Random wine

[ina]

Well, what you do need though is a certain temperature. Last and this summer were reasonably warm, so I thought I should try to make wine again. Unfortunately I've been unwell all that time and needed all my energy to go to work. I wouldn't buy stuff to make wine from - the point is to use all that soft fruit I have in the garden!

[BernardSmith]

Actually, too warm temperatures create too fast fermentations and those can create poor flavors and off flavors from the yeast. You really want cooler temperatures for wine making - perhaps 18 -21 C. Perhaps even lower.

[ina]

It is lower than that most of the time. Below 15 again yesterday... (It's August, you know!)

Well, as soon as I have some energy again, I'll try and find all my wine making kit. It's somewhere in this house. But since I've not had any energy for the past 18 months or so, I'm not very hopeful.

[BernardSmith]

Hi Ina, Hope you find your energy again very soon. I am in upstate NY about 180 miles north of NY City - and our temperatures are in the 70's - 80's during August (about 25 C) but temperatures of 15 C or thereabouts tend to be OK for yeast. They may perform more slowly but their performance at such temperatures tends to be far superior to their performance when the temps are higher. That said, not sure that you need to locate your wine making kit***. All you really need to make a delicious wine is some fruit juice (store bought is OK) and some yeast (best to use wine making yeast but at a pinch you can use baking yeast). Let's say you buy a quart (liter) of pineapple or mango or pomegranate or ?? juice (orange juice and grapefruit don't always make great wines -they tend to be too acidic- Better to zest fresh oranges and use the zest than the juice but that's another story), then all you do is remove about 50 mil of the juice (to allow the juice space to froth) and add the yeast. No need to add any sugar. The juice without added sugar will likely ferment to give you a (dry) wine of about 6% abv (12 proof) , and if you prefer the wine sweeter you do need to 'stabilize' this wine (if you intend to store or age it) you add sugar after the fermentation is done. But this is a country wine and you can simply add sugar in the wine glass
If you want a higher alcoholic wine then you add sugar (or honey or agave syrup) before you add the yeast and about 0.5 kg of sugar will add another 5% abv (10 proof) so you will end up with a wine at around 11% abv.

*** When you make wine you don't need a bung and airlock while the yeast is being active and pumping out carbon dioxide. All you need is something to loosely cover the top of the container in which you are fermenting. After a couple of weeks and the active fermentation has more or less ended then you do want to transfer (rack) the wine into a container that the wine now fully fills (no space for air) and so then you do want a bung and airlock (to allow the carbon dioxide to escape but prevent air from entering), BUT wines made with 5-6% abv can usually be enjoyed without any aging - much like a beer.