Joe Snow, Winemaker

Someone asked me to post the most common mistakes while making homemade wine.

So here they are.

5 Common Mistakes You Can Make When Making Wine And How To Avoid Them

Mistake Number One

Not sanitizing ALL wine making equipment and utensils

Not properly sanitizing your wine making equipment prior to beginning and during the wine making process can lead to catastrophic results. The most common symptom of a wine that was made under less than sanitary conditions is a wine that has a bad taste or an unpleasant odor, even worse the wine may have to be dumped. I have read that up to 90 percent of all wine failures are due to the lack of good sanitation practices. Sanitation is NOT the same thing as sterilization in fact we really do not want to have sterilized fermenters when making wine. Sanitizing is the reducing or removing of bacteria and other undesirable microorganisms; whereas sterilization kills everything.

Sodium Metabisulfite works well as a sanitizer for your wine making equipment. Use 2 oz. to 1 gallon of water. It is also reuseable, just sanitize, and then put it back in the container. I use a one gallon glass jug with a screw-on cap to contain the liquid sanitizer. Here is an example, pour a small amount into a carboy and roll it around and up an down until all of the interior surface has been coated then pour the left over sanitizer back into the original glass jug to use again. 

Sanitation is an important step in winemaking. Just practice following the instructions. Clean and sanitize your equipment before you start to make wine. Clean and sanitize your equipment after you are through using the equipment. Store your sanitized equipment in a bug and dust free environment. Clean and sanitize the equipment again before using. Mistake avoided!

Mistake Number Two

Adding too much or too little sugar

Adding too much or too little sugar to your wine “must” can have undesirable effects on your finished product. When fermentation occurs the wine yeast is consuming sugar and turning it into alcohol. So the amount of sugar that is available to the wine yeast controls how much alcohol that can be made. However, it is possible to have too much sugar in a must during fermentation. Too much sugar adversely affects the fermentation process and begins to act as a preservative as opposed to being food for yeast. This will have a tendency to choke out the yeast and fermentation may not start. That is why if you are not familiar with the use of your hydrometer to check the sugar content of the must and make calculated adjustments, you should adhere to your trusted recipe without making experimental changes.
Adding too little sugar will literally starve the yeast to death and produce very little alcohol content leaving you with little more than fruit juice as opposed to wine.
There are several different wine yeasts from which to choose. Most will produce between 10 and 13 percent alcohol with the right amount of sugar. There are some that are formulated to produce more. There is a fine line one should not cross between the proper amount of sugar and the kind of yeast being used.

Mistake Number Three

Using the wrong yeast

There are many wine making instructions on how to make homemade wine on the internet. Many of them are not giving good advice on how to properly make good wine resulting in a poor excuse for wine. Some of the instructions are down right dangerous and should be avoided. I wrote about some of them in my book. Some are advocating the use of yeast never intended for wine. For example, some suggest using bakers yeast. And some suggest that using brewers yeast will work for wine. This is all well and good if you want your wine to have a hint of homemade bread or dinner rolls in its taste, or wine that tastes like it has been mixed with beer. I didn’t think so. Yeasts are formulated to work with certain processes, baking, making beer, and wine making, to name the most notable. When baking, use bakers yeast. When making beer, use brewers yeast. When making wine, use wine yeast. Always pick your yeast for what it was designed for. Most fruit contain naturally occurring yeast and it is possible to produce some semblance of wine with its use. But, it is a far cry from being good wine. In fact, when we make wine we go to great lengths to kill the natural yeast and bacteria within the batch. We then add our wine yeast after waiting 24 hours for the additive (campden) to become ineffective.

Mistake Number Four

Leaving wine in primary fermentation too long

Primary fermentation usually takes between three to seven days to complete. It goes by much more quickly than secondary fermentation because wine must is a much more fertile environment for the yeast. Sugar and oxygen levels are high during primary fermentation and there are plenty of nutrients. A happy and healthy yeast population can really consume sugar at a rapid rate in an environment like this. As fermentation progresses the oxygen runs out, the sugar and nutrient levels drop, and alcohol starts to build up. This slows fermentation down. A blanket of carbon monoxide forms on top of the must that keeps oxygen at bay. But the slowing of fermentation means less CO2 is generated for the blanket. There are two things you really need to be concerned with. Moving from the primary to the secondary container is to get the wine off the gross lees, (dead and decaying yeast cells), so no off flavors occur and get your wine out of the primary which provides a very large surface area to contact air. If left too long in this state there is a possibility that oxygen could find its way back into the must, especially when you are stirring daily, which is recommended in most fresh fruit recipes.

Here again, follow your trusted recipe. After the third day, check your specific gravity every day, and when the SG reaches the point that the recipe calls for, rack it to the secondary and affix an air lock.  If too much oxygen gets to it, you could end up with vinegar!

Mistake Number Five

Forgetting to stabilize the wine before bottling

Forgetting to stabilize wine before bottling can cause a great deal of grief. Just because you haven’t seen a bubble in your air lock for some time, does not mean your wine is stabile. Many novice winemakers have made this mistake and have paid dearly for it; from stained and ruined clothes, to storage areas drenched with wine, to a big surprise when they opened a non stabilized bottle to serve and it shoots out of the bottle like a volcano erupting, leaving very little left to drink. Sometimes fermentation is so slow that you cannot detect it. After wine is bottled, it doesn’t take much fermentation to gas it up, sort of like champagne, only worse. I still have wine stains on my pantry walls from wine blowing its top. So be sure to stabilize your wine with Potassium Sorbate and follow the package instructions. After applying the stabilizer, wait a few days (7 -10) before racking and bottling, to make sure all of the dead yeast has settled to the bottom of the fermenter.

You may get further advice by send your questions to "winemakingsecrets@gmail.com".