Thinking outside the beer bottle: brewing your own wine and spirits, too
BURNABY, B.C. (CUP) -- Every culture that I care about has wine in its heritage. Red is my favourite for its far superior taste, aroma, and tannins. Making wine at home from grapes requires a large amount of start-up cost and will not be covered here. Instead I'll discuss inexpensive wine kits that give you simple directions and all the ingredients!
Wine makers need the same start-up kit mentioned near the beginning of the beer section, from the same place. You'll also need a corker ($40) and some corks (less than $10). Good quality wine kits can be as cheap as $50, but for a quality homemade wine, expect to pay between $70 and $100 (this is not that much, as individual bottles of wine cost you around $2-3, much better than the liquor store, where the cheapest bottle is $7 for something that tastes bad).
Kit wine is fairly easy to make. With the concentrated grape juice in your first stage, you just add water! And yeast. Wine, however, takes a great deal more patience, as a finished wine kit may take anywhere from a month or more to be complete (and most kits recommend bottle aging). Therefore, if you plan to make wine at home you either must have a real love for it or have more patience than the whole Russian people. Luckily, I fall into both categories.
Wine, like beer, sits in your primary for a short period of time — in wine's case, about a week. You rack wine into a glass carboy, just like beer, but there is one vital difference. After a few days you have to stir it violently and add “finings” (clarifying agents that decloudify your wine). This procedure will hurt your arms, but is less than an hour of work.
Bottling wine also takes a lot of work, as your arms (and legs!) will probably hurt after bottling a whole batch. Just remind yourself that you're a pussy, and that it's all worth it. If you go this route, a wine rack might be a good idea.
An easy cider recipe is to buy a one-gallon jug of Organic Apple Cider ($8, Santa Cruz) and add a one-dollar packet of Champagne yeast, and top with an airlock with rubber bung ($2.50). It'll take a month to mature, but this is a great little starter home alcohol experiment. You'll also need to bottle it in the same way mentioned in the beer section.
Blackberry wine is also something that is possible to make at home. Tons of recipes are available on the internet, and you could (with a little help from your friends) pick enough blackberries for a full 23 litres, or just use a leftover organic cider bottle and make about four litres.
Home distilling fits into the same “gray-area” legal problem as growing your own pot. Distilling at home for the purpose of making essential oil, distilled water, or even fuel for a car that runs on alcohol is apparently completely legal. If you drink the stuff you might be breaking the law, I've heard that it's only illegal if you give it away or sell it. So if you go this route, look over your shoulder and keep safe!
Wine makers need the same start-up kit mentioned near the beginning of the beer section, from the same place. You'll also need a corker ($40) and some corks (less than $10). Good quality wine kits can be as cheap as $50, but for a quality homemade wine, expect to pay between $70 and $100 (this is not that much, as individual bottles of wine cost you around $2-3, much better than the liquor store, where the cheapest bottle is $7 for something that tastes bad).
Kit wine is fairly easy to make. With the concentrated grape juice in your first stage, you just add water! And yeast. Wine, however, takes a great deal more patience, as a finished wine kit may take anywhere from a month or more to be complete (and most kits recommend bottle aging). Therefore, if you plan to make wine at home you either must have a real love for it or have more patience than the whole Russian people. Luckily, I fall into both categories.
Wine, like beer, sits in your primary for a short period of time — in wine's case, about a week. You rack wine into a glass carboy, just like beer, but there is one vital difference. After a few days you have to stir it violently and add “finings” (clarifying agents that decloudify your wine). This procedure will hurt your arms, but is less than an hour of work.
Bottling wine also takes a lot of work, as your arms (and legs!) will probably hurt after bottling a whole batch. Just remind yourself that you're a pussy, and that it's all worth it. If you go this route, a wine rack might be a good idea.
An easy cider recipe is to buy a one-gallon jug of Organic Apple Cider ($8, Santa Cruz) and add a one-dollar packet of Champagne yeast, and top with an airlock with rubber bung ($2.50). It'll take a month to mature, but this is a great little starter home alcohol experiment. You'll also need to bottle it in the same way mentioned in the beer section.
Blackberry wine is also something that is possible to make at home. Tons of recipes are available on the internet, and you could (with a little help from your friends) pick enough blackberries for a full 23 litres, or just use a leftover organic cider bottle and make about four litres.
Home distilling fits into the same “gray-area” legal problem as growing your own pot. Distilling at home for the purpose of making essential oil, distilled water, or even fuel for a car that runs on alcohol is apparently completely legal. If you drink the stuff you might be breaking the law, I've heard that it's only illegal if you give it away or sell it. So if you go this route, look over your shoulder and keep safe!
