Homemade Grape Wine Recipe - 2 ingredients
This recipe teaches you how to make grape wine at home with 2 ingredients: fresh grapes + sugar.
Equipment
- 1 Cooling rack
- 2 Food prep gloves
- 1 Fermentation jar (Or you can use a glass bottle with lid)
- 1 Ladle
Ingredients
- 1000 g grapes
- 200 g rock candies (can be substituted with cane sugar)
Instructions
- Pull the grapes off the stems, discard broken or decaying grapes, put good grapes into a large clean bowl.
- Soak the grapes with cold clean water. Rub them gently [see Note 1 below] to remove bacteria, dust, and pesticides. Empty the water from the bowl. Then repeat the washing process for 1 to 2 times until there is no visible dust in the water.
- Line a cooling rack with some paper towel, pour the grapes to the cooling rack. Gently dry the grapes with the paper towel. Remove the paper towel, let the grapes air dry on the cooling rack for 2 hours.
- Transfer the grapes to a large, clean, dry bowl. Measure the grapes' weight. Measure rock candies/sugar based on the grapes' weight, set aside. (Generally, add 200g sugar to every 1000g grapes. )
- Put food prep gloves on, crush the grapes with your hands, until all the grapes are broken.
- Add rock candies or cane sugar to the crushed grapes, mix well with a clean ladle.
- Use the ladle to transfer the mixture to a clean and dry glass fermentation jar, add cold clean water to the moat, put the lid on. Fill the jar no more than 70% full [See reasons in Note 2]. You can also use a regular glass bottle as the fermentation container, see content above for specific instructions.
- Store the fermentation jar under room temperature in a dark place (e.g. in your kitchen cabinet) for 7 days (during summertime about 78 °F) to 10 days (during wintertime about 68 °F). Use a clean ladle to stir and distribute the sugar and grapes evenly every other 24 hours.
- 7 to 10 days later, strain the mixture into a clean container using a clean cheesecloth. You can drink it now. It will taste like less alcoholic grape wines.
- For a better taste and looking, pour the juice back to the fermentation jar, keep the jar undisturbed for 7 more days. 7 days later, the homemade grape wine will turn from cloudy to clear. Pour the clear grape wine into a clean bottle, seal the bottle with its lid, discard the sediment in the fermentation jar.
- If you want a stronger wine taste, you can leave the grape wine under room temperature for 1 more month. The grape wine will continue to ferment under room temperature. Open the lid every other 7 days to degas. If you are happy with the taste of the grape wine, store it in the fridge to stop the fermentation process, finish your homemade grape wine within 1 year.
Video
Notes
Note 1:
Gently rub the grapes to to remove bacteria, dust, and pesticides when you wash them. Make sure you do not wash off the white layer on the grapes skins, because it contains natural yeasts which is necessary for the wine fermentation process.
Some people would actually skip the grape washing step to protect the yeasts on grapes. The dust or bacterial in your homemade wine won't make you sick, but the pesticides can. Therefore I'd still suggest washing the grapes for at least 3 times if you didn't grow them by yourself.
Note 2:
Fill the fermentation jar no more than 70% full, because: 1) the yeasts will need some air to breathe; 2) the yeasts will produce a lot of carbon dioxide during the fermentation process, which could cause liquid spills if the jar is too full.