a funnel and bottles.

Roll up your sleeves and get ready to make wine

1. Take the funnel and then pour the juice into the container. Pour all the three cans (total 144 ounces) and then pour twice the amount of water. If you have three cans of juice, pour six cans of water.
2. Now, take this whole mixture and mix it thoroughly. Shake it till the mixture becomes totally homogenous.
3. At this point, add the half cup of sugar. Then, shake this mixture again thoroughly. The sugar should totally be dissolved at the end of the shaking / mixing.
4. Now, take the yeast. Following the instructions, you hydrate the yest and get it ready for use. Once the yeast is ready, add this too to the mixture you have and shake it again.
5. Once this is completed, you now tie the balloon to the mouth of the container. Ensure that the balloon has some holes in it before tying it up to the mouth of the container.
6. There is a special way of tying the balloon to the mouth of the container. It should be tightly done (here you could use the string or rubber band to tie it up) and you should ensure that the top of the balloon is not standing up but is inside the mouth of the container.
7. Place this container in a warm place, where it should not be disturbed for at least half a day (12 hours). At the end of this time, you will hear the popping sound of bubbles. This is proof that the yeast is working well.
8. As the days pass (the process would take some 2-3 weeks), the balloon will get inflated with the gas generated by the fermentation process of the grape juice. As long as the balloon is inflated, the process is on. You will know when the wine is done, when the balloon deflates.
9. Your wine is done! Now you will have to pour it slowly through a strainer into whatever bottles you want to store it into. The bottles should preferably be dark in color.
10. Refrigerate and enjoy your wine which cost you almost nothing – but it is YUMMY!

Keep trying – I’ve had so much fun over the past 15 years just experimenting with different methods and I’ll encourage you to also. First – keep with your recipes and tips step by step and then start creating your own concoctions – it’s a blast! Please bookmark and share this site – THANKS!

PS. Shout out to my typo catching friend Eric Hwang, the renowned wine aficionado and fellow foodie with an awesome blog, I highly recommend checking him out at Bricks of Wine.

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Here are some basic tips for bottling and aging your wine at home. First, a cool environment for storing wines would be ideal because it reduces the effects that oxidation will have on the wine. This is the main reason why you need cool temperatures to store your wines, and why many experts in how to make wine from the home recommend that you store your bottled wine completely out of direct sunlight. You may have noticed that even commercial wineries often store bottled wine in dark cellars or basements. This lessens the incidences of oxygen production in the bottled wine that could alter the taste, often for the worst.

Follow this important rule but don’t get too worried about simple changes in the  temperatures where your wine is being stored. A few degrees higher or lower in the temperature scale will have minute effects on your bottled wine that would not be discernible. But, when learning how to make wine from home, it is important to prepare a storage area in advance so that you are not wasting time fretting around for a cool place to store your wine.

It should be quite obvious to you that temperature fluctuations can really be harmful to your bottled wine. This means that a room with a 65 degrees Fahrenheit stable temperature is always preferable to a room whose temperatures are indeed cooler than 65 degrees but will fluctuate from 65 down to 50 then back up again to 65.

Insane temperature fluctuations like this are a challenge for the home wine maker because often it is difficult to find storage at home where cooler temperatures can be controlled to a stable range. Therefore, it is important when undertaking how to make homemade wine that will be good to taste, to prepare the storage area in advance.

Rapid changes in temperature will change the flavors quite significantly. The aromas will wear down, the wine will taste bland, and maybe your bottled wine will lose that character you were seeking for that bottled wine variant. Though your bottled wine may be able to put up with one night of temperature fluctuations, when the temperature flux occurs over a longer period, the stored bottled wine will eventually wear down under these kind of stresses.

When the temperature rises, the wine itself will expand and so in turn, will the wine bottle itself. You will not notice this change because the wine bottle will not balloon out of phase. But natural physics tells us they both will indeed react this way to higher temperatures. When temperature falls, the wine and bottle will then contract. The wine does not expand and contract at the same rate as the bottle though they are subjected to the same temperature in the room. The wine itself tends to expand and contract more than the bottle it is in.

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