There’s a lot of variation in how to make your own wine, however, the same basic steps apply regardless of what type of wine you make.

1. Must preparation: For this step of how to make your own wine, the fruit or wine grapes are made into a mushy substance, known as the “must”.  During this stage, sugar and acid levels must balance so that when following the wine recipe it leads to a well-balanced wine.
2. Primary and Secondary Fermentation:  During the primary fermentation, wine yeast converts sugar to alcohol and carbon dioxide.  This is also known as aerobic fermentation, since the fermentation container is exposed to air.  Primary fermentation lasts for 3 to 5 days, and accounts for around 70% of the entire fermentation activity. Secondary fermentation is much slower, lasting one or two weeks, and ferments the remaining 30% left unfermented by primary fermentation.  This is also known as anaerobic fermentation, since the fermentation container is closed off to air.  This focuses the wine yeast on converting sugar to alcohol instead of multiplying.
3. Racking & Aging:  The purpose of the racking step is to transfer the wine from one fermenter to another, leaving behind sediment in the bottom of the first fermenter and out of the finished wine.  You may rack wine multiple times if there’s a lot of sediment to remove. Aging wine can occur over any time period, depending upon what type of wine you are making.  Aging allows the wine to evolve and develop, which effectively alters the flavor, aroma, and taste of the wine.  Typically, red wines require longer aging than white wines, in order to develop the more complex characteristics that are unique to red wines.
4. Clarification and Stabilization:  The clarification step acts to further “fine” the wine from sediments by adding finings or further racking to remove solid particles and sediment. Changes in temperature, humidity, or other environmental factors can cause chemical reactions in wine, which sometimes results in the precipitation of solids. Stabilizing the wine using chemical or temperature treatments will prevent your wine from experiencing this precipitation when exposed to less-than-ideal conditions.
5. Bottling and Storing: The last step in this overview on how to make your own wine, comes after you’ve finished your delectable wine.  Bottle it to protect it from overexposure to air, light, and other environmentally detrimental conditions. Finally, you want to store your wine under “cellar conditions” in order to preserve the life of your wine.  Lay the bottle on its side, keep it in the dark, and store around 55°F.
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   Ed Kraus is a 3rd generation home brewer/winemaker and has been an owner of E. C. Kraus since 1999. He has been helping individuals make better wine and beer for over 25 years.

There’s a lot of debate regarding what type of closure you should be using to bottle your homemade wine.  Understanding the qualities of each type of closure and how they fit in with the style of wine you intend to create will allow you to make an informed decision and give you confidence that you are selecting the perfect wine bottle closure for your homemade wine.
Two of the most common types of wine bottle closures are natural cork and synthetic cork.
Natural wine bottle cork comes from the bark of the cork tree, which is indigenous to Spain and Portugal.  They do not kill the tree in order to harvest the cork, but instead they simply strip the bark off the tree, which subsequently regenerates new bark.  In this way, the method can be considered renewable and environmentally friendly.  Natural cork is also the oldest method of bottle closure, and has been widely used and accepted for hundreds of years.
Natural cork allows small amounts of oxygen into the wine, which is beneficial during the aging process.  One problem with this is that the amount of oxygen let in is extremely variable from cork to cork, and one can never be sure their wine is being exposed to too much air.  You always run the risk of having a “corked” bottle of wine, caused by TCA (2,4,6-trichloroanisole), which is produced by fungus living in the natural cork.  Finally, natural cork can sometimes crumble when trying to remove it, which leaves undesirable chunks of cork floating around in your glass of wine.
Synthetic corks are alternatives to natural cork that have been picking up a lot of steam in recent years.  One concern about synthetic corks is that not enough oxygen is allowed through the cork and into the wine; however, there is currently ongoing research that is making progress in alleviating this issue.
One benefit of synthetic cork is that you’ll never have a wine that is suffering from cork taint.  Also, synthetic cork can be very easy to remove from the bottle, and you never have to worry about crumbling or breaking.  Finally, synthetic corks are recyclable, so you don’t have to worry about being unfriendly to the environment when you use this alternative wine bottle cork.
Since over 90% of wines are designed to be consumed in their youth, the issue of synthetic cork subpar breathability is no longer an issue.  Oxygen transfer is extremely important in the aging of wines, however, if you are making a wine that’s designed to be consumed immediately, then buying synthetic corks may just be the way to go!
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Ed Kraus is a 3rd generation home brewer/winemaker and has been an owner of E. C. Kraus since 1999. He has been helping individuals make better wine and beer for over 25 years.

The holidays are about 6 weeks away: have you started shopping for your friends and family?  Are you looking to add to your own gift list?  Here are some wine making book suggestions for you to think about now for the home wine maker that is near and dear to your heart.  Don’t celebrate the holidays?  It’s never the wrong time to surprise an aspiring enologist with a wine making book!

Techniques in Home Winemaking:
The Comprehensive Guide to Making Chateau-Style Wines
by Daniel Pambianchi:  Popular among home wine makers, this wine making book provides instructions for making wine that is written in a straight forward way that both novices and experts can understand and covers every aspect of the wine making process.  It provides technical explanations of the science behind the art, but not so technical that a novice would feel overwhelmed.

The Joy of Home Winemaking
by Terry A. Garey: This wine making book is popular among beginners, though is certainly a good reference for experts.  Written in an easy, comprehensive, and often humorous manner, this wine making book adds adventure and variety to your home wine making experience.  Want to know how to make a cherry pie wine or rhubarb champagne?  This book has the recipe for fun with home wine making!

The Home Winemaker’s Companion:
Secrets, Recipes, and Know-How for Making 115 Great-Tasting Wines
by Gene Spaziani: This wine making book is great for beginners who aren’t looking for a technical explanation for the wine making process.  If you are a more advanced home wine maker, this may not be the best wine making book for you.  Looking for recipes that contain many of the same base ingredients for easy wine making? You may want to put this book on your list!
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Ed Kraus is a 3rd generation home brewer/winemaker and has been an owner of E. C. Kraus since 1999. He has been helping individuals make better wine and beer for over 25 years.

Hi… Just wondering if your liqueur flavorings could be added to a fruit wine.. for a little stronger flavor… Our peach, this year, is not real “peachy”…. and wondered if this would give it a flavor boost…
Thank you,
Sandy M.
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Hello Sandy,
These liqueur flavorings where originally intended to be used for taking an inexpensive spirit such as everyday Vodka and turning it into something special such as Amoretto, French Brandy, Peach Schnapps or dozens of other popular liqueurs. They are used in conjunction with thickening and/or sweetening Liqueur Bases to produce these lush cordials.
Having said this, we discovered long ago that these bottles of liqueur flavorings can do great things when added to a homemade fruit wine. Quite often we recommend using them to add additional flavor and aroma to homemade fruit wines that are in the situation you described. So yes, absolutely you can use these liqueur flavorings to enhance your wines flavor. This is one of my favorite wine making tips because it’s so easy to do.
One bottle is probably the max you will want to use in a 5 or 6 gallon batch of fruit wine, and sometimes even less than this is best. These little bottles of contain an unexpected amount of flavor in them. Adding too much to your homemade wine can be worse than adding none at all. Doing so can bring an unwanted bitter astringency to the wine that will later need to be masked with sweetening of some sort.
Starting with a half of bottle of liqueur flavoring in 5 gallons of wine is a safe way to go about it. You can use a measuring syringe to help you control the amount you are actually adding to the wine.
You can also expect somewhat of a delayed reaction with these flavoring. There full affect is not immediate, particularly the aroma. They need some time to mingle with the wine before their full affect can be experienced. I usually let the wine sit overnight before making and determinations.
Happy Winemaking,
Customer Service
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Ed Kraus is a 3rd generation home brewer/winemaker and has been an owner of E. C. Kraus since 1999. He has been helping individuals make better wine and beer for over 25 years.

We’ve just added a new corker to our website, and it’s one that we are very excited about. It’s called the Winery-Grade Floor-Corker. Not only is it a quality corker, it’s a corker that we’re able to offer at a deceptively-low price of $69.95!
It’s a floor-model style corker that stands 30 inches tall. What this means is that you are able to stand over it to gain greater leverage. Because it is so well designed and constructed, it can easily insert size #9 cork with very little effort — both natural wine cork stoppers and the denser synthetic corks.
It’s fast and simple to use.  With the lever all the way up, just drop a cork into the chamber in the corker’s head. Then place a wine bottle on the spring-loaded table.
As you push the lever down two things begin to happen at the same time:

1. The wine bottle table locks into place, securing the wine bottle against the bottom of corker’s head.
2. The corker slowly starts to compress the cork with its jaws.

As the lever goes all the way down it smoothly plunges the compressed cork into the wine bottle.
This floor-corker is great for the home winemaker who needs more than a handle-held corker. It allows them to cork a good size batch without straining their hands. But this is also a great corker for bottling larger batches. It can cork wine bottles at a very brisk pace. And if you want to put it into overdrive, you can use it as a two-man unit: one person loads and unloads the wine bottle; the other person loads the cork and plunges the lever.
You can find our more about this Winery-Grade Floor-Corker on our website. We have plenty in stock. And remember, as an added boost to this already great value, we’ll get it to your front door at no charge. Shipping is absolutely free!
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Ed Kraus is a 3rd generation home brewer/winemaker and has been an owner of E. C. Kraus since 1999. He has been helping individuals make better wine and beer for over 25 years.

I’m making watermelon wine and would like to give it strong melon flavor. I have been racking my brain thinking how to do this since you can’t boil it down, because it said to kill the flavor. So after giving it a lot of thought, this is what i was thinking, can I add a finshed bottle, of the same type of wine i’m making would this help or hurt . 2nd idea is to dehydrate the watermelon and make watermelon power. Then take the powder and add it in the place of, or with the sugar. and use fresh melon juice has the recipe calls for. keep in mine im trying to make a powerful melon taste but dry not to sweet. Thank you for your time to help a noobie like me .
Name: Jason
State: nc