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Conquistadude

Diabolical GENIUS!!!
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Hello all, It has been some time since I was here last. Life is a crazy road lol, well I came to the wonderful people of this forum for and opinion on a Project I am helping to write. The person Is in a collage speech class, and need to tell an informative speech. she chose the topic of wine making. So I am giving her my help. I also figured that this might help people from time to time so I was going to ask what you think of it so far. to kinda help me along, and to See if I forgot something thus far so here it is. Its in sections because it will be on a powerpoint.

Home Winemaking:

Section 0:
This is how to make wine at home, for the modern winemaker. Traditional winemaking is much more in depth then this, but over time the home method has become more “streamlined” more accessible. Into a Hobby rather then a lifestyle. Home winemaking skips a lot of traditional “small steps”. While keeping the rest. And is goaled toward a small personal production, instead of a commercial product.

section 1:

Decisions, Decisions…
• Wine from the kit…
-designed to drink sooner (some less than 30 days, from start to finish)
-Convenient, everything is premeasured and equipped with specific instructions
-nearly Idiot-proof
• Wine from scratch…
-Complete creative control (more of an art than a process)
-More enjoyable
- fulfilling
-you choose your supplies/chemicals:
fruit, specific yeast etc.
-more variables involved

For the sake of this, we will be doing this from scratch.

section 2
Equipment Needed…
• Carboy, or demijohn
-good for fermentation as well as aging
• Hydrometer
-used to determine the alcohol level and specific gravity of the wine
• Thermometer
-wine has to be a certain temperature to ferment (not too cold)
• Carboy brush
• Fermentation lock (air lock)
-allows fermentation gases to escape, while keeping air out
• Siphon tubing
-long plastic tube instrumental in the racking process
• Wine thief or unused turkey baster
-used for testing the wine throughout the entire process
• Funnel
• Long plastic spoon
• & a bung with a bunghole
Section 3
3 necessary skills
• Reading a Hydrometer
o A hydrometer is used to help you control how much alcohol by volume (ABV) you want the finished wine to be. And to help keep track of the status of your wine. This will help determined how much water and sugar you will need to raise or lower the specific Gravity (SG) of your wine, with is the measuring the how dense the sugars are making the must.
• Read a Thermometer.
o The tempiture of you fermenting wine is very important. If the yeast are too cold they will kind of shut off, stalling or stopping fermentation. If they are to hot they will be over stressed and produce negative flavors, and die faster.
• Using and acid testing kit.
o Knowing this aciditiy helps insuring the overall flavor, and is a key element in creating the body of the wine.

section 4
Chemicals…
• Campden
-stopping uncontrolled fermentation, killing yeast
• Wine or champagne yeast
-fermentation
• Yeast nutrient
-supports healthy yeast, helps yeast stay alive throughout the fermentation process
• Yeast Energizer
-an energy drink for the yeast
• Acid blend
-helps raise the acid to the needed level.
• Fining Agents
-pulls dead yeast and fruit particles to the bottom of the carboy, helps in racking
• Pectic Enzymes
-breaks down fruit aids in gaining juice
• Tannin
- that give wine a bitter, dry, or puckery feeling in the mouth
• Sugar.
-For the yeast to eat, and to make it sweet.
• Water

section 5

Selecting your Flavor
• For home winemaking it’s hard to find the standard flavors outside of a kit, and in a kit all choices are made for you, juice in a can—yum!
• So, the fun of from scratch, there is a world of flavor possibilities awaiting you, Any and all fruit is at your finger tips. Melons, apples, berries ,not just grapes. And not always fruit. Honey, Even onions.
• Sort out you fruit. A benefit to making it from scratch is you get to make sure the purity of you fruit. And pick out all the bad parts.


section 6
Cleanliness is Next to Godliness
• Before you can start you must clean and sanitize your equipment, iodine is most convenient, natural.
• Sanitizers that are easily rinsed away are best, Cleaner residue will effect fermentation as well as the final flavor.
• There are Items just for cleaning Wine equipment. But you need to get them at Brew shops, on online. Some that serves more then one purpose. Like potassium metabisulfite and KMETA. Which are Wine Stabilizers. They help protect color and flavors. And stops any leftover yeast from restarting. And are used when preparing bottles.

section 7
Preparing for the Must
• Again clean is the key. Just as if you were going to clean the fruit to be eaten, you need to clean the fruit for winemaking.
• Determine what method you will us to obtain your Juice! there are several.
o Freezing and or pectic enzyme.
 Pectic Enzyme is a catalyst that help to rapidly breaks down fruit and helps it to increase the juice yield. And remove some Haze and aid in clearing the final product
 Freezing does almost the same thing. It breaks down the cell walls of the fruit, thus increasing the juice yield. It works better, but some fruit and other foods flavor change when frozen. This will produce a nice amount of pure juice without any work at all. And you still have the un-juice portions to make even more juice.
o Crush or using a Juicer
 The old fashion method is to crush or press the grapes either using your feet, or a pressing device. This takes more time, and depend on the fruit might yield more or less juice. You get less pulp in the long run. This allows for more Pomace. Pomace is the leftover fruit after forced juice extraction. A great way to introduce natural Tannin and other additives
 Using juicer will juice the fruit completely, Its faster. but produce more pulp. Which will make the clarification process take longer.
o Pomace method. Pomace is the leftover fruit after forced juice extraction. A great way to introduce natural Tannin and other additives.
 The simple and traditional method is to just let this crushed pomace float on the top freely.
 Another way is to place the pomace in a cheesecloth bag and let that float on top. This keeps it all together, and makes it easier to remove when the time comes. If you used a juicer, this will most likely be your method because you pulped the fruit skins and other parts.
 And the last it to simply not have it at all.

Section 8
Starting the fermentation process.
• Now that you have your nice and clean fermentation vessel, and your Selected Fruit juice, and your array of chemicals and additives at your command. It is time to start the actual process of making it into wine.
o We start by adding the juice, and water to the primary vessel. And to stir in sugar as needed. During this time is important to make use of the hydrometer to help determine the amount of sugar to add.
o After you have you juice, water and sugar all mixed together, and your SG is just where you want it, it is time to add Campden. What this does is kill the “native” yeast and bacteria that would start a premature, and uncontrolled fermentation. I other words would start fermenting, before our added yeast would. Wait 24 hours after this before you add yeast.
o Next add yeast, yeast nutrient, yeast energizer, and depending on your acid tests, add acid blend. Cover and place the fermentation lock, and keep in a warm place. About 72*f-78*f. Now it is a waiting game. It can take several days before you see and hear the signs of fermentation. But as long as conditions are what they should be, the yeast are doing their job of eating the sugar, and crapping out alcohol.
o Keep a log, and check your Must regularly. Checking the SG, the Temp, and if you want, the acidity. Fermentation can take anywhere from 4days long to 3 weeks, even longer depending on the starting SG, there fruit, the temp. There is no exact time frame.
 
That's great that she chose our hobby! Boy, that's going to be a long presentation, though. Has she helped you through some of these processes? Just curious.
 
not really, but she has seen me do it a lot. and a lot of this is incase she needs to answer question, this is just her info card that the power point is going to be based off.
 
I would re-write section 6 on cleanliness. That is very old school info. Also it says Potassium Meta Bisulfate AND K-Meta. Both are the same thing. Should read "or as it is commonly known".

Iodine is fine IF used correctly and I have noticed most don't. Most of the time I have seen someone use Iodophor the just dump it is and do not measure. You really need to be precise with Iodine.

I would recommend just using the K-Meta as a sanatizing agent. Recommend bulk powder over the Camden tabs. Also mention Sorbate for stabilizing. K-Meta is an anti-oxident, Sorbate is anti-fermentation.
 
I will. I am trying to not go to into detail. Most of the info on this is not even going to be on the Power point. most of it is side notes. But I well add the sorbate. any other points you think I should change with this thus far?
 
I will. I am trying to not go to into detail. Most of the info on this is not even going to be on the Power point. most of it is side notes. But I well add the sorbate. any other points you think I should change with this thus far?

Well, she COULD offer samples (or maybe a wayward bottle to the professor for a better grade) :D
 
lol she did actually, she got a 95%

I just wish the bottle I gave he to give wasn't so high in acids, didn't have time to do anything about it though.
 
lol she did actually, she got a 95%

I just wish the bottle I gave he to give wasn't so high in acids, didn't have time to do anything about it though.

I've noticed the wines I am most critical of still beat out taste of any store bought brand. We ARE our worst critics, you know!
 

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