Hi everyone, i have to tell you that i am the absolute expert in making cheap wine. I live in England and the price of a bottle of cheap wine is extortionate over here, so if you live in a country like this you need to take careful note of what i am going to tell you.

You can read many articles that tell you that you need ‘this and that’ and all the general paraphanalia that wine-making stores tell you are essential for the job, but from years of experience, i know otherwise. Follow my simple guide and you will have success. Yes, if you are looking for perfection then you can buy all the recommended stuff, but for a simple successful home brewed wine, this is the way to do it.

The basic tools you will need are:

A Demijohn (or two! I have five myself!)

Campden tablets

Yeast (Preferably Super Wine Yeast)

Yeast nutrient

A bottle of bab-bottle steralising fluid

A cheap plastic funnel

An airlock and rubber bung

This lot should cost you less than £10 if you just get the one demijohn. This will be the best investment you have ever made!

Now for the ingredients, which are extremely basic and can be bought from any big supermarket.

For one gallon of Apple Wine you will need:

2 litres of white grape juice

2 litres of cheap apple juice

1 kilo of sugar

Total cost around £3.50 (usually less, shop around)

Now for the hard part (Only joking!)

First off all you sterilise the demijohn with the beby steriliser. Put a cap full in, fill it up, and wait an hour. Rinse it out with cold water and its ready.

You use the funnel to put the two litres of white grape juice into the demijohn

Fill the kettle up, boil it, and (using a container like a measuring jug) pour it on top of the sugar and stir with a fork until it is fully disolved.

Pour sugar into demijohn….. and add another half a litre of boiling water afterwards to raise the temperature a little

This is the time to give it a very good shake and let the sugar mix in with the grape juice

Then you get the Super wine yeast and put one teaspoon into the demijohn. put a little of the sterilised water into the airlocs, and leave it in a warm place for it to ferment. (If you have a starter yeast then follow the instructions on the packet.)

The next day it will have started bubbling. When it is very rigorously bubbling away, add the two litres of apple juice

Give it another good shake to make sure it is well mixed. Replace the airlock.

That is all the preparation finished. Leave it somwhere warm (but not too warm! The rules say around 25 degrees but it’s not that important. The colder it is, the longer it takes. The best rule is if you are comfortable, then the wine is too.

Wait about 6 weeks, or until the wine has stopped bubbling, and it is ready to drink, but the longer you leave it the better it will be. Crush one Campden tablet and add it to the finished wine. In 24 hours it will be ready to bottle.

Use the plastic tube to siphon the liquid into some bottles. Being a cheapskate i use old lemonade bottles, but that is up to you. Just make sure that you are very careful with the siphoning and don’t get too much of the lees from the bottom into the bottle. It is always better to forget about the last half-inch rather than get in into your drinking supply.

Taste it to assure yourself you have made a masterpiece, but no matter how good it tastes, always remember it will be much better after setting in the bottle for a few weeks, so try to be patient.

And that’s it. You have a gallon of excellent wine for just £3.50. And you are an expert at making cheap homemade wine!

Now make another one after you have cleaned out the demijohn.

More Apple Store Articles