How to Make Wine at Home - Small Batch Wine

Making wine in small batches is a great idea if you're trying to get a taste for homemade wines and ciders without investing in all the equipment. Even if you're a seasoned home brewer it's a great idea to use small batches if you want to test out recipes without possibly wasting a gallon or more of wine or cider. I'm going to share four very simple recipes that anyone can do at home using nothing more than a mason jar and an airlock. These small batch recipes will only be one quart or four cups and my goal is to keep the equipment list low and the recipes simple. It's important to note that anytime you are fermenting at home gases will be produced by the process of fermentation and need to escape the container some way or another. If you don't have an airlock that means that you'll need to burp your container by cracking open the lid several times a day. To make my life simpler I'm going to be using these very simple airlocks made by mason tops called a pickle pipe, funny name, that replaces the lid for the mason jar and allows all the CO2 produced to escape while not letting anything else in. So let's go ahead and get started and the first thing we'll do before starting these four small batch recipes is clean our equipment. First I wash all the jars and lids with dish soap to get rid of any unwanted debris. Then I generally use star sand sanitizer to kill any bacteria but if you're new to home brewing and don't have any effective way to sanitize your equipment you can simply wash your equipment with unscented soap and hot water and hope for the best. Sanitation is important because any unwanted bacterias may turn your alcohol into vinegar and your homebrew will be ruined and you'll be sad. That being said even if your equipment isn't perfectly sanitized chances are you'll be okay. So I have these four mason jars and their lids sanitized and ready to go so let's check out these four very basic small batch recipes. The first recipe is going to be a basic cider. The only ingredients that I'm using is apple juice and a quarter teaspoon of safale SO4 ale yeast. First I add the juice adding about an inch of headspace that way whenever the fermentation is active it does not overflow. Then I add the yeast. I put on the lid and allow the yeast to do its thing. Simple enough right? Let's move on to the second recipe. The next recipe I'll be doing is a maple cider fermented with maple syrup. I'm going to be adding a quarter pound of pure maple syrup filling the rest with cider and then also adding safale SO4 ale yeast. I leave an inch of headspace add the lid and then let the yeast get to work. The third recipe is going to be a very basic red wine with the only ingredients being welch's grape juice, one cup of sugar, and a quarter teaspoon of red star wine yeast. Once I add all the ingredients I am going to shake this up to incorporate the sugar into the juice and then I'm going to add my wine yeast. I'm going to add the lid and let the yeast do its thing. The fourth recipe is a personal first for me. It's called a piment and it is a red wine fermented with honey. For this recipe I weigh out half a pound of honey. I add the welch's grape juice. I'm also going to be shaking this one vigorously to incorporate the honey and then I add the quarter teaspoon of red star wine yeast. Once again I left about an inch of headspace that way whenever the fermentation acts up it does not overflow. If at any point in time your fermentation does overflow that's perfectly fine. Simply wipe off the top of your mason jar and if absolutely necessary pour a little bit out in the sink and then let it continue fermenting. Once I have all of these brews properly mixed with the yeast added they will sit in a room maintained around 65 to 70 degrees Fahrenheit. As the yeast wakens up and begins fermenting the sugar and the juices will be eaten by the yeast used for energy and the yeast will release ethanol and CO2 as a byproduct. The CO2 will be released from the mason top airlock and the ethanol will be the alcohol that we enjoy. After about a week or so of fermentation you'll notice some sediment building up at the bottom of your jar. This is a normal part of the fermentation process and to get rid of it pour the wine and cider into a new jar while being careful to not disturb the sediment at the bottom. Then fill the new jar back to the proper level with more grape or apple juice. You may have to do this a few times before fermentation is done. Once fermentation is done you will notice that no new bubbles have risen to the surface for a few days. At this point you can taste your brew and see how it is. If you're happy with it go ahead and enjoy your creation. If you prefer you can even let it age for months or even years. On a final note it's important to know that the pickle pipe is technically designed for fermenting veggies and is not really designed for the vigorous fermentation that you experience while making alcohol. While I think the pickle pipe works just fine, if you're not careful with your brews and you slosh them around to see how they're doing and how active the fermentation is you just might experience an old faithful moment and paint your ceiling red. If you prefer to use a more traditional airlock I have a link for that also down in the description below. But for now I'm going to stick with the pickle pipe because it's super easy to throw together, easy to clean, and easy to use. So there you have it ladies and gentlemen. This is one very simple method of making small batch wines and ciders at home. I'm so glad that all of you beautiful people could be here to learn how to do more things for and by yourself. As always if you got something out of this content I always appreciate it if you go ahead and hit that like button. If you want to see more from this channel go ahead and subscribe and become a part of a growing community. If you would like a link to the pickle pipe from Mason Tops there is a link down in the description below along with other useful links. I can't wait to see what we're doing next time but until then happy brewing!