Hello Steemians!
Today I am sharing with you my experience so far with making homemade wine. To my surprise, it was not that hard at all. If you have enough desire.
I am lucky enough to have neighbours who make wine for years, they are more than happy to share thеir knowledge and I am wise enough to learn from them.
It is my first year making wine, but I think I got the basics. It is similar to cooking.
Now lets talk about the most important things:
- Good grapes
I do not know how was it back in the day, but today it is pretty easy. When the grape season comes (mid September) you just go to a local reseller of grapes who comes with a truck load of many kinds and sorts of grapes.
Now in my case, I just bought a big container of 120 litres. Then went with a good company to choose the grapes.
Bought the sweetest grapes I tasted - it was the sort of Cabernet, grown and raised in north/east region of Bulgaria.
Bought 80kg of grapes which is like 2/3 of my container (it increases size during fermentation process so it has to have extra room).
The truck has a milling machine with a hose attached to it and in a matter of minutes your container is filled with almost ready product.
There are "sugarmeters" to check how sugary is your grapes.
But I decided to wing it and put the bare minimum of sugar and see how it goes.
So I put only 1kg of sugar for 80kg of grapes.
- Mix it every day
It is important to mix the grapes every day during fermentation process which is about 45-60 days in dark and cool place at around 16c temp. It is good the grapes to breath fresh air, so make sure you have an open door when you mix it.
- Make it with love
I learned in life that the most pleasure I get is when I share, what I have made with love.
Here is how the grapes look during the fermentation process:
This is 80kg of grapes milled, mixed with 1kg of sugar, no water added!
I made sure to blend 1kg of sugar with a small part of the grapes and the juice, so the sugar is already dissolved when it gets into the container.
After around 45-60days everyday mixing, the fermentation process will be done. Now you need to filter only the juice through a faucet.
After 45-60days
Here is how it looks after you faucet it to another container!
80kg of grapes made about 30litres of wine, the rest will go to making "rakia" - a Bulgarian brandy. I will probably make another post about it.
Usually I only drink beer, accompanied with smoking some fine herbs, but I guess winter really is a red wine season, and it is really sweet if you make it your own!
Now you only need to wait a day to let the haze go to the bottom of the container!
It is done!
When the haze settles down scoop the top and it is a clear wine!
Beautiful stuff, I am amazed!
Bonus footage of cats chilling
