It's alive!!!

Our wine has started fermentation! Unlike beer, wine is not boiled to release the sugars. This is because wine is made from fruit juice, while beer is made from grains. To make beer, you have to boil the grains to release the sugars from the grain for the yeast to eat to produce alcohol, in the fermentation process. In fruit juice, the sugars are already available for the yeast. Wine is much easier than beer so far. On the first day, we put the grape juice into a fermentation bucket, added yeast and a flower that adds some flavor aspects and closed it. We put the airlock on the bucket and set it aside. Now 5 days later, the airlock is bubbling, a sign that the wine inside is fermenting. As the yeast eat the sugars and turn to alcohol, they release air, which is what causes the bubbles in the airlock, which is filled with fluid to keep bacteria out of the wine. The beers we’ve made usually have aggressive, almost violent fermentations; there is no rhythm to the bubbling. A couple of our stronger beers have actually had such violent fermentations they have blown the airlock or lids off the fermentators. That is a huge mess to clean up. (By the way, never ferment your beer in a closet full of clothes you wear, or where a wedding dress is stored. We had one beer explode in the closet, the foam almost ruined my wedding dress.) The wine is interesting though. It is bubbling in a “thump-thump” pattern, much like a heartbeat. Tomorrow or the next day we will transfer the wine into a second fermentation vessel. The fermentation process with wine is more complicated than beer. With beer, you pretty much leave it in one vessel for most the fermentation. With wine, you have to move it a couple times, leaving the sediment that forms on the bottom of the fermentator, so it comes out clear. Beer clears itself pretty much. It’s a new learning experience. But, it does seem to be working so far.