Hey guys this is Alex, so welcome back to the winemaking odyssey
It is episode four now of how to make freaking wine.
Today I'm turning a cloudy and unbalanced wine must into a crystal clear, almost, and round
red Liquor
In this series, I'm sharing my whole experience about wine making at home
from Fresh Grapes all the way to beautiful wine
using only cheap and basic equipment
Of course along the way which are fun facts and useful tips. Whether you want to make wine
Or you just want to drink it let's be honest
Remember to always act safely and responsibly
In the previous episode we completed the alcoholic fermentation. Which is now completely over
And now I am pushing a bit further into the wine must before moving to the next stage. It's called
Macerating the must and it will give it more colours and more flavours
I'm doing it for about three days, but you can go up to a week if your grapes were particularly ripe
And if you want a strong red wine at the end. I guess I have lower expectation
I just want an okay wine at the end. What could be the name of it? Let me know in the comments
Everyday shake the bucket vigorously and also do a quick tasting just to be sure it's not going to astringent
It's time to change container now. The buckets have done their work brilliantly but from now on I'm going to use a big
Collapsible water container instead, and you will understand why in just a few moments
Pour the wine must through a sieve into a freshly sanitised container
Technically you could press the wine must to get even more juices and colours from it, but in my case
The Liquid was already quite astringent, so I did not want to push that furthermore
To prevent it from oxidizing get all the air out
So a few episodes ago I told you there are two
Fermentations in the winemaking process. The first one is the alcoholic fermentation
And we did a good job on this one and the second one is called malolactic fermentation
or conversion
And it's happening right now
In the container the Cloudy wine liquid tastes quite tart and green it has a very much in your face acidity.
Well that's Mainly due to the presence of natural Malic acid
luckily for us some naturally occurring Bacteria called lactic acid Bacteria can turn a rough acid into a
lactic Acid which is
Softer Fuller and rounder for our taste buds and this whole process is called the malolactic fermentation
So back then a few months ago. I thought why would I buy any stupid commercial Bacteria?
It's going to be fine on its own. I don't need them. Nobody needs well
Here I am a few months later. I think my malolactic went well
But I'm not sure and it's killing me so as always I do the mistakes so that you don't have to get those commercially available
Bacterias, it's cheap. It's widely available. Yes
**** Me, and now let the wine rest for about 15 days in a dark, but warm place
Over time you will probably notice a tiny gas emission in that container that's absolutely normal as carbon dioxide is
liberated in the process, so it also makes the wine bit fizzy during that period
So here's a quick tip in fact we can use that fizziness in our
Advantage, as soon as the liquid isn't fizzy anymore then the malolactic
Reaction is over and we are ready to move on to the next step
I am now siphoning all that liquid into another sanitized collapsible container
using clear tubing and gravity that action is called racking
It allows
Clarification as the leas and impurities will stay at the bottom of the previous container
That whole racking process will be performed three times total during the next six months
Every time we will add a bit of sulfides into the new container to stop
Any bacterial activity and to prevent it from turning into vinegar. That would be the worst
Oxidation whenever you add sulfite you need to be accurate and not like roughly accurate, you need to be super accurate
So I will share all the details all the calculus in the description box down below
Following that racking process you will have to wait for two months every time
So doing it in real time would be probably a bit long ish, so let's just fast forward
It's now been six months and the wine is ready to be bottled and labeled and tasted.
I Can't wait for this
But that has to be for episode 5 because there are already loads of information to process in this episode
So guys that's it
I really hope you enjoyed this episode and that you enjoy the whole adventure of the whole Journey the whole
Winemaking
Project if you do then please give it a big
Thumbs up and share that of the all your social media you know how it works it really helps me a lot
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Always always tag me in it and use the hashtag spread it like butter
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I make new videos every week, and it's always about pushing the food
Boundaries like for example that a video I made recently about wok hei
Wok shei where I hacked my a little portable stove into a twenty two thousand and two hundred BTU monster version
So you see it's not always about the French boundaries it's about the world boundaries
Take care, bye-bye.