Thanks for this whole series. I watched all 4 of the series and just started a watermelon wine. Your explanation and the steps are wonderful to tell me how to prevent problems as well. I used the raisins to make the starter and it worked great! Can't wait to see how it turns out. God bless you for all that you do.
More often than not I forget to take a reading of my wine at the beginning, I usually gauge it with the headache the morning after drinking. If everyone is ok it was lower alcohol, if we're all shuffling around like zombies it was high alchohol. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you & your family. Here's to hoping for a much better & healthier 2021
Almost got my blackberry/ grape wine ready to rack. I’m going to have to do more than one at a time like you. Great idea freezing. It does make a lot more liquid. Thank you so much for teaching me.
Thank you for you video! First harvest from a Pindal (Jelly) Palm! Did not want to just leave it for the Insects! I got every piece of fruit. Oh, this is my first time! You have made the process very simple. I have all the tools and a 5g empty water carboy! Thanks for the great content!!
You no doubt you will remember me. I had an issue back in 2022 with the sweetness of my wine. I just want you to know that I pulled it out of the fridge last week and it is the most incredible tasting wine ever. It is 2 years old. I wish I knew the alcohol content because it was really high!! So now I am making more. My gallon was white grape and crystal clear. I purchased a hydrometer.
Thank you for the video love that you do the hands on method! Im an american living in france so i absolutely love the old way of doing things. It impresses the locals 😂 God bless Jesus is King
I’ve been giving a lot of thought the past few days about trying my hand at wine making. I have an apple tree in my yard and my mother in law has a very prolific pear tree in her yard that she graciously shares with us. There’s only so much sauce, jelly and canned fruit one wants to make! I hate (Especially during this crazy time we’re living in right now😒) that a lot of those fruits are going to waste. I’m glad you recommended that particular wine making kit as that’s the one I was looking at on Amazon. Now I can order it thru your link😀. I’ll for sure be watching, and probably re-watching this playlist this summer! I can’t tell you how valuable the information you pass along is! Thank you for sharing your knowledge.
OK I'm finally ready to start this project !! I have 3 bottles and airlocks and i wanna make a grape wine, a mead of some sort (probably berry) and an apple cider :) so excited to try this project.. but I think I will run through your playlist one more time :)
Thank you Heidi. My Dad used to make a lot of wine, especially after we went scrimping as kids 😂😂 I'll have to ask him to help. Love your videos, great inspiration. Much gratitude ❤❤❤
Such a fascinating process. Thanks for remaking Part 1, this has been very helpful. Not sure we're ready to make our own wines, but we'll have these great videos to assist us if we do. Thanks and take care.
OMGOSH, I'M SO GLAD I FOUND YOU. GREAT CHANNEL. I INTEND ON LEARNING A GREAT DEAL. WILL BE USING YOUR VIDEOS TO AID THIS LEARNING PROCESS. I'M USING PRICKLY PEAR FRUIT (the tunas). I LIVE IN THE SONORAN DESERT AND THERE IS AN ABUNDANCE OF PRICKLY PEAR TUNAS AROUND ME. WILL BE MAKING MEAD AND WINE.
Lots of great tips! Thanks Heidi! You might want to drop the Barter talk around this particular subject. A.T.F. are pretty unforgiving S.O.B.'s.........
I started two gallons of wine today. Store bought 100% grape juice and plum juice. My ferment was bubbly this morning so I was excited. I only used 1 1/2 cups sugar because the juice was pretty sweet already. I am growing seedless muscadine hybrids called Razzmatazz. They are a small, seedless, reddish grapes but so flavorful. They can produce all year. Hopefully next year I will use my own grapes.
Heidi - I've been binge watching your videos (again)!!! The last thing I need is another hobby but.... I can't wait to try wine making! After watching the entire wine making playlist, I watched about 10 videos from various other folks on wine making and every one of them add some sort of yeast product. I love that yours uses the fermentation started instead of a purchased yeast. Thank you so much for all your great videos! Thanks to your motivation, I'm dehydrating up a storm these past few weeks. :-)
Merry Christmas. Enjoyed this video. Harvesting my orange tree today. I'll be starting an orange cranberry mead for the first time. Hoping it will turn out ok. Thank you so much!
Hi Heidi Well, after watching this series at least four times, I started my first batch of wine this morning. The only organic fruit I have are figs, grapefruit and satsuma. So of course I went with the hardest and did my figs. LOL. I'll recuperate and do the citrus my next day off (in 3 days). This is so exciting 😁(P.S. used the raisin fermentation starter)
How ironic. I was just thinking yesterday that I needed to watch your wine videos because it's something I would like to start doing. Great video and thanks for the links!
Canning the last of the chicken, have a dehydrator full of calendula-picked this morning, roasted peppers for bruschetta (waiting on them to cool). I have strawberries & blueberries that need to be used, so after watching this, I'll make 2 wine starters. (maybe mead- that sounds delicious!) Researching you in between other jobs, thanks Heidi!
Great info, I really would like to try, we cut our grapes way back in fall last year and they didn’t produce very well this year, so maybe in this summer I will have more. Thanks for sharing, blessings
Started my first gallon today. Wish me luck. I used dehydrated pear for a starter and white grape juice. I forgot to test with the hydrometer before I added my starter. Oops. Thanks Heidi for all the info.
I do not cook my grapes, I use them raw and press by hand. That is just how I do it but if you cook or steam juice, you will certainly NEED to make sure you use a starter of some kind
Thank you, yes I watched your starter video, and have raspberry going from dehydrated raspberries I did. Is it possible to do half gallon? Ps I don't realize I was on my son's acct when I originally posted.. lol
I just subscribed because of your versatile fermentation starters, in particular, I have always wanted to make wine, bread and soda. Some years ago I tried to make wine but gave up because it seemed so complicated. If I had seen your channel I would have continued. I 'have' made yogurt successfully for several decades and I wanted to share my method except yogurt making doesn't fit the theme of my channel.
Mead takes a long time to mature, so if you don't like the taste of it after it's done fermenting and clearing...say within a couple of months, just leave it to age in a dark, colder place for at least 6 months to a year. That's when mead begins to shine. And it can literally go from disgusting to one of the best wines you've ever tasted. The alcohol and tartness smooths out, the fruity flavors come out, together with other layers you wouldn't even expect and best of all, the honey aroma and velvety essence comes back with a vengeance, lol! Often it's so forward it becomes the first thing you smell and taste. Thing is, that happens 6-9 months into aging...so patience with mead is crucial. :) Cheers!
Hi Mrs. Rain. I didn't know you had a series on Wine and Mead making. I am so blessed to see this. Please and thank you. Love this. I love your in-depth step by step instructions. It is so helpful. I purchased wine books too but you explain it so much better. I am a reader but visual learner as well. Shalom and Blessings sis.
Coming late to your wine making party. I make all kinds of wine but mostly country wines (wines from fruits, flowers, and vegetables other than grapes). If I may, it looks as though you are doing far more work to prepare your fruit for the yeast than you need to. Fruit with peel need to be "crushed" and crushing simply means that you expose a little of the flesh of the fruit to enable the yeast easy access. A very easy approach is to push the fruit through a milk crate or a large sieve. Enough of the fruit will have their peel torn and the flesh exposed. Those that are still intact will fall prey to the yeast colony as that colony grows larger and more vigorous. The acids in the juice and the liquid itself will both help rupture the skins and peel, opening the door for the yeast cells. Pressing the fruit is typically done after most of the fermentation has completed. Now, you can use your cider press or press using your hands around cheese cloth. Indeed, professional /commercial winemakers often do a second run after pressing. There is still a great deal of flavor and color retained by the fruit, though all of the sugars will have been fermented, so you might add about 2 lbs of fermentable sugars to every batch of fruit you had used to make a gallon of wine. The fruit will be awash with yeast, so you don't need to add any more starter, and you will need to add enough water to fill each carboy. This wine is often known as the "second running" and while it will taste really good (all things being equal) it won't taste quite as good as the first running, so this wine was often used as the wine maker's table wine and was not usually intended for sale and the like. I say this even as I am making a 5 gallon batch of mulberry wine and a one gallon batch of second running from the berries I just (hand) pressed.
@@kb2vca I have been making wines and meads for many years and have learned what works best for me with the different fruits. I find it easiest to freeze then hand press the grapes rather than using my press. That I use with my apples and rhubarb. Because I freeze the grapes, it is best to add my homemade starter but I always add it anyway just to insure I get a good ferment. I do not find the hand pressing of the grapes to be too much work when it yield a better overall flavor for me. Each person needs to find and do what works best for them. There is no one right way to
Happy Holidays Heidi! Thank you for the instructions. Love how you added the videos/ photos to demonstrate what you are explaining. Have you ever used homemade alcohol for disinfecting? How to raise the alcohol content - ferment longer and more sugar? Abundant blessings and radiant energy :)
More sugar and time can increase it to a point but only so far, after that it must be distilled in order to get a stronger alcohol content. I use homemade vinegar for cleaning, not the wine, because there is more expense that goes into wine making...even if it is using juice straight from my own garden, I would not sacrifice that in cleaning unless I had to but it is likely the wine would disinfect better than vinegar
When I have a finished product I always sample it from time to time and test it with a Vin-o meter to determine what % of alcohol is in it . Too much and I will temper it will lower the % for a better taste. Flavors can be enhanced or reduced too. Good video.
I put a small amount of grapes in plastic bag and squeezed the juice out using the bag. I squeezed the bag like milking cow. Worked great to get juice out.
Yes I still have air lock on it. I thought said when about done to add a little more sugar and replace the airlock and let it go till it stops completely. So do I need to go ahead and pour through a filter and strain
No, I said to add more sugar at about the one week point after it gets really bubbly. So if it has been about a month, it is likely finished. Try filtering it and seeing how it tastes. If it is too sweet, you can put it back in the jug with the airlock and give it another week and then check it again.
Always enjoy your videos and even try out some recipes. Did up some apples into wine, also started a batch of mead the next day. Well this is day 5 and I have bubbles in the apple batch. 🙃 I figure being up here in British Columbia the process may take longer. Hoping for good results . If you have any pointers on the matter( when to add more sugar...) would love to here from you. Thanks!
I bought the wine making jar kit like yours. Did a raspberry ferment for 4 days then put in fridge till I bought 3 gallons of organic apple juice. Brought ferment out of fridge to warm up and added a tsp of sugar then started the process the following day. 2 cups of sugar and 1 c. ferment added to juice. I have been getting one bubble every 30 seconds for 10 days. Should I add another cup of sugar and some additional ferment?
If I make a 5 gallon carboy, do I use all the same percentage of fruit, sugar, starter, X by 5? I'm just wondering if that will be too much sugar and slow down the ferment process. I've made the 1 gal with raspberries and Saskatoon, turns out great. Thinking though it will need a few more days to ferment before I put on the air lock.
Just got my wine bottles in. Wondering how you sterilize the flip tops. Don’t want to ruin the rubber seals. Thanks for the video and will be using my grapes this year for wine.
I rarely sterilize anything and when I do, I use our dishwasher. Which is not ideal for cleaning out bottles so with those I just wash by hand and use a bottle brush
I do not use the cider press for grapes, I was not impressed with that, I freeze the grapes, to make them easy to juice, I crush them with the wooden masher Patrick make me then I hand press.
Typical total time is one month but I go over all this in the rest of the series since, as noted in the title, this is only part one. So make sure you check out the link in the description box to find the rest of the videos :)
Hi Heidi, love your work, thank you for all of the time you take to share your amazing wealth of knowledge. I have two demijohns and a starter ready to make a start - same size as yours. I noticed you have said you don't add water at all so all of it is pure fruit juice apart from the starter and sugar? That is going to be a lot of fruit! How much would you say you use? I was thinking a bag of frozen black forest fruits (500g) might make some nice tasting wine but after I read that thought that amount will never make enough juice to fill to the right amount. Also do you defrost fruit first or just crush them from frozen. Thanks for any advice you might be able to give me (or anyone else that's done it before ).
It takes about 3-4 gallons of grapes to make one gallon of juice. I did not pay attention to how many apples or blackberries I went through to make one gallon but would assume it would be pretty close to the same
@@RainCountryHomestead Thank you! You replied so quickly from right across the world - I'm in UK - much appreciated! Huge learning curve. Sending love! xx
Hi Heidi, can you discuss how you clean/sanitize your equipment when you are making wine? I don’t like the idea of using chemicals or bleach thank you!!
You and yours are such a blessing and we sure appreciate the sharing of yalls hard learned knowledge and wisdom. Looking forward to a first try at agarita berry wine in the future (native to Texas) after obtaining the proper gear. I’ve got several quarts of agarita berries in the freezer so happy to hear that aids in juice release. Would running fresh/frozen-thawed berries thru a Foley food mill be advisable or would it produce too much pulp??
It is better to press whole fruits. I do add fruit puree to meads for flavor but when making wine, that would add much more pulp unless you are willing to strain through a cloth of some kind but may take even longer to get the same amount of juice out
Hi Heidi, I just love your videos- am so inspired by all you share. I’ve started putting this into practice. I’ve made a fresh starter & would like to try wine making. Question: Can you advise if I can make wine with apples or is there a better use? They are abundant in my area. Much love 🙏🏻🌷💕
This video is super informative, You're such a great teacher!! I can't wait to make my first batch of wine! But I do have a question; What's the difference between wine making and beer making? I have made ginger beer before and the process is super similar to this, I would LOVE to hear your input!
I have never made regular beer so I would not know. I have made ginger soda the same way I make any natural fizzy soda that only takes three days. I am not sure if this counts as ginger beer or if that is something that needs to ferment at least 30 days like wine does.
After racking from primary wine can the yeast left behind be placed in a mason jar with added sugar & water then using a cloth for a lid would that turn it into vinegar? I’m new to this just made my first attempt to make wine with strawberries and blueberries I was just wondering what to do with the juice and yeast left behind
Talking wine takes me back to the sixties when my Dad was making his own wine. He made his wine in wooden barrels...we use to get into the barrel and stamp the grapes with our bare feet... My Dad would have a plastic tube inserted into the cork on the jug of wine ...the other end of the tube was put into a bottle of water where the bubbles would escape...this was his airlock....
Just the juice and I cannot tell you exactly how many grapes or bunches but I can tell you it takes about three gallons of grapes to make one gallon of juice
Hey Heidi, I started a bottle of blackberry wine it is now a month old. It’s still bubbling a little. I pulled it out was going to add a little more sugar like you said to make a little stronger flavor at the end. But I noticed it has like a glob of stuff floating on top. Did I mess it up someway. It smells fine. No vinegar smell. Please let me know if I need to dump it.
If it has been going for a month, now as way too late to add sugar to it. The stuff floating on the top is likely fruit pulp t hat needs to be strained out. Do you still have the airlock on it?
Hey yo Heidi Ho😂 Question, why do I need the fermentation starter instead of using the natural yeasts on the fruit and ALSO, when I freeze the grapes will it kill the natural yeast? Thanks ahead of time!
Look at it as an insurance. If you over washed your fruit or froze it like I do to make juicing easier, a starter is necessary or at least a back up plan in case the yeast that was present is not as much as you assume or is dead.
I watched your Playlist about 6 times. Did a fermentation starter from orange peels, (cheated a bit because, like you, I am somewhat impatient and will go off script to push things). I put the smallest pinch of bread yeast into it and it took off. Then I started mead. Flavored it with orange, cinnamon, and clove and it took off within hours. Now I am looking at everything and thinking, I could make wine with that! My hubby brought home a watermelon, and I said there is my wine! So much juice, so little effort. I got organic raspberries blended them with watermelon juice to make it runny and sieved out all the seeds. So now I have a gallon of watermelon raspberry wine fermenting on the counter and it only took half a watermelon to get 3 quarts of juice. Waste not! Some watermelon pulp and raspberry pulp went to make a a new fermentation starter. And what to do with the other half of the watermelon? I'm eyeing the kiwi in the fruit basket. Watermelon kiwi wine??? I'm going to go for it!
You can but you will have a great amount of pulp so it is best if you can try to get as much of the juice out of the mash as possible and use that mash for something else like dehydrating and adding to desserts, smoothies, et cetera, composting or feeding to chickens or other farm animals.
I have a wine (cooked juice) i was going to rack but it hasn't clarified yet. Do i just siphon it as best i can to rack it or do i wait until it clarifies. Its been fermenting 2 and 1/2 weeks....
Some can take awhile to clarify and some never really do. Sometimes it can take racking it several times and letting it settle for several days between each racking to get good clarity. Sometimes I just do not have the patience for it. It is really not necessary for it to be clear. That is more about appearance then anything
Thanks for this whole series. I watched all 4 of the series and just started a watermelon wine. Your explanation and the steps are wonderful to tell me how to prevent problems as well. I used the raisins to make the starter and it worked great! Can't wait to see how it turns out. God bless you for all that you do.
More often than not I forget to take a reading of my wine at the beginning, I usually gauge it with the headache the morning after drinking. If everyone is ok it was lower alcohol, if we're all shuffling around like zombies it was high alchohol. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you & your family. Here's to hoping for a much better & healthier 2021
🤣 Thanks Steve 😊
Steve Day your comment is hilarious!!!😂😂
lol
Alcoholism doesn't run in my family, it stumbles and falls.. 😂
Almost got my blackberry/ grape wine ready to rack. I’m going to have to do more than one at a time like you.
Great idea freezing. It does make a lot more liquid. Thank you so much for teaching me.
Thank you for you video! First harvest from a Pindal (Jelly) Palm! Did not want to just leave it for the Insects! I got every piece of fruit. Oh, this is my first time! You have made the process very simple. I have all the tools and a 5g empty water carboy! Thanks for the great content!!
You no doubt you will remember me. I had an issue back in 2022 with the sweetness of my wine. I just want you to know that I pulled it out of the fridge last week and it is the most incredible tasting wine ever. It is 2 years old. I wish I knew the alcohol content because it was really high!! So now I am making more. My gallon was white grape and crystal clear. I purchased a hydrometer.
Thank you for the video love that you do the hands on method! Im an american living in france so i absolutely love the old way of doing things. It impresses the locals 😂 God bless
Jesus is King
Thanks. I'm watching this series for the second time.
My mother in law was really wanting me to help her make wine with her. Thanks Heidi!!
Thank you for this special noledge, I'm going to watch all your video's.
Thank you Heidi. Finally getting into making my own wine and I couldn’t do it without you!😊
Great presentation, very helpful for the beginner home vineyard gardener. Thank you and may God bless & protect.
I wish you all A Merry Christmas and happy new year and Gods blessings for you and all your family. God Bless
Great video Heidi!!!
I’ve been giving a lot of thought the past few days about trying my hand at wine making. I have an apple tree in my yard and my mother in law has a very prolific pear tree in her yard that she graciously shares with us. There’s only so much sauce, jelly and canned fruit one wants to make! I hate (Especially during this crazy time we’re living in right now😒) that a lot of those fruits are going to waste. I’m glad you recommended that particular wine making kit as that’s the one I was looking at on Amazon. Now I can order it thru your link😀. I’ll for sure be watching, and probably re-watching this playlist this summer! I can’t tell you how valuable the information you pass along is! Thank you for sharing your knowledge.
OK I'm finally ready to start this project !! I have 3 bottles and airlocks and i wanna make a grape wine, a mead of some sort (probably berry) and an apple cider :) so excited to try this project.. but I think I will run through your playlist one more time :)
Thank you Heidi. My Dad used to make a lot of wine, especially after we went scrimping as kids 😂😂 I'll have to ask him to help. Love your videos, great inspiration. Much gratitude ❤❤❤
Hi from Ireland just found you will be watching all posts thank you
You are a super duper teacher, friend and I don't know what to say... Thanks alot.
Thank you Caroline!
Thank for your vidoes
Thank you for this great information on how to make homemade wine🥰
Such a fascinating process. Thanks for remaking Part 1, this has been very helpful. Not sure we're ready to make our own wines, but we'll have these great videos to assist us if we do. Thanks and take care.
Getting ready to make a couple jars of ferment. I am going to make purple grape wine and a cherry wine. A gallon each. Thanks for the instructions!!
Heidi, thank you so much for sharing your experience & recipes for wine making 🥰
Thank you for answering. Enjoy your videos very interesting
Thank you. I’m going to do my first Batch soon. Just picking the grapes and freezing. I’m quite excited. I love your informative videos!! God bless
OMGOSH, I'M SO GLAD I FOUND YOU. GREAT CHANNEL. I INTEND ON LEARNING A GREAT DEAL. WILL BE USING YOUR VIDEOS TO AID THIS LEARNING PROCESS. I'M USING PRICKLY PEAR FRUIT (the tunas). I LIVE IN THE SONORAN DESERT AND THERE IS AN ABUNDANCE OF PRICKLY PEAR TUNAS AROUND ME. WILL BE MAKING MEAD AND WINE.
Lots of great tips! Thanks Heidi!
You might want to drop the Barter talk around this particular subject. A.T.F. are pretty unforgiving S.O.B.'s.........
I started two gallons of wine today. Store bought 100% grape juice and plum juice. My ferment was bubbly this morning so I was excited. I only used 1 1/2 cups sugar because the juice was pretty sweet already. I am growing seedless muscadine hybrids called Razzmatazz. They are a small, seedless, reddish grapes but so flavorful. They can produce all year. Hopefully next year I will use my own grapes.
Sounds like it will be amazing!
Yes I think so. I started a cherry gallon yesterday and all three are bubbling away!! So happy!!
Heidi - I've been binge watching your videos (again)!!! The last thing I need is another hobby but.... I can't wait to try wine making! After watching the entire wine making playlist, I watched about 10 videos from various other folks on wine making and every one of them add some sort of yeast product. I love that yours uses the fermentation started instead of a purchased yeast. Thank you so much for all your great videos! Thanks to your motivation, I'm dehydrating up a storm these past few weeks. :-)
Thank you so much for doing this that way I can learn step-by-step just on that and not get distracted by the other bless your heart thank you💙💕
Merry Christmas. Enjoyed this video. Harvesting my orange tree today. I'll be starting an orange cranberry mead for the first time. Hoping it will turn out ok. Thank you so much!
Hi Heidi
Well, after watching this series at least four times, I started my first batch of wine this morning. The only organic fruit I have are figs, grapefruit and satsuma. So of course I went with the hardest and did my figs. LOL. I'll recuperate and do the citrus my next day off (in 3 days). This is so exciting 😁(P.S. used the raisin fermentation starter)
Thank you for your videos!! I started an orange “cutie” mead last night. *fingers crossed*. Prayers for you and your family!
I am so enjoying your videos..
How ironic. I was just thinking yesterday that I needed to watch your wine videos because it's something I would like to start doing. Great video and thanks for the links!
Canning the last of the chicken, have a dehydrator full of calendula-picked this morning, roasted peppers for bruschetta (waiting on them to cool). I have strawberries & blueberries that need to be used, so after watching this, I'll make 2 wine starters. (maybe mead- that sounds delicious!) Researching you in between other jobs, thanks Heidi!
Good stuff !! Thank you kindly !!
Thanks for sharing!
Great info, I really would like to try, we cut our grapes way back in fall last year and they didn’t produce very well this year, so maybe in this summer I will have more. Thanks for sharing, blessings
I'm definitely gonna try this out. This video was informative and educational. Love this Heidi and thank you!!!
Thanks you that very good I like your programs very useful !!!
Started my first gallon today. Wish me luck. I used dehydrated pear for a starter and white grape juice. I forgot to test with the hydrometer before I added my starter. Oops. Thanks Heidi for all the info.
after you cook them, could you put through the food mill? Or what about a steam juicer?
I do not cook my grapes, I use them raw and press by hand. That is just how I do it but if you cook or steam juice, you will certainly NEED to make sure you use a starter of some kind
Thank you, yes I watched your starter video, and have raspberry going from dehydrated raspberries I did.
Is it possible to do half gallon?
Ps I don't realize I was on my son's acct when I originally posted.. lol
thanks for the info on wine making🙂
Thank you!! I have been looking forward to this💕🥀
Awesome video Heidi
I just subscribed because of your versatile fermentation starters, in particular, I have always wanted to make wine, bread and soda. Some years ago I tried to make wine but gave up because it seemed so complicated. If I had seen your channel I would have continued.
I 'have' made yogurt successfully for several decades and I wanted to share my method except yogurt making doesn't fit the theme of my channel.
Mead takes a long time to mature, so if you don't like the taste of it after it's done fermenting and clearing...say within a couple of months, just leave it to age in a dark, colder place for at least 6 months to a year. That's when mead begins to shine.
And it can literally go from disgusting to one of the best wines you've ever tasted. The alcohol and tartness smooths out, the fruity flavors come out, together with other layers you wouldn't even expect and best of all, the honey aroma and velvety essence comes back with a vengeance, lol! Often it's so forward it becomes the first thing you smell and taste. Thing is, that happens 6-9 months into aging...so patience with mead is crucial. :)
Cheers!
Yes, I know this, I have been making mead for many years but certain flavor blends are not the best no matter how long it ages
How do you know when the wines ready?
Please note that this is only part one, there are three more parts in the series. The full playlist is linked in the description box below the video
Thank you, Heidi. I’ll be reviewing the series. I need to get blackberry going. I have berries in the freezer I need to use. 😃
Hi Heidi! Your wine looks yummy! Great tips. Wine making may become my new hobby in 2021! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and Patrick!
Hi Mrs. Rain. I didn't know you had a series on Wine and Mead making. I am so blessed to see this. Please and thank you. Love this. I love your in-depth step by step instructions. It is so helpful. I purchased wine books too but you explain it so much better. I am a reader but visual learner as well. Shalom and Blessings sis.
Thank you
Coming late to your wine making party. I make all kinds of wine but mostly country wines (wines from fruits, flowers, and vegetables other than grapes). If I may, it looks as though you are doing far more work to prepare your fruit for the yeast than you need to. Fruit with peel need to be "crushed" and crushing simply means that you expose a little of the flesh of the fruit to enable the yeast easy access. A very easy approach is to push the fruit through a milk crate or a large sieve. Enough of the fruit will have their peel torn and the flesh exposed. Those that are still intact will fall prey to the yeast colony as that colony grows larger and more vigorous. The acids in the juice and the liquid itself will both help rupture the skins and peel, opening the door for the yeast cells.
Pressing the fruit is typically done after most of the fermentation has completed. Now, you can use your cider press or press using your hands around cheese cloth. Indeed, professional /commercial winemakers often do a second run after pressing. There is still a great deal of flavor and color retained by the fruit, though all of the sugars will have been fermented, so you might add about 2 lbs of fermentable sugars to every batch of fruit you had used to make a gallon of wine. The fruit will be awash with yeast, so you don't need to add any more starter, and you will need to add enough water to fill each carboy. This wine is often known as the "second running" and while it will taste really good (all things being equal) it won't taste quite as good as the first running, so this wine was often used as the wine maker's table wine and was not usually intended for sale and the like. I say this even as I am making a 5 gallon batch of mulberry wine and a one gallon batch of second running from the berries I just (hand) pressed.
@@kb2vca I have been making wines and meads for many years and have learned what works best for me with the different fruits. I find it easiest to freeze then hand press the grapes rather than using my press. That I use with my apples and rhubarb. Because I freeze the grapes, it is best to add my homemade starter but I always add it anyway just to insure I get a good ferment. I do not find the hand pressing of the grapes to be too much work when it yield a better overall flavor for me. Each person needs to find and do what works best for them. There is no one right way to
Happy Holidays Heidi! Thank you for the instructions. Love how you added the videos/ photos to demonstrate what you are explaining. Have you ever used homemade alcohol for disinfecting? How to raise the alcohol content - ferment longer and more sugar? Abundant blessings and radiant energy :)
More sugar and time can increase it to a point but only so far, after that it must be distilled in order to get a stronger alcohol content. I use homemade vinegar for cleaning, not the wine, because there is more expense that goes into wine making...even if it is using juice straight from my own garden, I would not sacrifice that in cleaning unless I had to but it is likely the wine would disinfect better than vinegar
Dankie Heidi. Ek gaan probeer.
Thank you Heidi. I am going to try.
I don't drink at all but I see the value of this.
Yep, that is why I have a video on the many uses of homemade wine :)
great info , thank you for sharing your wine making
When I have a finished product I always sample it from time to time and test it with a Vin-o meter to determine what % of alcohol is in it . Too much and I will temper it will lower the % for a better taste. Flavors can be enhanced or reduced too. Good video.
I put a small amount of grapes in plastic bag and squeezed the juice out using the bag. I squeezed the bag like milking cow. Worked great to get juice out.
I used to make wines but used raisins to ferment, your wine I would like to try to make it seems clearer
Yes I still have air lock on it. I thought said when about done to add a little more sugar and replace the airlock and let it go till it stops completely. So do I need to go ahead and pour through a filter and strain
No, I said to add more sugar at about the one week point after it gets really bubbly. So if it has been about a month, it is likely finished. Try filtering it and seeing how it tastes. If it is too sweet, you can put it back in the jug with the airlock and give it another week and then check it again.
@@RainCountryHomestead ok thanks
Always enjoy your videos and even try out some recipes. Did up some apples into wine, also started a batch of mead the next day. Well this is day 5 and I have bubbles in the apple batch. 🙃 I figure being up here in British Columbia the process may take longer. Hoping for good results . If you have any pointers on the matter( when to add more sugar...) would love to here from you. Thanks!
My rhubarb margarita wine recipe just published this morning :)
I bought the wine making jar kit like yours. Did a raspberry ferment for 4 days then put in fridge till I bought 3 gallons of organic apple juice. Brought ferment out of fridge to warm up and added a tsp of sugar then started the process the following day. 2 cups of sugar and 1 c. ferment added to juice. I have been getting one bubble every 30 seconds for 10 days. Should I add another cup of sugar and some additional ferment?
Yes, I would not wait any longer to add more sugar but there is no need to add more of the start unless you want to
Ty
Ima jump in on the vino makin 🤗
Are you still recommending the same equipment Heidi?
As long as those I linked to are still available, yes
I no longer drink wine but I like it to flavor my tomato sauce. I like that it doesn't have junk preservative.
Yep, and it has many other uses as well, which is why I always have some made up
If I make a 5 gallon carboy, do I use all the same percentage of fruit, sugar, starter, X by 5? I'm just wondering if that will be too much sugar and slow down the ferment process. I've made the 1 gal with raspberries and Saskatoon, turns out great. Thinking though it will need a few more days to ferment before I put on the air lock.
Yes, the ratios will be the same. Think of it as making 5 separate gallons except in one large jug
Just got my wine bottles in. Wondering how you sterilize the flip tops. Don’t want to ruin the rubber seals. Thanks for the video and will be using my grapes this year for wine.
I rarely sterilize anything and when I do, I use our dishwasher. Which is not ideal for cleaning out bottles so with those I just wash by hand and use a bottle brush
@@RainCountryHomestead Tks. I don’t even have a dish washer anymore.
Question on the cider press as i just bought one. Why not crush the grapes before you press them?
I do not use the cider press for grapes, I was not impressed with that, I freeze the grapes, to make them easy to juice, I crush them with the wooden masher Patrick make me then I hand press.
Great video for me making my first attempt! How long do you let the batch go to maturity after adding your one week last sugar addition?
Typical total time is one month but I go over all this in the rest of the series since, as noted in the title, this is only part one. So make sure you check out the link in the description box to find the rest of the videos :)
@@RainCountryHomestead Thank you!
Hi Heidi, love your work, thank you for all of the time you take to share your amazing wealth of knowledge. I have two demijohns and a starter ready to make a start - same size as yours. I noticed you have said you don't add water at all so all of it is pure fruit juice apart from the starter and sugar? That is going to be a lot of fruit! How much would you say you use? I was thinking a bag of frozen black forest fruits (500g) might make some nice tasting wine but after I read that thought that amount will never make enough juice to fill to the right amount. Also do you defrost fruit first or just crush them from frozen. Thanks for any advice you might be able to give me (or anyone else that's done it before ).
It takes about 3-4 gallons of grapes to make one gallon of juice. I did not pay attention to how many apples or blackberries I went through to make one gallon but would assume it would be pretty close to the same
@@RainCountryHomestead Thank you! You replied so quickly from right across the world - I'm in UK - much appreciated! Huge learning curve. Sending love! xx
This informative video has given me the courage to try making wine...thank you Heidi. How do you clean the insides of the jugs?
Not sure how I missed this question, I just use a long bottle brush
Hi Heidi, can you discuss how you clean/sanitize your equipment when you are making wine? I don’t like the idea of using chemicals or bleach thank you!!
I just use soap, hot water, and a long handled bottle brush. I do not do anything fancy nor see the need for sterilization
Thank you! That’s what I was thinking as well. I’m starting a batch of mixed berry wine today and I can’t wait to see how it turns out :-)
You and yours are such a blessing and we sure appreciate the sharing of yalls hard learned knowledge and wisdom. Looking forward to a first try at agarita berry wine in the future (native to Texas) after obtaining the proper gear. I’ve got several quarts of agarita berries in the freezer so happy to hear that aids in juice release. Would running fresh/frozen-thawed berries thru a Foley food mill be advisable or would it produce too much pulp??
It is better to press whole fruits. I do add fruit puree to meads for flavor but when making wine, that would add much more pulp unless you are willing to strain through a cloth of some kind but may take even longer to get the same amount of juice out
Can you use mead in tinctures instead of wine?
Yes, of course, mead is simply honey wine
Yes freezing fruit first breaks it down much better 😃
Have you tried using a juicer?
Just an old fashioned fruit press but people can go about juicing their fruits however is best for them depending on the equipment they have
Hi Heidi, I just love your videos- am so inspired by all you share. I’ve started putting this into practice. I’ve made a fresh starter & would like to try wine making.
Question: Can you advise if I can make wine with apples or is there a better use? They are abundant in my area. Much love 🙏🏻🌷💕
Yes, you can, I have made wine from my own apples before after pressing the apples to make a juice
This video is super informative, You're such a great teacher!! I can't wait to make my first batch of wine! But I do have a question; What's the difference between wine making and beer making? I have made ginger beer before and the process is super similar to this, I would LOVE to hear your input!
I have never made regular beer so I would not know. I have made ginger soda the same way I make any natural fizzy soda that only takes three days. I am not sure if this counts as ginger beer or if that is something that needs to ferment at least 30 days like wine does.
After racking from primary wine can the yeast left behind be placed in a mason jar with added sugar & water then using a cloth for a lid would that turn it into vinegar? I’m new to this just made my first attempt to make wine with strawberries and blueberries I was just wondering what to do with the juice and yeast left behind
Yes, you can do that or you can simply using it in cooking, that is what I usually do
@@RainCountryHomestead thank you
👍 Danke! 👍
Can you blend the grapes then strain them or even just blend them instead of smashing them
Only if they are seedless
Can you do it with jars the lids I got they clamped down and open big wide lids glass jars?
If you mean bail wire jars, I would not recommend it. Jugs with air locks in this case are best
Talking wine takes me back to the sixties when my Dad was making his own wine.
He made his wine in wooden barrels...we use to get into the barrel and stamp the grapes with our bare feet...
My Dad would have a plastic tube inserted into the cork on the jug of wine ...the other end of the tube was put into a bottle of water where the bubbles would escape...this was his airlock....
Hi Heidi i got the jugs that you have recommended just wondering how do you normally wash it ? Thanks
Here is a video I did about that: th-cam.com/video/-sgpBEXuTNY/w-d-xo.html
@@RainCountryHomestead thanks again for the quick response 😃
I just started one with apple cider but only started with one cup of sugar plus the starter. Should I add another one??
Yeah, you can add another cup now. Easiest way is to take some out and mix the sugar in then pour back into the jug
Do you add water to the airlock?
yes, you must have water in the airlock
Do you add water to the grape juice or is it all grape juice? How many grapes or bunches of grapes do you use?
Just the juice and I cannot tell you exactly how many grapes or bunches but I can tell you it takes about three gallons of grapes to make one gallon of juice
@RainCountryHomestead Thank you. I need more grapes before I start.
Does the jug etc need to be sterilized first?
Some do that and you can if you feel it is best, I just make sure they are clean and do not worry about sterilizing
Hey Heidi, I started a bottle of blackberry wine it is now a month old. It’s still bubbling a little. I pulled it out was going to add a little more sugar like you said to make a little stronger flavor at the end. But I noticed it has like a glob of stuff floating on top. Did I mess it up someway. It smells fine. No vinegar smell. Please let me know if I need to dump it.
If it has been going for a month, now as way too late to add sugar to it. The stuff floating on the top is likely fruit pulp t hat needs to be strained out. Do you still have the airlock on it?
Hey yo Heidi Ho😂 Question, why do I need the fermentation starter instead of using the natural yeasts on the fruit and ALSO, when I freeze the grapes will it kill the natural yeast? Thanks ahead of time!
Look at it as an insurance. If you over washed your fruit or froze it like I do to make juicing easier, a starter is necessary or at least a back up plan in case the yeast that was present is not as much as you assume or is dead.
Is there a special brush to clean the air lock?
They do make smaller brushes but I just soak and rinse well. I always manage to get everything out just fine though it can stay stained
Amen!
I watched your Playlist about 6 times. Did a fermentation starter from orange peels, (cheated a bit because, like you, I am somewhat impatient and will go off script to push things). I put the smallest pinch of bread yeast into it and it took off. Then I started mead. Flavored it with orange, cinnamon, and clove and it took off within hours. Now I am looking at everything and thinking, I could make wine with that! My hubby brought home a watermelon, and I said there is my wine! So much juice, so little effort. I got organic raspberries blended them with watermelon juice to make it runny and sieved out all the seeds. So now I have a gallon of watermelon raspberry wine fermenting on the counter and it only took half a watermelon to get 3 quarts of juice. Waste not! Some watermelon pulp and raspberry pulp went to make a a new fermentation starter. And what to do with the other half of the watermelon? I'm eyeing the kiwi in the fruit basket. Watermelon kiwi wine??? I'm going to go for it!
Kiwi and lime is another good one for mead. I have also done pomegranate and rose petal and plum
Where did you get those gallon jars?
I believe I cover that in the video and seems I remember linking to some as well
Can I mash apricots and do it this way?
You can but you will have a great amount of pulp so it is best if you can try to get as much of the juice out of the mash as possible and use that mash for something else like dehydrating and adding to desserts, smoothies, et cetera, composting or feeding to chickens or other farm animals.
Hi there! my friend Debbie just sent me your video as I have started my fermentation journey and i love your videos! do you sell that fruit masher?
I have a wine (cooked juice) i was going to rack but it hasn't clarified yet. Do i just siphon it as best i can to rack it or do i wait until it clarifies. Its been fermenting 2 and 1/2 weeks....
Some can take awhile to clarify and some never really do. Sometimes it can take racking it several times and letting it settle for several days between each racking to get good clarity. Sometimes I just do not have the patience for it. It is really not necessary for it to be clear. That is more about appearance then anything
How do you have pulp of you strain it? Do some wines use pulp?
Some finer pulp gets through the cloth when I strain it so it needs to be strained again