Mankind has been drinking wine for thousands of years. Have you ever wondered how wine is made? Do you know that wine can be made at home? In fact, wine used to be made at home until somebody came up with the fantastic idea of mass producing wine and selling it to others to enable them to enjoy great wine with minimum fuss.

We all know wine is made from grapes. How then is it different from grape juice? Is wine just glorified grape juice? Certainly not! The presence of alcohol in wine makes it totally different from grape juice.

So where does the alcohol come from? Is it added to the wine? When we talk about alcohol, we are not talking about whisky or beer. We are talking about the chemical spirit alcohol. Grape juice gets its alcohol content from fermentation.

Fermentation is the process of interaction of yeast, which is a single celled living organism, with the sugar in the grape juice. Alcohol and carbon dioxide are the by-products of this reaction. This reaction continues until the alcohol content becomes so high that the yeast dies off due to the alcohol it created. The yeast sinks to the bottom and is removed. What began as grape juice and yeast has now become wine. This wine must be filtered and stored before it can be consumed.

Had mankind not known what yeast was and what it could do, we would have been sipping grape juice instead of refreshing wine!

Yeast is also found naturally. In this form, it is called wild yeast. The wild yeast that sticks to the skin of the grapes gets mixed with grape juice to initiate fermentation. Hence, wine can be made even without manual addition of yeast. However, there is no certainty that the wine would be to your liking. Adding processed yeast specifically made for making wine helps you control the taste of wine. Relying on wild yeast is a bit of a gamble.

The manual addition of yeast is not a simple process. You can’t buy just any yeast and add it to the grapes. Many individuals who make wine at home opt for the yeast that is used in making bread as this yeast will lead to fermentation and alcohol production. However, using yeast strains that have been made specifically for wine is preferable as it offers the following advantages:

- You know how the yeast will behave. That is, you know how much alcohol it produces, how long it should be stored and the taste it creates. This is possible because the yeast is manufactured after repeated testing and experimentation.

- If you want wine with a high alcohol content, you can opt for those strains that are resistant to alcohol. Since yeast dies during the wine making process, a higher resistance will enable the yeast to survive for a long period of time. This will result in wine with a high alcohol content.

- If you do not intend to store the wine for a long period and if you wish to consume it quickly, you can opt for yeast that reacts with sugar. This yeast will produce a lot of alcohol fast.

Making wine at home is a fruitful exercise if you follow the correct process and have the right tools and materials. You can then proudly share your home made wine with friends and family.

Mark Pollack is a grape growing and wine making expert. You can find more info on wine making yeast at http://www.bestwinegrowingsecrets.com.

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/home-brewing-articles/importance-of-yeast-in-wine-making-945577.html

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Leaving Your Beer Alone to Become Great

To become a real “master” of brewing beer, you have to understand every aspect of what happens during the brewing process.  When you get home from the beer brewing supply store with your kit or your little baggies with the supplies to make a fresh batch of beer, it is sometimes hard to imagine that those raw materials will result in a delicious batch of beer that you made yourself.  But by understanding each step, you can become quite adept at making beer at home.

The cycles of making beer are each important as you take them order.  From sterilizing your equipment, to purchasing the supplies and then on to boiling and brewing and fermentation, each step is important.  But that last step, fermentation and aging is unique from the rest because it is the step that calls for you to not be interacting with your beer, adjusting the equipment or preparing the brewing ingredients.  It is the step that calls for you to use patience and tender loving care to leave your beer alone as it ferments.  But the fermentation process is just as crucial if not more important than any of the preparation steps.  That is because it is fermentation that genuinely turns the mixture you have cooked up on the kitchen stove into a wonderful tasting beer you will be proud to serve to friends and family.

There are two phases of fermentation which is the primary stage and the secondary stage. Both are important. During primary fermentation, the yeast and the sugars that are in the wort you so carefully prepared go through a long chemical interaction which releases carbon dioxide as a byproduct.  Now during this phase, you want to get that CO2 out of those fermentation bottles because if you leave them in there, the bottles will explode.

The need to get that carbon dioxide out of the fermentation bottle without opening up the fermentation to outside air entirely is one good reason to buy specialized fermentation equipment because they will come with air release devices that will utilize an airlock system to release the CO2 buildup but keep a level of separation between the outside environment and your fermenting beer.

Once you have the bottles prepared and the wort in place, its time to find a cool dark place in the house to place the fermenting bottles.  Don’t give in to the urge to put them in the refrigerator because that will just stop the fermentation in its tracks.  A room that sustains a constant 65-75 degree temperature is good.  Now that the fermentation process is underway, you do what is often the most difficult maneuver for any home beer zealot.  You leave the beer alone and let the ingredients make magic in those bottles for about two weeks.

Secondary fermentation is the next and final phase except if you choose to age your beer to enhance the flavor.  But the second fermentation is where you add some additional sugar and you strain out the sediments from the primary fermentation and trap the mixture in sealed bottles this time.  The CO2 build up is not as extreme so the danger of exploding beer bottles is gone and the carbon dioxide creates that bubbly attribute to your beer that will give it a wonderful head and taste.  Both phases are necessary and you will give your beer another couple of weeks in this stage before it will be ready to drink.  But after you have a little taste, if you want to let the beer continue to process and age, maybe even in wood containers to add a rich flavor to the brew, this is just you being the Brewmeister that will result in wonderful tasting beer to serve to your friends and family.

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