The best tutorial for making grape wine at home for beginners/ Homemade wine / Christmas wine recipe

Hi folks, I'm Veena. Welcome to Paddy Cake. As my first recipe for this Christmas, I decided to post a much requested one. An easy recipe for making red wine at home the right way and in 21 days. And I'll give you a whole lot of tips and useful information as we go along. I'll be making the process as scientific as we possibly can when it comes to homebrewing. We'll use minimum ingredients and mostly use stuff we have at home. To give you enough time to make this wine for Christmas, I had to start shooting this video in late October. At that time of year, black grapes were not available. The only variety of grapes that were available were red grapes. But you can use the same recipe I'll be showing you to make wine from black grapes too. Last year, I had posted a video on how to make ginger wine for Christmas and it got a really good response from you all. I sincerely hope you love this video too. Now let's get started. Let's start making a robust elegant wine with a decent alcohol content and which will taste exactly like commercially available port wine. Let's start by preparing some sugar syrup. Here I have 800 grams of granulated sugar which I'll add to this vessel. To it, I'll add 500 ml plus 500 ml plus 250 ml that is one and a quarter liters of water in all. I'll turn on the heat, keep it on medium high and stir this solution till all the sugar dissolves. Now that the sugar has dissolved, we'll bring the syrup to a rolling boil. Then reduce the heat to medium, let it boil for around two to three minutes and then turn off the heat and let the syrup cool. In the meanwhile, here's 50 grams of wheat which I've washed well several times and which we'll be adding to the crushed grape mix to add body to the wine. We'll roast these on medium low heat for a few minutes. These are now dry and also well sanitized. I've transferred them to a sanitized bowl. This brings me to an important point that I have to stress. Cleanliness and proper sanitization is the most important step for preserving homemade wine and preventing it from being contaminated by unwanted bacteria and other germs and that is why your hands and every piece of equipment you use while brewing wine must be thoroughly sanitized. Here are some of the things I've sanitized for today but I must clarify that I haven't used any chemical sanitizers, just soap and warm water. After that, I rinsed my equipment with plenty of boiling hot water and then dried everything. You might be wondering is sanitizing with boiling hot water enough for keeping the wine uncontaminated for several months or a year? Is this safe for the long term? Maybe not but for the short term it is. It's fine meaning if you're going to consume the homemade wine within around three months you can be almost sure the wine will stay good till then. It just might stay good even for six months but why take chances, no? Okay, like I told you I'm using red grapes. They weigh one and a half kilos and they are seeded grapes and that's good for flavor and improving the quality of the wine. I've washed the grapes thrice in plenty of tap water and we'll now immerse them in salt water for around 15 minutes. I'll sprinkle two tablespoons of salt on the grapes and then pour some boiled and cooled water over them. Now that 15 minutes are up, I'll drain away the salt water and then rinse the grapes with plenty of boiled and cooled water. Here are the washed grapes. I've sanitized my hands by using antibacterial hand wash and then rinsing them with boiled and cooled water and so I'll now separate the grapes from the stalks and stems and also discard any spoiled grapes. I'm transferring the good ones to this parath. I haven't found a single bad grape till now and now we'll give the grapes a final rinse with boiled and cooled water and transfer them to a colander to let any excess water drain away. It's now time to crush the grapes and transfer them to the wide-mounted container we'll be using for the first fermentation. The container could be a glass jar or a ceramic or stainless steel one, not a container made of aluminum or any other metal but it could even be a plastic one. Only make sure the plastic container is made from food grade plastic like this one. Let me quickly explain which plastics are categorized as food grade and how to identify them. You might have noticed that many plastic items have the triangular recycling symbol. If you look closely, you'll see a number stamped inside that triangle. Well, if that number is 1, 2, 4, 5 or 7, that indicates the item is made from food grade plastic. For our purpose however, you have to look for the numbers 1, 2 or 5. In my opinion, food grade plastic containers are best for using as fermentation jars. Like glass and ceramic containers, they don't affect the taste of the wine but they are also light and easier to handle than glass or ceramic jars. Coming back to our brewing, you could use a masher like these to crush the grapes or you could use your clean hands. Just remember, you shouldn't crush them completely to a pulp. You need to just break the outer skin. Let's crush a few grapes at a time and transfer them to the fermentation jar and now we'll transfer the sugar syrup to this jar. We'll use a sanitized steel or wooden spoon to stir everything. You can see the seeds of the grapes in the liquid. The liquid mix should not fill the jar right up to the top. There should be at least two inches of head space like this, if not more. Why? Because the yeast we'll be adding for fermentation to take place will feed on the sugars in this mixture and convert them into alcohol and at the same time also produce carbon dioxide gas. We need the head space for the gas that will be released once the fermentation starts. Now let's add in the wheat grains and stir everything and then add in the yeast. We are using the same yeast used in baking and not the special wine yeast which is costly in India. This is three quarters of a teaspoon of instant dry yeast and so I'm adding it directly into the mixture. However, if you're going to use active dry yeast you'll have to first activate it. We'll stir the contents of the jar well so that the yeast is well dispersed. Within a few hours vigorous fermentation will commence. So we'll now tie the mouth of the jar with a sanitized folded kitchen napkin that will allow the released gas to escape into the air and at the same time prevent dust and insects from falling into the fermentation liquid. We'll let the primary fermentation which will be vigorous during the first five days go on for 12 days but we'll open the jar and stir its contents with a sanitized spoon once every day during this period of 12 days. Now let's place the lid of the jar lightly on top. I'll keep this jar in a cool dark space in my house where it will not be disturbed and since fermentation has to take place in the dark and this plastic jar is transparent I'll cover it with a thick clean towel. An important point I have to mention make sure your yeast is not past its expiry date. Now I'll see you after 24 hours. The grape mixture has fermented for one full day and it's time to give it a stir using a sanitized spoon. You can see the crushed grapes and their skins have all moved to the top of the jar and at the bottom we have the wine. It has a pale creamish color. If we had used black grapes the color would have been a reddish pink which would then deepen to a bright red color as the fermentation proceeds. But with red grapes we can only hope for a pale pink color like that of a rosé wine. However I have an idea for getting the color of this wine to deepen. But we'll wait for one more day. Let's stir the contents. Notice how much carbon dioxide has been released from within the liquid because of the vigorous fermentation. We have to stir everything for at least a minute. During this period of fermentation we allow oxygen from the air to enter the jar through the cloth napkin. At this stage contact with oxygen is good because the yeast needs oxygen to thrive. That's why it won't matter even if you use a larger fermentation jar than this one with even more head space on the top of the liquid. Now let's tie the mouth of the jar again. See you tomorrow. I'm back after another 24 hours. Now this is what I plan to do to get a deeper colored wine. Here I have 100 grams of black raisins with seeds. Now these raisins are actually dried black grapes and I thought if the pigment from these raisins can get extracted into the wine like the pigment from the skins of black grapes we could end up getting a deeper colored wine though maybe not as dark red as you get with black grapes. I have rinsed these raisins with plenty of boiled and cooled water and now we let them soak in boiling hot water for around 30 minutes. After 30 minutes we'll drain away the water and transfer the raisins to a clean plate. I'll use a clean knife and chop them. That done let's check how our wine is doing. The color is slightly deeper than yesterday and the fermentation is going well. Let's give the contents a stir. Add in the chopped raisins and stir everything again. Okay I'll see you again after two more days on day five. Wow in just two days the raisins have added quite a good amount of color to the wine. I'm so glad my idea is working and as for the fermentation it's going strong. I'll see you now on day 13 after eight more days when we'll stop the primary fermentation and move on to the secondary one. It's now day 13. By now more than 80 percent of the alcohol has already been produced and the yeast activity is now slowing down. You can see there's less production of carbon dioxide gas. We have to now filter the wine. Once again let me remind you that everything you use should be sanitized. I'm using a water filter but you could also use a steel strainer lined with a napkin. I'll place a clean and thin napkin over the filter and then scoop the grape skins and other solids that are at the top of the wine and transfer them to the napkin. Now let's gather the ends of the napkin together and squeeze out any wine that got transferred along with the grape skins. We'll discard this and start filtering the wine. We'll also discard the wheat grapes that had settled to the bottom of the jar. The wine is cloudy at this stage but it will clear to some extent during the secondary fermentation. Now this container has a capacity of three liters and you can see we have produced around two and a half liters of wine and it has such a sweet aroma. Our brewing is coming along well. We'll now transfer the wine into the secondary fermentation vessels. We'll use suitable containers we have at home but these containers need to have narrow mugs because now the rules have changed. Now there has to be minimum contact with oxygen or no contact at all because oxygen could change some of the wine into vinegar and give us a sour tasting wine which we don't want. That is also why we have to fill these containers almost to the top leaving very little headspace for air which as you know contains oxygen. If you don't have narrow-mouthed bottles or containers like these use whichever ones you have at home but they should be sanitized and dry and have tight lids. Now since fermentation will still continue for a while though at a very slow pace gas will continue to be produced meaning we have to let the released carbon dioxide escape but at the same time keep the oxygen out. Special equipment is used for this purpose but we won't have to buy anything. I'll explain what we'll do instead. Let's store the bottles in the dark and once every day for the next nine days we'll take the caps off briefly for around 15 to 20 seconds to release any gas inside the bottles and then screw them on fully again. This will allow the gas inside to escape but will restrict the contact with oxygen. Also since we want the wine to become clearer during the secondary fermentation see that you don't move these bottles for the entire period of nine days because we don't want to disturb the sediment that will be forming at the bottom. I'll now see you on day 22, nine days from now. This secondary filtration could be reduced to six days if you're in a hurry. Here we are after 21 days of brewing. Notice the sediment at the bottom and the tiny amount of gas bubbles at the top indicating the fermentation is almost complete and this is what I have sanitized for today. We have now reached the last stage of brewing our grape wine. Now we have to filter the wine without disturbing the sediment and then bottle it. I'll start with this bottle. We have to discard this. I'm done with the filtering. To bottle the wine you could use either colored glass bottles or colorless ones as we'll be storing them in the fridge protected from light. I have three bottles of 750 ml capacity and a smaller one of 375 ml. We'll fill them to just below the shoulder level like this. This small bottle is only half full. The wine has cleared up considerably, hasn't it? The more standing time you give it, the more it will clear naturally without having to add any chemical agents. As a final step to increase the alcohol level a little and enhance the taste and at the same time keep the activity of any residual yeast to a minimum, we'll fortify the wine with a little brandy. 30 ml or two tablespoons for the bigger bottles and 15 ml or one tablespoon for the smaller one. Our delicious grape wine is now ready to be enjoyed right away or you could wait for a few more days or weeks for it to clear even further. See that you store the bottles in the fridge and take the caps off briefly for a few seconds every three to four days till the formation of gas bubbles stops completely and consume the wine within around two months. You have to take these precautions because it is a home-brewed wine without any chemical stabilizers, preservatives etc. Okay, time to say cheers. The wine smells great and looks so tempting. Don't forget you can use the same process I've showed you with or without the raisins for making a richer deeper red grape wine with black grapes. I hope many of you will try out my recipe for making delicious red wine at home in time for Christmas but you'll have to start brewing within 10 days and then get ready to bring some Christmas cheer to your home with your rich aromatic home-brewed grape wine but before that if you found this tutorial useful please like and share my video. Have any questions, post them in the comments box. I'll be so happy to answer them. See you in my next Christmas video. Till then take care and stay connected.