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So what’s the process bro

Break it down

It's very simple tbh, been reading and talking to people last few weeks, and asking questions in home brewing forums.

This is what I have learned so far

1. Crush grapes and put them in plastic containers which can be air locked, some people just use a wet towel to cover and some make them air locked. air lock is a one way valve to let air pass out from the container.

2. Now you got to make sure you have enough sugar levels in your mix , if your mix is low on sugar you have to add sugar to it , otherwise yeast won't have enough sugar and your final alcohol levels will be low. Ive been told European grapes almost all the time doesn't need sugar added , there are cheap wine hydrometers you can buy to check these levels.

3. Next process is called fermenting, it's where yeast does it's work to create alcohol, but before that you got to make sure you kill any wild yeast, apparently if wild yeast kicks off it can give horrific results or vinegar even , so you mix a chemical called sodium metabisulfite (campdon tablets) to kill any yeast in the grapes.

4. after 24-48 from step 3 you add wine yeast which you can easily bought from amazon or shops. Add yeast and let it air locked till it's done, at this stage yeast generates CO2 and they need to exit the container but no outside air should come in ideally, hence the air lock. it will keep bubbling away during the process and stop bubbling once it's done.

5. After step 4 ( this is called the initial fermenting) you take out your mix , use a fruit press and squeeze out the juice, this juice goes in to the barrel or any other container you use for ageing.

6. At this stage you have wine which you can drink, but I intend to age them in the air locked barrel for few months, before ageing you got to add more sodium metabisulfite to kill any yeast leftover in the mix and minimise secondary fermentation.

7. Some people do a process called 'racking' several times during ageing ,which involves siphoning juice out and changing to new containers , this is done to get rid of any dead yeast from the mix from secondary fermenting, i'm not planning to do these. you got to make sure there are minimum exposure to air during this stage to prevent oxidisation.

8. Leave it for few months and bottle them up , some people suggests adding sodium metabisulfite before bottling them up for preservation if you intend to keep your bottles for long time, I'm not too keen on adding too many chemicals, so I'll play it by the ear when I come to it.

Some do it with concentrated juice brought from supermarket , and there are wine kits you can buy as well, but I prefer to do this from scratch and the grapes I'm buying are organic once so I know what exactly goes in to my wine.

You can easily start with a smaller volumes and age them in glass containers, for the oak effect people use oak chips which end of the day gives the same effect and many suggest it's easier and cleaner than doing in oak barrels.

Sounds awesome

Pls take pics or video or each step macho and post theme here

This should be an interesting few months

Had some wine after a long time. A brand from Bordeaux. Didn't bother to read much Kev

How's Jamis' winery going?

OK so winery didn't really go according to plans, I made almost a full barrel fo wine but it has some taste puts you off , I think this years batch of grapes arn't that good, both mine and my neighbour's wine taste the same.

So not a very good result in the end , but I got diagnosed with a fked up liver last year while I was doing this project as well so I got advised to reduce/stop drinking and stop eating shit food, so I can make up my mind to give up on wine due to my health issues Kev