Tutorial on Wine Making - Lesson 2C of 6
Wine Making Tutorial – Lesson 2C (Wine Kits)
Wine Making – Preparing Your Wine Must or Juice (Kit Wines)
1. Open the box that contains the wine juice bag, packets of ingredients and wine kit instructions.
- Be careful not to puncture the bag of juice
2. Add ½ to 1 gallon of warm water to your 6.5 to 8 gallon fermenter (follow your wine kit instructions for the exact amount).
- Be sure to use bottled water if you do not have quality tap water or your tap water is chlorinated
3. Vigorously stir into the fermenter of warm water the packet of Bentonite provided with your Wine Kit
4. Carefully remove the cap to your wine kit bag and pour the liquid grape juice into the fermenter
5. Pour a bit of warm water into the now empty plastic bag, slosh it around in the bag and pour it into the fermenter. Do this a couple of times to remove all of the wine kit juice concentrate possible from the plastic bag.
6. Fill with quality cool water your fermenter to the 23 Liter or 6 Gallon mark, 3 Gallons for most Port, Dessert, and Specialty Wine Kits
7. With a sanitized plastic spoon vigorously stir the contents of your fermenter, now referred to as Must.
8. Using your hydrometer measure the Brix and Specific Gravity of your must and record it in a note book
9. If included with your wine kit add your oak chips, oak powder, raisins, elderberries, or other fruit or grape skins.
- Dehydrated fruit should be rehydrated with hot water prior to adding to the must.
- Many wine kits will have some sort of mesh bag for placing the fruit or oak in before placing in the fermenter
Subsequent and Previous Wine Making Lessons:
- Lesson 1 - Wine Making Equipment and Suppliest
- Lesson 2A – Preparing Your Fruit for Wines Made from Fresh Fruit
- Lesson 2B – Preparing Your Grapes for Wines Made from Wine Grapes
- Lesson 3 – Primary Fermentation of Wine
- Lesson 4 – Secondary Fermentation of Wine
- Lesson 5 – Stabilizing and Clearing of Wine
- Lesson 6 – Bottling your Wine
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