Many people are under the impression that homemade wines do not keep as long as commercially made wines. This is simply not true.

There is no difference between how long your homemade wine will last and how long a winery's wine will last. The process the home winemaker goes through is virtually the same as a winery's, just on a smaller scale.

The important thing to understand is that sanitation must be given its due respect. Not only do you need to clean the fermenting vessels and other winemaking equipment with dish soap, they need to be sanitized as well. For this purpose we recommend using CleanPro SDH.

Wine bottles should be sanitized with a sodium bisulfite. Used wine bottles are only recommended if they have been scrubbed both inside and out and then sanitized.

Campden tablets or potassium bisulfite should be added to the wine right before bottling to keep any missed microbes from spoiling the wine while in the bottle.

If you make a concerted effort to follow these simple and basic sanitation procedures your wine will keep for years.

Hello:

Maybe you can answer a question that I have. When using yeast, do you need to place it in hot water as the directions say on the package, or can you just sprinkle it on the must?

I noticed that some recipes call for it to be placed in hot water first, and other recipes call for the yeast to be sprinkled on the top of the must. What is the best thing to do?

Thank you for your time,
Leonard
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Dear Leonard,

You are correct. Most all ingredient kit directions and wine recipes will say to sprinkle the dried yeast directly on top of the must, but if you look at the packet of dried yeast itself, it will have directions saying to put the yeast in warm water first. This is a process called rehydration. What rehydration does is bring the dried yeast back to an active state before it is put into the must.

If you pitch the dried yeast directly into the must it will rehydrate and eventually start fermenting anyway. So why do the yeast producers recommend this extra step before pitching?

When a yeast cell rehydrates, its cell wall is swelling and gaining back the elasticity, its ability to flex. This is a process that is prone to leaving a few cells damaged. A percentage of them don't make it. By using plain water at an optimal temperature you are reducing the number of cells that are being damaged.

The reason ingredient kit producers, wine recipes, and even the directions on our website do not mention rehydrating before pitching is that many home winemakers, particularly beginners, do not perform the rehydration correctly. This can cause more problems than if they had just pitched the dried yeast directly into the must.

The typical directions on a packet of dried yeast goes something like this:

"Dissolve the dried yeast in 2 ozs. of warm water (100 - 105 F). Let stand for 15 min. without stirring. After 15 min. stir and add to must."

This is perfectly fine as long as you follow the directions.

It is important to note here that at 100 - 105 F a small portion of the yeast are dying every minute, and as the temperature goes up an even larger number begin to die. What this means is if a thermometer is not used to make sure that the water stays below 105 F, or the yeast cells are allowed to stay in the water for longer than 15 minutes, most or all of the yeast can potentially be killed.

Regardless of what you do, sprinkle on the must or rehydrate, some of the yeast cells will die before going into action. That's just the way it is, but that's okay. The number of yeast cells that are provided in each packet allow for this attrition. Just remember that if you do decide to rehydrate your yeast first, please be sure to follow the directions closely with regards to temperature and time. Otherwise, just sprinkle the yeast on the must.

Best Wishes,
Customer Service at E. C. Kraus

This is a question we get at least once a week. People are desperately seeking out how to make their own wines without sulfites. Usually it is because they are suffering from headaches that they are attributing to sulfite allergies.

The major foil to making wines with no sulfites is that sulfites are a natural byproduct of fermentation. In winemaking we talk about sulfites in terms of ppm (parts per million). Fermentations will naturally produce sulfites somewhere on the order of 10 to 30 ppm.

This amount may seem small, but compare it against the fact that the average bottle of wine on the market only contains about 65 ppm or the fact that any wine in the U.S. that has more than 10 ppm must have on its label, "Contains Sulfites." Then it starts to become clear that the amount of sulfites made by a fermentation is, in fact, significant to the wine's total content.

So the answer is, "no." You can not make sulfite-free wine. Now lets move on to the next logical question...


Can I make wines without adding sulfites?

The answer is, "Certainly you can, but do you really want too?" Sulfites are added to a wine for a reason, to keep it from spoiling. If the level of sulfites are too low, then it is susceptible to being overcome with bacteria, mold and other detrimental spoilers.

Because wine has alcohol, the amount of sulfites needed to keep it from spoiling is very small as compared to amounts we find in the foods we eat everyday. Fruit juices, for example, can have on the order of 200 to 300 ppm; dehydrated fruits, conservatively around 1,000 ppm; and salsa around 1,000 to 2,000 ppm. These are much higher amounts than the 45 to 85 ppm you will typically find in wine.

So it doesn't make sense to short your wine the miniscule amount of sulfites it needs to help guarantee its safety from spoilage, and it doesn't make sense to blame such small amounts of sulfites on headaches when so much of it is in the foods we consume everyday. That brings us to the next logical question...


So Why Do Some Get Headaches From Wine?

There are a certain number of people who do get headaches from drinking wine, but as explained above, blaming this on sulfites just doesn't add up.

There are a couple of other reasons why this doesn't add up too. One is sulfite allergies are much more rare than there are people having headaches from wine. According to the medical industry, there is somewhere between 500 thousand to 1 million sulfite allergy sufferers in the U.S. This equals only about 1 in 300 to 600 people.

Secondly, a headache is not the primary symptom of a sulfite allergy. Asthma or having trouble breathing is the very first problem to show up.

A great article on this subject is titled, "Red Wine Headaches." It covers in fair detail the real possible reasons why someone might get a headache from drinking wine.


What Can I do?

If you are still not convinced that sulfites are completely innocent of all charges, then you might want to consider taking a sulfite level reading at bottling time and add potassium bisulfite accordingly. Shoot for a total level of 55 ppm for reds and 70 ppm for whites just before bottling.

You can take readings with a Titrettor Hand Tool and Titret Test Vials. By taking control of your sulfite levels in this way, you can be certain that no more sulfites are in the wine than absolutely necessary to keep it fresh.

Hello Kraus,

I was looking at the County Fair Fruit Bases, and am confused at how many cans it takes to make a batch. It says it takes one to four cans. How do I know how many cans I need to make a good batch?

Thanks Wendy
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Dear Wendy,

The first thing I would like to point out is that the number of cans you use to make a 5 gallon batch is not a question of quality, or good or bad. It's a question of style. A real question to ask yourself here is, "what style do you like"?

As you increase the number of cans in a batch what you are really doing is increasing the body and intensity of the resulting wine. Body is the thickness or the mouth-feel of the wine. To put an analogy to it, it's the difference between skim milk and whole milk.

If you use just one can of County Fair to a 5 gallon batch, you will be making a light-bodied wine. It will have a crisp, refreshing character, a nice quenching wine to drink during the warm summer months. At the other end of the scale is the four can batch. This wine will be very full and aggressive. A rich, hardy wine with lingering flavors that will be able to stand up to any meal.

There are a couple of other issues that should be noted here as well:

-- Four cans will not make a wine that is twice as strong as two cans. Because of the way us humans perceive things, there is a factor of diminishing returns. As you go up in the number of cans you are only marginally increasing the fullness of the wine, so it would be incorrect to expect that a wine made with four cans would be four times as strong as a wine made with one can.

-- The more cans you use, the more aging the wine will require. Typically, a one can wine will completely age out in 3 to 6 months. A four can wine may take up to 2 years to reach its best. That is not to say that it won't be enjoyable before this time, that's just how long it may take before it stops mellowing.

Best Wishes
Customer Service at E. C. Kraus

Hello!

Does filtering wines Help remove that harsh taste I keep getting with my strawberry wine. I have never had a filterer and was thinking of getting one. Now I only do less then 500 bottles of wine a year. for gifts and for family. I soon will think bigger. a filter will speed things up for bottling and what will negs of filtering be.

Richard
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Dear Richard,

We usually suggest letting the wine age to reduce any harshness. With strawberry wine, 6 to 9 months is usually optimal, but most of the improvement should be realized within the first couple of months.

If your wine is harsh even after 9 months, then it may be that you are processing the strawberries too finely or you are leaving the strawberries in the must too long. Doing either of these things will allow too much tannin or "zest" from the fruit to get into the wine. It is this zest that is causing the harsh flavor you are experiencing.

Just coarsely chop up strawberries into quarters. Thin slices is over-kill and using a food processor of any kind is way, way too much processing.

The amount of time you leave the strawberry pulp in the wine can vary some. We recommend leaving the pulp in for the first 4 to 6 days. Anything longer than this can cause a harsh flavor in the wine.

Filtration does reduce harshness to some degree, but before you do that, you might want to try treating the wine with bentonite. This product will reduce harshness as well. It does so by collecting the excessive tannins in the wine and dragging them to the bottom of the fermenter.

If you want to reduce the harshness as much possible, then you would treat the wine with bentonite and then filter the wine a week or so later. For this purpose we would recommend using the MiniJet Wine Filter.

Best Wishes,
Customer Service at E. C. Kraus

Dear EC Kraus,

Is it ok to make wine from grapes you get at the store? We are not able to find any other kind around here.

Thanks
Marco
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Dear Marco,

The grapes you'll find at your local grocer will make wine even though they were not cultivated for that purpose, however there are some things you should know...

Grapes produced for eating such as Thompson, Ruby, and others are typically harvested at a lower sugar concentration than wine grapes, so some sugar will need to be added to the must before fermenting, otherwise your ending alcohol level will be too low. This is unlike making wine from wine grapes where all the sugars needed come from the grapes themselves.

Table grapes will ferment just fine; the wine will clear up beautifully just as any wine. The only real question is flavor. Once the sugars are fermented away, what resulting flavors are left exposed in the wine?

Most eating grapes are not grown because of their flavor. They are grown because of the tons-per-acre their vines produce and their ability to stay fresh while in transit across the country to local markets. Flavor is last on the list of importance.

The other issue is price. I'm sure it varies in different parts of the country, but around here table grapes run about a $1.50 per pound. Not a bargain when considering their quality and the fact that you need about 80 pounds to make 5 gallons. If you would like to see a Thompson seedless wine recipe, we do have one on our website.

If you are unable to find actual wine grapes in your area your best option is to use concentrated grape juices, ones that have been prepared specifically for the purpose of making wine. The selection available to home winemakers is vast and they are available every month of the year. We currently offer over 200 different grape juices that have been collected from around the world. If you would like more information about these grape juices, just visit our website.

Best Wishes,
Customer Service at E. C. Kraus