Here are a few of my favorite easy to make wine recipes.
Grape Juice Wine
“This is the first wine I ever made. It’s a very easy recipe. Great for a first-timer!”
Ingredients:
2 cans frozen 100% grape juice
1 gallon distilled water
3 ½ cups sugar
1 package yeast
1 glass gallon jug
1 punching balloon
Directions:
1. Thaw grape juice and put in sterilized glass jug.
2. Warm distilled water to 110 degrees Fahrenheit and dissolve sugar in water.
3. Add yeast and mix well.
4. Using a funnel pour water/sugar yeast mixture into jug until about 1 inch from top.
5. Rinse inside of balloon.
6. Stretch balloon over bottle and tape it securely.
7. Put in a warm dark place; be sure to give room for the balloon to expand. It will get quite large.
8. After 30 days (or longer if you like) remove balloon and carefully strain wine with cheesecloth into another jug.
9. Enjoy!!!!
Strawberry/Rhubarb Mead
Ingredients:
4 lb. or 64 oz. of clover honey
1 lb. frozen rhubarb
1 lb. frozen strawberries
3 tsp. of citric acid
1 tsp. of yeast nutrient
4-5 drops of pectic enzyme
potassium sorbate
sparkalloid wine clarifier
1 gallon glass apple cider/type jug
airlock
Directions:
1. Bring 1 ½- 2 qts. water to boil in large pan.
2. Add 3 lb. or 48 oz. of clover honey, stirring right away to keep it from the bottom. Stir until boiling, simmer on low heat for 20-30 minutes.
3. Add one pound each of frozen strawberries and diced rhubarb, and simmer an additional ½ hour.
4. Let sit overnight to cool and extract flavor.
5. Pour mixture through a screen of some sort or cheese cloth into another container.
6. Pour mixture into your glass jug, to the level of the neck.
7. Add the citric acid, yeast nutrient, pectic enzyme.
8. Rehydrate your yeast in 95-100 degree water (Fahrenheit) for 15-20 minutes, and add to your mixture in jug.
9. Cap and shake well to dissolve the ingredients added
10. Remove cap, and fit some cheesecloth with a rubber band over the opening, or an airlock with a cotton ball covering the opening.
The must will take 1-2 days to start fermenting; wait until the vigorous fermentation has taken place (the froth will disappear after about a week), then fit with an airlock so that the anaerobic fermentation will occur. Rack each time you notice a firm sediment building up on the bottom of the jug. Take this opportunity to add the additional 12 oz of honey; this will feed the fermentation at a slower pace, but will allow for a higher alcoholic content of the finished wine. After about 3-4 months, fermentation will be negligible to nonexistent; at this time kill the yeast to stop fermentation with potassium sorbate. This is also a good time to add sparkalloid, to clear the wine and allow all sediment suspended to form a sludge at the bottom of the jar. After you have killed the fermentation, let the jug sit for a good 3 weeks to a month, and very carefully siphon the wine off of the sediment into 750 ml bottles and cork. I can usually get 4 bottles out of a jug after racking the good stuff off of the sediment. Age for at least 8 months, the longer the better, although what I sampled at bottling was excellent.
Grapefruit Wine
Ingredients
5 large West Indian grapefruits (preferably from the Dominican Republic!)
3 ½ pounds brown sugar
2 tablespoon concentrated tea liquid (Tetley, Red Rose, Typhoo, etc.)
1 Imperial gallon water
1 pound dried raisins
1 package yeast
Directions
1. Extract juice from grapefruits into a sterile container.
2. Place sugar into water and boil until completely dissolved and allow to cool down to approximately 110 degrees Fahrenheit.
3. Add grapefruit juice, raisins and tea and place all in a properly sterilized fermentation vessel and add the yeast.
4. Place fermentation trapping device and allow to ferment for six weeks. After six weeks, rack, i.e. syphon off the clear wine from the bottom sediment into bottles, cork and place them horizontally allowing at least least four weeks for the anaerobic or secondary fermentation process.
Farmer’s Wine
“I hope someone can get some use out this little recipe because it does make a nice ‘dinner’ drink.”
Ingredients
1/4 teaspoon Active Dry Yeast
1-Qt unsweetened grape juice
1-Qt Cranberry Juice Cocktail
3 ½ cups sugar
Directions
1. Dissolve yeast in lukewarm water.
2. Combine grape juice, Cranberry Cocktail and sugar in a large bowl. Add yeast to mixture.
3. Transfer juice mixture to a clean gallon jug and fill the jug, to the neck, with water
4. Cap with a large, strong balloon. Let stand in a warm place for five (5) weeks.
5. Serve chilled.
