One night some two months back I was filling my mind with junk content while scrolling the great internet and watching random YouTube videos until I somehow stumbled upon home-brewing (which peaked my interest). I first watched some Beer brews and then stumbled to Vodka/Whisky and a multitude of other home-brew tutorials. Somewhere mixed in those videos was a tutorial on how to make wine which seemed like the easiest/cost efficient way to give home-brewing a shot. So now that I decided on what type of brewing I intend on doing the question becomes how? Surely (I know don't call you Surely) it must be some strenuous process. I mean some people around the world pay top dollar for this stuff. Well, I'm here to tell you that making wine is as simple as mixing a pack of juice. Of course we aren't talking top grade wine here. What we are talking is HOOCH wine, also known as prison wine. Of course in prison one has to be a little more creative on how and what ingredients to use but luckily I'm currently in the comfort of my own home. This isn't a fancy recipe and you won't need any special equipment to make this stuff. In fact you likely have everything you need sitting at home.
Things You Need
- 100% Pure Juice
- Yeast
- Sugar
- That's it
- I shit you not
You could squeeze your own juice but what I did took the bare minimum of energy to create. Which means I used juice I purchased from the local store. Any juice will do just make sure its 100% Juice and doesn't have preservatives, personally this time around I used 1.5 litters of cranberry juice. Next up we need some yeast. There is a multitude of yeast one can choose from including Wine Yeast but its not needed. You can use bread yeast if you want and that is just what I did. Third up is the Sugar, I used 1.5 cups of sugar per 1.5 litters. Now that we got all the ingredients we need to combine them. Get yourself an empty container and pour 2 cups of the juice you purchased from the store in it. From there you will need to pour 1.5 cups of sugar inside your store purchased juice jug. Once poured in put the cover back on and give it a good shake until all the sugar is dissolved. Wait a minute or two and then give it another shake (to make sure all the sugar is dissolved). If there is sufficient space left in your juice jug dump some of the juice you poured out earlier back in it. Don't fully fill as you want to leave space for gas to escape. Once you see the sugar is dissolved place a quarter teaspoon of yeast in the juice jug. THIS PART IS IMPORTANT: Put the cap on the juice jug but do not tighten all the way. Give the cap about a quarter inch turn so that the cap won't fall off.
Once that is all done its a waiting game. After about 12-36 hours you are likely to see some activity. The activity that you will see is bubbles rising to the top of the mixture. This means the fermentation process has begun. Both gas and ethanol (alcohol) is being created. If you tighten the cap all the way down its very likely you will have a sticky mess to clean up as the bottle will expand until an eruption happens. So once again Don't Forget To Loosely Tighten The Cap. Every day or two check on your brewing monstrosity to see if the bubbles have stopped rising and if they did fermentation is over. Fermentation can take as little as a week* to a month+. While fermenting its best stored in a dark area at around room temperature. You now have an alcohol beverage to drink created by yourself. Some will drink it straight out of the bottle just like that. Pouring it carefully as to not get any of the sediment that floated to the bottom of the juice (now wine) container. However I recommend gently pouring out 90% of the "juice made into wine" into a new jug and discarding the rest. If you want to make the wine look a little more clear and potentially taste a little better, let it sit for another week+ or until desired before drinking. I let mine sit for about 2 months before consumption (One Month of fermentation and One Month transferred into a new jug). Unfortunately I didn't plan on making this post and the Hooch I made is now no more so I have no pictures. I can tell you it didn't have a pleasant smell (the smell of alcohol was present). It also wasn't the best tasting drink but was drinkable. Some claim its possible to get up to 20% alcohol using this method of "WINE" creation. However I believe its much more likely to end up with something around 10-14% ABV (Wine Yeast Yields Higher ABV).
Disclaimer:
Check with your local laws before creating or consuming any alcoholic beverages. This post is for entertainment purposes only and does not endorse alcohol consumption. Also important to note is if you make this and plan on storing it for future indulgences you will need to burp the wine. Meaning you will need to open the cover for a second every day or two just in-case there is still some gas being released. If not that sticky mess we talked about earlier might be visiting your storage area. As always and with any and all things: Do your own research before attempting. Thanks for reading; See you next time: Same Rent Channel, Same Rent Blog!
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