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As Easy As I Can Make It Red Wine Recipe

Makes 1 gallon.

This is as simple as I can make it, other than my Freaked Out Hippie Recipe. I cannot stress enough to try to make sure all your utensils are clean or sterile as possible. Good Luck!

Ingredients

Instructions

  1. Lightly crush grapes in a primary fermenting container.
  2. Dissolve sugar in water and add to crushed grapes (called must).
  3. Pour one pack of yeast into 2-3 ounces of water heated to 104 – 109 degrees F. Do not stir and let sit for 15 minutes only. Then stir to suspend yeast and add to must.
  4. Note that you can use bread yeast, but your wine might taste like cider. Or you can also do it the old fashioned way: take your chances and not add any yeast and let it ferment naturally.
  5. Stir well and cover fermentor loosely.
  6. Let ferment for 7 days, stirring twice daily.
  7. After seven days, remove the pulp and siphon off the liquid through a course strainer into a secondary fermentor (a 5 gallon glass jug or one gallon glass containers) Leave some breathing room in these bottles. Any extra liquid should be kept for topping off when racking.
  8. Top with a rubber bung and airlock. Or you can use the 70s way and put a balloon on top, secured with a rubber band or good string. Put one pinhole in the balloon if using this method.
  9. Let ferment 3-4 weeks then rack (siphon off, liquid leaving sediment behind) into clean secondary fermentor. Repeat airlock or balloon method for another 4 - 6 weeks or until fermentation has stopped.
  10. Siphon off and bottle.
  11. Age for one year.