When you’re creating your own wine, there are a lot of mistakes you can make. Even expert winemakers aren’t immune to making mistakes along the way. It is a learning curve, but luckily you can learn from other people’s mistakes.
Here, we’ll look at some of the top rookie mistakes to avoid when creating your own wine at home.
Using Poor Quality Ingredients
You aren’t going to be able to create a high-quality wine if you’re using poor-quality ingredients. Therefore, it’s important to make sure you choose the best of the best if you want to enjoy the best flavor.
If you are growing your own fruit that will be used in the wine, be careful when you pick it. If you pick it too early or late, it’s going to drastically impact the results. Even the yeast you plan to use during fermentation should be of a high quality.
Using Inadequate Equipment
Alongside using poor quality ingredients, using the wrong equipment is another rookie mistake. Things like carboys and spoons may look similar to common household items. However, you’ll find actual winemaking tools and equipment are made with special materials. So, using standard homemade objects isn’t going to give you the same quality wine.
In particular, avoid using utensils from around the home – especially those which have been used for cooking. This is because over time, the food odors seep through into the utensils. This can then be transferred into the wine, impacting its flavor.
Not Following Instructions
If you are just starting out, you’re going to need to follow instructions to create homemade wine. The trouble is, many people fail to follow the instructions properly. This could be because they don’t know what the instructions mean, or they may simply miss a step along the way.
Put simply, if you don’t follow instructions, the wine isn’t going to taste how it should. In fact, you could end up spoiling it completely.
Mistakes in the Fermentation Process
The fermentation process is the most difficult part of the winemaking process. This is because each type of fruit needs to be fermented for a different period of time. Any mistake you make in the process can have devastating consequences on your wine.
It is really important to understand everything there is to know about fermentation before you start making your own wine. Ensure you understand the terminology and how the process should work.
If you bottle the wine before it has fermented, the process will carry on in the bottle. This could push the cork out, as well as compromise the quality.
There are a lot of mistakes you can make in winemaking but the above are some of the most common. When you are just starting out, you need to follow specific recipes and spend a lot of time learning about the processes you can use. The more knowledgeable you are, the fewer the mistakes you are going to make.
