Just Good Wine
For new winemakers

Your first batch, start to finish

You don't need a vineyard or a chemistry degree. You need clean equipment, a hydrometer and some patience. Here is the whole process in seven steps.

What you need

A starter kit from a homebrew shop covers nearly all of this. For a first batch, a wine kit or good-quality juice is the easiest route, because the sugar and acid are already balanced for you.

  • Fermenting bucket with a lid, a little bigger than your batch
  • Carboy or demijohn the same size as your batch
  • Airlock and bung to let gas out and keep air away
  • Hydrometer and test jar to measure sugar
  • Siphon tube or auto-siphon for racking
  • No-rinse sanitiser for everything that touches the wine
  • Wine yeast, not bread yeast
  • Campden tablets or potassium metabisulphite
  • Long spoon and thermometer
  • Bottles, corks and a corker for the end
The one rule

Sanitise everything that touches the wine, every time. Most spoiled first batches come down to something that was clean but not sanitised.

The seven steps

  1. Sanitise

    Wash your equipment, then sanitise it with a no-rinse sanitiser following the label. That includes the bucket, lid, spoon, hydrometer, siphon and your hands.

  2. Prepare the must

    "Must" is the unfermented juice. With a kit, follow its instructions for adding water. With fresh fruit, crush it, and add water and sugar as your recipe says. Stir well so the sugar is fully dissolved.

  3. Take a starting gravity

    Float the hydrometer in a sample and read where the liquid crosses the scale. This is your original gravity (OG). For a table wine, aim for about 1.080 to 1.095. Write it down: you can't measure it again later, and you need it to work out the alcohol.

  4. Pitch the yeast

    Sprinkle the yeast on the surface, or rehydrate it first if the packet says to. Cover the bucket loosely or fit the lid with an airlock. Within a day or two you should see foam and bubbling.

  5. Primary fermentation

    Keep the bucket somewhere steady, around 18 to 24 °C (65 to 75 °F). Stir once a day for the first few days, and check gravity every day or two. Most of the sugar goes in the first 5 to 10 days.

  6. Rack and finish

    When gravity has fallen to about 1.010 to 1.020, siphon the wine into a carboy, leaving the sediment behind, and fit an airlock. Fill the carboy close to the neck. Fermentation is finished when the reading is at or below about 0.998 and stays the same for three readings over several days.

  7. Clear, stabilise and bottle

    Rack again off the new sediment, add sulphite as your recipe directs, and wait for the wine to fall clear, usually a few weeks to a few months. Bottle only when the wine is clear and the gravity is stable. Then give it at least a month in the bottle before judging it.

In the app

Start a batch from a recipe and Just Good Wine fills in the targets for you. Log each hydrometer reading in Quick Log, and the app charts the fermentation, estimates the alcohol and reminds you when the next check is due.

The numbers that matter

You can make good wine by tracking only three things.

MeasureWhat it tells youTypical range
Specific gravity (SG)How much sugar is left. It falls as fermentation proceeds.Starts 1.080–1.095, ends 0.992–0.998 for a dry wine
TemperatureHow comfortable the yeast is. Too cold and it stalls; too hot and it makes harsh flavours.18–24 °C for most wines; whites prefer the cooler end
Alcohol (ABV)Worked out from the drop in gravity: (OG − FG) × 131.25.11–13.5% for a table wine

For example, a wine that starts at 1.090 and finishes at 0.996 is (1.090 − 0.996) × 131.25, or about 12.3% alcohol.

Mistakes nearly everyone makes once

  • Bottling too early. If fermentation hasn't finished, it carries on in the bottle and can push corks out or burst bottles. Always confirm a stable gravity first.
  • Trusting the airlock. Bubbles show gas escaping, not sugar remaining. Only the hydrometer tells you where the fermentation is.
  • Too much air after fermentation. Oxygen is helpful in the first days and harmful afterwards. Keep carboys topped up and avoid splashing when racking.
  • Leaving wine on thick sediment. A heavy layer of dead yeast can cause off-flavours if left for months. Rack once the bulk has settled.
  • Forgetting to write things down. When a batch turns out well you'll want to repeat it, and when it doesn't you'll want to know why.
  • Rushing. Time fixes a lot. A wine that tastes sharp at two months is often lovely at six.

A short glossary

Must
The juice, and any fruit, before and during fermentation.
Pitching
Adding yeast to the must.
Racking
Siphoning wine off its sediment into a clean vessel.
Lees
The sediment of spent yeast and fruit solids.
OG and FG
Original and final gravity: the readings at the start and the end.
Dry
A wine with no noticeable sugar left.
Sulphite
Potassium metabisulphite or Campden tablets, used to protect wine from spoilage and oxidation.
Stabilising
Treating a finished wine so it won't start fermenting again.
Ready for more?

Once a couple of batches have gone well, the Advanced Craft page covers sulphite dosing by pH, yeast nutrients and back-sweetening.