MARY MILLER
THE SIGNAL
Ah, the joys of making your own wine.
My experience with making my first batch of homemade wine is still questionable. Questions like, what am I doing, why am I doing this, what have I gotten myself into and oh no I think I added the wrong ingredient are just a few that come to mind.
The idea to start making wine originally came from my Aunt Jenny from Oberlin, Louisiana. Aunt Jenny began making her own wine more than 10 years ago and now makes the whole process seem effortless. I am here to tell you, it is not.
There is a lot that goes into the process of turning fruit into drinkable wine. Just about any fruit can turn into alcohol once the fruit is fermented, but to actually make something worthy to drink takes a little effort, practice, patience, care and desire.
Blueberries were my fruit of choice for my first attempt at the winemaking procedure. After I blended up all 15 pounds of blueberries the recipe called for, I made the mistake of putting
everything in the carboy, including the yeast and pulp, all at once. I thought I could speed up the process by adding everything together and skipping some essential steps. I was entirely wrong; it
actually set me back a bit.
When fresh fruit is used to make wine as opposed to concentrate or puree, Camden tablets
must be added and allowed to sit for 24 hours prior to adding the wine yeast. The tablets are used to kill off any wild yeast the natural fruit produces.
Also, it is not a good idea to have the pulp freely combined with all the other ingredients; it creates a mess in the later steps to come. The pulp should be held in a mesh bag during the primary fermentation stage to avoid causing future straining problems.
The primary fermentation stage should last between 5-7 days, but when you (me) fail to follow instructions properly and add ingredients that don’t go together, such as the Camden tablets
and the wine yeast, it tends to set the process back a few days.
After a couple of days I noticed my would-be wine wasn’t showing any signs of fermentation. Fermentation is noticeable by the release of gases. You can actually see it, but after a couple
of days my concoction showed no such action; thus I did my research and discovered all I had
to do was add more wine yeast. I did, and out came the bubbles. I knew I had it right at that point.
After primary fermentation takes place, all the liquids from that first carboy must be siphoned
into a second carboy and left to sit for 4-6 weeks or longer depending on taste preference. The
longer wine sits, the bolder the flavor… usually, if done right that is. Siphoning five gallons of pulp is a time-consuming task, which I came to find out. Finally I got everything into the other container, only to realize I still had to somehow rid my wine of the pulp.
Not sure what to do or even how I was going to do it at that point, I ran over to DeFalco’s, a home-brewing supply store located in Houston. The sales people were very nice and understanding of the mistake I made. It wasn’t the first time DeFalco’s had dealt with such a situation, and they knew exactly what to do.
I had to purchase a five-gallon bucket and an industrial-sized strainer. If I thought the siphoning issue was a long process, the straining part took even longer. The pulp should have been strained in the very beginning, but since it was my first time at winemaking, I didn’t realize the importance of following steps in chronological order. Lesson well learned on my part – don’t skip steps, follow instructions.
Only time will tell if my attempt to create wine will be successful. I am waiting out the four weeks with my fingers crossed. Taking everything I have learned from this first experience, I am already applying that knowledge toward my next attempt. For the next batch, I am going with strawberry. Cheers!
