How to Make Homemade Wine

I choose red raspberry wine because I have tons of red raspberry bushes I planted in the edge of our veggie garden. You can also use blackberries, grape vines or any other type berry that's edible.

Equipment

3 gallon stoneware crock

Three 1 gallon jugs (recycled Carlo Rossi jugs work very well)

2 airlocks with rubber stoppers and a siphoning tubeFunnelFine mesh strainer

Notes: You will also want to wash up used wine bottles, invest in a couple of new corks and a corker if you plan on bottling any wine. The recipe below is for one gallon of fruit wine, which amounts to approximately five 750 ml bottles of wine. Another note, the process is pictured in a glass pitcher in order to show what your results will look like but you will actually need to use a crock, listed above, rather than a pitcher.

Homemade Wine Recipe

Ingredients

4 pounds frozen or fresh fruit

1 gallon water

2 pounds organic sugar

1 teaspoon powdered yeast nutrient (ensures that your yeast has what it needs to be productive)

1 package wine yeast

Directions

Make sure your fruit has been in the freezer for at least three days before beginning the process. Bring your water to a boil and add the sugar. Take the fruit out of the freezer, place in a three gallon crock while you are waiting for the sugar water to boil. CAREFULLY pour the boiling sugar water over the frozen fruit in the crock. Avoid any contact with skin – it will burn badly. Stir the fruit and sugar water mixture and cover with a cloth and lid or large plate. Do not let any fruit flies into your wine, or it may turn into vinegar. The next day, mash the berries with your hands, stir in your yeast thoroughly, and cover with a cloth and lid. Keep stirring the must (venting terminology for the liquid at this stage) in the crock once a day for a week, after which you will be ready to transfer it into the glass jugs. Place a funnel in your jug, a fine mesh strainer on top of the funnel, and begin ladling the must into the jugs, separating the fruit pulp from the liquid. Leave at least four inches of head space, and cap with an airlock, which allows oxygen out but nothing into the bottle. Place the bottles out of the direct sunlight where they will not be disturbed. After about a month, you will have to siphon your wine off of the fruit matter and dead yeast that will have settled at the bottom of the jugs. Place your siphon halfway into the filled jug, which should be on a counter-top, being careful not to disturb the matter at the bottom. Place your clean, empty jug on a small stool on the floor, where the other end of the siphoning tube can reach it. Start your siphon, and let the clear wine fall into the clean jug, gently tipping the jug on the counter top but making sure to keep the matter on the bottom from sloshing into the siphoning tube. Two people are often required for this task; one starting the siphon and feeding the tube into the empty bottle, and one keeping the siphon at the right position in the jug on the counter-top. All of your clear wine should fit into a single gallon bottle, with at least an inch of head space. You may have some extra, which you can use for cooking.

Wild berries is the bar-none for excellent tasting wine.When you get fruits from mother nature, they are the strongest, sweetest and best. Those hybrids are not the best but that's all most wine enthusiasts have available. We have found some nurseries that sells wild type berry bushes. These are a rare treasure but you can have the plants shipped directly to your door. Plant them, grow your own berry crops and harvest the berries for perfect wine and perhaps the strongest and most desired in the world.

LIST OF NURSERIES THAT REALLY HAS NO HERBICIDES, NO INSECTICIDES PLANTS THAT ARE WILD COLLECTED AND ORGANIC. BEWARE, THEIR AVAILABILITY MAY BE LOW DUE TO THE PLANTS BEING WILD HARVESTED:

Tn Nursery - They ship, have been in business over 58 years and are wild collectors of huckleberries, blackberries, blueberries and raspberries grown by mother nature. Here is a complete list of all their berry bushes they sell - CLICK HERE - They even have the concord grape vine, Wild blackberry bushes and more plus they ship to anyone and in every state.

Garden Delights Nursery - They too have wild harvested berry plants - Check them out, CLICK HERE. These growers ships fast too.

Tree Nursery Co - They have a wide range of berry plants that's also organic and wild collected and ship to all states and everyone. Check out their berry plants, CLICK HERE