Red wine is made from red grape varieties. The pressed grapes are usually fermented for 1-2 weeks in macerated skins, resulting in a very flavorful red wine. Winemaking may seem simple, but in fact, there are many requirements, especially for our own red wines. How can we make our own wine? Let’s take a look at this method!
1. How do you make your own red wine?
(1) For quality grapes in the harvest season, make sure to check carefully if the part of the grape that touches the stem is fully red, and choose fully red, truly ripe grapes. Prepare glass containers for wine making and icing sugar.
(2) Soak the grapes in water for 5-10 minutes to dissolve any pesticide residue on the skins, wash and dry.
(3) Crush the grapes and spread them evenly in the glass container, sprinkle with 3-5cm thick grapes and a layer of icing sugar. The recommended ratio of grapes to icing sugar is 5:1 (5 pounds of grapes plus 1 pound of icing sugar), which can be added according to personal taste.
(4) Seal the glass container well and open and filter the wine after 35 days at room temperature of about 20°C (25 days at room temperature of about 30°C).
(5) Strain the red wine through a clean strainer, gauze, spoon, etc. to remove the skins, pulp and seeds, leaving the red wine behind! The taste of the filtered red wine will become lighter, but if you continue to seal it for a period of time, the taste will become stronger and stronger~.
2、The risks of homemade red wine
When you make red wine at home, you do not strictly follow the standard winemaking steps, nor do you have a professional fermentation environment and sterilization conditions. In this case, homemade red wine may bring certain safety hazards and may conceal toxic and harmful substances such as methanol and miscellaneous alcohol oils.
The relevant professional departments have also analyzed the samples of homemade red wine, showing that the samples contain different concentrations of methanol and miscellaneous alcohol oils, and that the production of methanol and miscellaneous alcohol oils mainly comes from raw materials. On the one hand, the pectin in the grape skin is decomposed into methanol under the action of pectin enzymes or heat, and mold also produces large amounts of methanol. The more thorough the fermentation, the higher the methanol content. On the other hand, the proteins in the grapes are hydrolyzed into amino acids, which are then catalyzed by enzymes to produce miscellaneous alcohol oils.
3、What to pay attention to when making red wine
Grape quality: When making red wine, the raw material for the “home-brewing family” is ordinary table grapes, and many people even choose to buy crushed grapes sold at the end of the stalls. Although these grapes are inexpensive, they can make the quality of red wine more susceptible to mold growth.
Yeast: Many people believe that scalding grapes with boiling water is fungicidal, or washing the grapes in red wine too cleanly so that the wild yeast attached to the skins will be washed away or killed. If there is not enough yeast, the sugar in the grapes will not be converted to alcohol, resulting in poor fermentation and high sugar levels, which can be harmful to the body.
Fermentation tools: When making wine at home, the sanitary conditions of the utensils and tools are not well controlled and many bacteria can easily grow. Generally speaking, “homebrewers” choose to fill plastic bottles, iron and aluminum containers that are most likely to react chemically and produce toxic substances.
Fermentation process: Many people seal their fermentation containers during the brewing process because they do not understand the process, which inevitably leads to a large amount of sulfur dioxide produced during the fermentation process that cannot be discharged, which often leads to bottle explosions.
Trace Additives: In the pursuit of health, the “homebrewing family” believes in not adding new chemical additives. When making red wine, they believe that pure nature is healthy. However, when breweries make red wine, they often add trace additives such as sulfur dioxide, which is used to kill bacteria and ensure aging because yeast fermentation can produce hundreds of strains of bacteria that are often difficult to control.
The potential for trashy alcohols during yeast fermentation should not be underestimated, which is why people often hear that home-brewed red wine is easy to get drunk or intoxicated. We should understand that it is not the fragmented environment of the home that produces red wine with a higher alcohol content than that of the brewery, but the fact that the brewed red wine contains a variety of impurity alcohols that are more toxic to the nerves, or even more serious, so that drinking home-brewed red wine can lead to blindness or coma.
4. How long does it usually take to brew and ferment red wine?
Alcohol fermentation usually takes 7-15 days. This is mainly related to grape variety, fermentation temperature and the amount of added sugar, but you can tell if the main fermentation has ended by tasting the initial red wine.
If you can smell strong alcohol but not sweetness, this means that most of the sugar in the must has been converted to alcohol and the main fermentation process is over. If too much sugar is added in the early stages and the alcohol content reaches a certain level (normally up to 15%), it will kill the yeast, so the sugar will not be completely converted to alcohol. As a result, the red wine will taste sweet, which can only be judged by the general fermentation time, the strength of the flavoring and whether the fermentation tank is hot.
The end of fermentation of homemade red wine is not only the time, but also the change of the fermentation vessel to determine whether the fermentation is complete. Generally speaking, it takes 7-10 days to brew a red wine with auxiliary ingredients, and about 20 days to ferment a natural yeast.
Red wine fermentation begins with the yeast. Only when there is enough yeast (and yeast nutrient) in the main fermentation vessel can sugar be induced to convert to alcohol and carbon dioxide. Therefore, the source and content of yeast directly determines the fermentation time.
Using a red wine making method with auxiliary materials, additional artificial yeast will be added. Fermentation of the wine will begin after 1-2 days and will be completed within 7-10 days. This new yeast, specifically added for red wine fermentation, is more suitable for winemaking than natural yeast. The quality of the wine is better and the process is easier to control. Regardless of the brewing method, it is not advisable to rely solely on time to explain how long it takes. Everyone’s brewing environment and dosage are different, so the fermentation time for homemade red wine depends more on the fermentation phenomenon.
5、Red wine making principle
Enzymes play an important catalytic role in the winemaking process. Grape yeast is divided into natural yeast and cultured yeast. Natural yeast, or wild yeast, is usually attached to the grape skins, which is why the grapes can ferment with the skins without the addition of yeast.
The modern red wine industry requires high quality and yield of fermentation to make the wine clearer, better colored, richer, and more aromatic. During the winemaking process, the fermented grapes further react with the other organic acids contained in the red wine to form esters with special aromas, which are fermented under anaerobic conditions. The ethanol produced during the process is naturally fermented in the grape juice to form red wine. The principle is that under the action of grape yeast, the glucose in the juice ferments to produce alcohol and carbon dioxide.
6, the nutritional value of red wine
Grapes are rich in nutrients, red wine also contains a variety of amino acids, minerals and vitamins, which must be supplemented and absorbed by the body. There are about 600 ingredients in red wine that are beneficial to the human body. The nutritional value of red wine has been widely recognized.
According to experts, vines over 25 years old have deep roots in the subsoil and can absorb relatively more minerals and trace elements. The red wine made from this fruit has the highest nutritional value.
In short, red wine is an alcoholic beverage made from the fermentation of fresh grapes or grape juice. Red wine making is actually a very rigorous and complex process. If any part of the process is faulty, it will lead to a safety hazard for homemade red wine, which will naturally cause harm to the human body when consumed.
