Wine... not whine

There are a couple of things that I have been wanting to do but just had not gotten around to just yet. One of those things was to make my own wine. So for my birthday I asked my wonderful hubby for a wine making kit. We already had most of the equipment so it wasn't too much of an expense beyond the kit itself. All I needed in addition to the wine kit was a 7 gallon bucket. So I thought I would share my experiment with you. One thing I understand is that this will not be a quick process. The kit says it should be drinkable in 2 months, but from what I have heard from others who have made their own wine is that it takes more like 4 to 6 months. With all of the scary stuff we have been hearing on the news about stuff put into wines lately it seemed like a good time to give this a try. I went with a Chardonnay because it will be ready(ish) in the summer. Always a good time for a white wine. As soon as I get this batch into bottles I will probably get started on a red of some sort.

So here we go on the process... of course the first thing that I did was to sanitize my new bucket and all of the equipment needed to get our wine going. I started with a half gallon of hot water and then added a package of bentonite  into the water and stirred it for 30 seconds to make sure that it dissolved. After that I added the grape juice that came with the kit. After emptying the bag of juice the instructions said to add another half gallon of water back into the bag to get any left over juices. So After I put the water in the bag I shook it really well to get all that I could out of it.

After adding the juice I added enough water to bring the volume up to 6 gallons. And then we stir! Not easy to do with such a big bucket, but the spoon I have is fairly long. I was still glad that I had sanitized my hands! After stirring for 30 seconds it was time to check the specific gravity to make sure we were where we needed to be. It was right on the money at 1.097.

After the wine was tested it was time to add one last ingredient Oak chips. After they were added to the liquid you had to stir it to get them wet. OK so we are done putting it together and notice... there was NO cooking to it! The whole process took only about 30 minutes including the time to sanitize everything. I hope it turns out well because this could be the start of something really cool!

We were not able to put the yeast in for a couple of hours because the liquid was too warm by a few degrees. But I managed to get the yeast in, the bucket sealed and the airlock in place before bed. We put it to bed in an area of the kitchen where it will be out of the way. Just in a corner where it will be in a climate controlled environment and no sunlight.

Update: The fermentation is supposed to start in 24-48 hours and our started is around 18! So we are off and running.