Wine Tutorial

Now that it's harvest season, fruit is cheap and plentiful. Why not give wine-making a try? It's much easier than you might think, and start-up costs can be quite modest. This recipe is a start-to-finish guide for making seasonal fruit wine from scratch.

STEP ONE: Confirm your equipment! Few things are more aggravating than getting part way into a project and realizing that you are missing a vital tool or ingredient. If you are looking to get this project done on a low budget, try checking your local classified ads. You'll find that many people try wine making and decide that it's not for them, so why not use their equipment and save some money? The vast majority of these items can be re-used for future batches, and once you have your equipment, you can make 30 bottles of wine for around forty dollars.

For the full, start-to-finish  process, you will need:

	One large, food-safe bucket, preferably with a lid*
		*must be at least 30 litres (6 gallons) or you will make a huge mess. Also, if your bucket does not have a line
		indicating the 23 litre mark, you will have to add this yourself.
	One 23 litre/6 gallon “carboy” jug, and an airlock to fit it
		*I strongly recommend plastic carboys. Glass carboys can explode with no warning, and they are also quite a bit
		heavier. When they are full of wine (23kgs) this makes a big difference. If you insist on using a glass carboy, please
		be careful!
	Bandana/hair ties (optional, but do you really want to risk getting hair in your wine? gross)
	One litre of “pink stuff” (powdered bleach sanitizer) OR potassium metabisulphate
	A colander for washing your fruit
	One very large bowl for cutting your fruit (more if people are helping you)
	One smaller bowl for each person who is cutting up the fruit
	One small but sharp knife for each person who is cutting up fruit
	A refuse can for unused fruit chunks (stems, peels, etc)
	Immersion blender or large food processor (optional, but makes hard fruits easier to deal with)
	A grain bag*
		*In a pinch, you can use a new pair of nylon stockings, but they are made from a plastic that isn't exactly food safe,
		whereas grain bags are made from materials like cotton. This is a single-use item.
	A very long (metal, glass, or plastic, not wood) stirring tool/"wine whip"
	Hydrometer (it's possible to get by without this, but it's probably better to have it)
	A very large pot OR two large pots (total volume of 4 litres)
	A cup
	Shot glass OR smallish measuring cup
	A spoon
	An auto-siphon OR a piece of food-safe hose
	A clean, old, front-zip hoody or similar (optional, must fit around carboy jug)
	“Degassing wand” drill attachment and standard power drill (optional)
	A 2 litre jug
	Gel “cold packs” AND/OR ziploc bags full of ice (optional)
	30 (750ml) bottles and corks (size and type of bottle may vary, but should total 23 litres)
	A corking machine (technically this is optional, but corking can be a huge pain without it)
	Shrink-wrap caps and/or labels (optional)
	Hair dryer (optional, used with the shrink caps)

STEP TWO: choose your ingredients. Farmers' markets are a good source for local produce, obviously, but you can also do this with fruit from your own yard or neighbourhood. A single, small apple tree produces more than enough fruit for this adventure. Some farms also have fields where you can pick your own fruit at a reduced cost. The important thing to remember here is that your wine starts out as a huge, delicious fruit smoothy, so choose your fruits accordingly. Choose fruits that you think are awesome. Under-ripe fruit won't taste as good, and over-ripe fruit will add gross rotten tastes to your mix.
	Spices, like fruit, should be chosen because you love them. Include the ones you like, leave out the ones you don't, don't be afraid to mix and match. I don't really measure these ingredients, instead opting to just wing it and taste my brew as I go, but some rough example measurements are: 4-10 vanilla beans, two cups roughly grated (or finely chopped) ginger, a third of a cup of ground cinnamon, one or two tablespoons of nutmeg.

	INGREDIENTS:
	8-12kgs fruit (strawberries, apples, mangoes, blueberries, cherries, whatever you're into)
	Spices (vanilla bean goo, grated ginger root, cinnamon, nutmeg, etc)
	4-6 lemons OR 6-8 rhubarb sticks OR 3 tablespoons of citric acid*
		*if you feel daring, you can use the citric acid from the bottom of bags of sour candy, it's that white sugary-looking
		stuff. It takes a long time to spoil, so you can save it up in a jar without much trouble.
	5kgs sugar (darker sugars will make your wine look and taste darker)
	Sodium bisulphate OR potassium metabisulphate (the amount needed varies, consult package)
	Pectic enzyme (one tablespoon or less)
	1 package champagne yeast* (there are other kinds of yeast out there, don't use beer yeast)
		*I'm told that you can mix up and keep a yeast culture in your fridge, so you don't have to keep buying packages of
		yeast, but I haven't yet tested this for myself
	1-3 teaspoons yeast nutrient/yeast energizer (optional but recommended)
	A shot of cheap, hard liquor (optional)
	6-12 bags of herbal tea (optional, used to flavour the sweetening syrup)
		*examples include: “raspberry zinger”, mango rooibos, apple chamomile, etc.
	2-3 tablespoons kaolin or bentonite clay (technically optional, but helps make your wine clearer)
	A lot of clean water (doesn't need to be bottled water if your local water is clean)
	~1kg additional sugar (technically optional, for sweetening wine after fermentation)

STEP THREE: preparing your equipment and processing the fruit. Cleanliness is very important to this process. Any bacteria that gets into your mix can grow (and take over your whole batch!) if you aren't careful. Think of your must [the fancy word for wine juice, before it's wine] like a big fruity petridish. The idea is to cultivate the organisms we want (yeast) while excluding other, competing organisms that will make the wine putrid. It is for this reason that we must thoroughly wash and sanitize our equipment for each phase of this process. I suggest that you keep a small bowl of sanitizer liquid (pink stuff diluted in water) on hand while you work, to re-sterilize equipment as you go, in case you accidentally drop one of your tools on the floor. Don't wear long sleeves, tie you hair back, put on a bandana if you have one, wash your hands, etc.
	Having said all that, let's remember that a) humans have been making wine for millennia, long before we had any understanding about bacteria, and b) some people have been known to make wine in prison by fermenting their must in a plastic bag behind toilets, so while one should be careful and clean, there is no need for outright hysteria.
	If your bucket does not have a line drawn on it to indicate the 23 litre mark, you will have to measure out that much water and mark it for yourself. Do so now, before you do anything else. Don't skip this step!

	For the very first phase (often referred to as “primary” fermentation) you should clean and sterilize the following, using dish soap and pink stuff:
	Food safe bucket
	Grain bag
	Very large bowl
	Cup
	Small bowl(s)
	Knife/knives
	Shot glass or alternate
	Spoon

	Now that your equipment is clean and ready, wash you hands very thoroughly, then wash your fruit (including lemons or alternate) as you normally would. If you usually use vinegar to wash your fruit, make sure you rinse very thoroughly. Vinegar can replicate itself in your must if you accidentally contaminate it. This will turn your whole batch into fruit vinegar instead of wine. In theory, you could use this method to make your own apple cider vinegar, but I digress...
	Once your fruit is clean and more or less dry, it's time to process it. Cut off and discard stems, cores, seeds, bruised parts, etc. Zest the lemons if you wish, but it's the juice that's critical for raising the acidity. When your fruit is cleaned up, you can either put your fruit directly into the grain bag for squeezing, or you can process it further with a food processor and then pour it into the grain bag. Soft fruits like ripe strawberries, watermelon, kiwi, etc don't really need the blender because they smoosh up pretty easily on their own. Harder fruits like apples, pineapple, honeydew, etc generally need some extra processing. If you don't have a blender and still want to make wine with hard fruit, I suggest boiling it in as little water as possible, for as short a time as possible, then using a potato masher.
	Whatever method you use, pour it all into the grain bag, tie it off, and squeeze the delicious fruit goo out through the mesh of the bag, into your food safe bucket. This can take some time, but you can take breaks and/or get a friend to help you with this part. If you are using dark fruits like blueberries, your hands will get stained unless you wear gloves. The stain only lasts a day or so, so I personally don't really worry about it. Decide for yourself.
	After all the blending and squeezing, you should have a thick fruit smoothy in your bucket, as well as a grain bag full of fruit pulp. Do not discard the grain bag or the pulp! Leave all of it in your bucket. Use the shot glass to scoop up some of the smoothy and pour it into a spoon. Taste it. What do you think? Add some spices and taste it again. Repeat this process until it tastes delicious. Remember to add your spices in small, conservative amounts. You can always add more, but you can't undo it if you add too much. This is especially important when adding strong spices like nutmeg. Having said that, your must should have a strong taste when you are done seasoning it, because you will be diluting it later. Do not add sugar at this time, that comes later.
	What you should add at this point is either sodium bisulphite or potassium metabisulphate. The package will tell you how much you should add. Mix the powder with a small amount of clean water in a cup and pour it into the must. Add enough for the total amount of wine you are making (23 litres) because you will be diluting your mix later. Some people are against (or allergic to) sulphites, and I have heard that it is possible to leave this out, but the sulphites are what protects your must from growing foreign cultures. Leave it out if you like, but consider yourself warned!
	Use the same process to add the pectic enzyme, according to the instructions on the package. Some say that you can leave this out, but the pectic enzyme is what breaks down the pectin in the fruit. If this is not broken down, the pectin can make your final wine cloudy. Fruit pectin is perfectly digestible by humans (it's used in some fruit jams instead of gelatin) so this is basically an aesthetic choice on your part. Your wine may clear without it either way.
	Once everything is all safely in your bucket and mixed properly (fruit juice, fruit pulp, grain bag, spices, sulphites, and pectic enzyme) it's time to put the lid on your bucket. Do not use an air-tight lid! The gasses produced will pop the lid off and could make a mess. A store-bought wine bucket will have appropriate ventilation. If you are using some other food safe bucket, just make sure your lid isn't snapped all the way on. You can use a clean dish towel, but I personally find this to be too precarious.
	Put your bucket somewhere safe for twenty-four hours. If you have pets (especially cats) make sure they can't disturb the bucket or get fur in it. If you choose to put your bucket into a washroom, don't let anyone use the toilet while your wine is in there. You don't want to risk contaminating your must. Super gross.

STEP FOUR: “pitching” your yeast. Once you have waited twenty-four hours, it's time to introduce the sugar and yeast culture to your must. This is referred to as “pitching” your yeast. Before beginning, you should clean and sterilize a cup, a spoon, and your long stirring tool. In the past, I have gotten caught up in life and left this step off for as long as thirty-six hours without damaging my wine, so you don't need a stopwatch for this part, but you really shouldn't leave it much longer than you have to.
	If you are using packaged yeast, pour it into your clean/rinsed cup with a bit of sugar, some warm water, and the yeast energizer. Let this mixture rest on the counter for ten or fifteen minutes, until it looks foamy. If you have ever made bread, it's the exact same process as starting bread yeast. The warm water wakes the yeast up, and the sugar/energizer feeds it. In a pinch, you can leave out the energizer, but it helps your yeast culture to grow aggressively, which helps to crowd-out any foreign cultures that may have snuck into your batch.
	This same basic process is used for reviving your own yeast cultures, if you choose to “grow your own” in your fridge. I'm told that this process isn't difficult, but as I've not yet done it myself, I won't include it here. However, I will say that keeping your own yeast culture is certainly more sustainable in the long run. Free is better, no?
	While the yeast is activating, add the rest of your sugar to the must bucket, stirring it with the long stirring tool. Try not to dump your sugar as one clump, stir the mix until it's as dissolved as possible. This will help your yeast to work through the sugar more evenly. When the yeast is ready to go, pour it into the bucket with everything else and give the bucket a stir to combine your ingredients. The addition of yeast is what makes must into wine.
	Add clean water to your bucket until it reaches the 23 litre mark, then put the lid (or whatever) back on. Leave this mix to ferment for around seven days. During this time, it will get super foamy (like one of those vinegar and baking soda volcanoes) which is why we use an extra large bucket. Without this precaution, you will get fermented fruit gunk all over your floor. This phase will also make the whole room smell like fermenting fruit, so you may wish to put your carboy somewhere discreet. If you feel like looking up other information about wine making, this week long period in your process is referred to as “primary” fermentation. The large bucket can also be referred to as the “primary bucket” because it's only used for this part of the process.
	Stir your wine mixture once a day or so, if you want. If your wine does not get foamy/fails to ferment, I suggest adding some (more) yeast nutrient, diluted in clean water. I also recommend smelling your wine every other day during this phase, and troubleshooting any bad smells. It should smell like fermenting fruit, not like feet, farts, or geraniums, all of which indicate an infected batch. The above being said, if you've done all the previous steps correctly, with a reasonable measure of cleanliness, primary fermentation should happen with or without you.

STEP FIVE: getting from primary to secondary. Once a week or so has passed, the frothing should have calmed down, and there should still be some noticeable gunk floating on the top. Once you are ready to move on, you should sterilize/rinse:
	Carboy jug
	Stirring rod
	Airlock
	Auto-siphon or siphon hose.
	Hydrometer (if you are using one)

	If you are using a hydrometer, this is where you will use it first. After sterilizing and rinsing it, put it into your wine (while it's still in the primary bucket) and give it a little bit of a spin/twist. This spin will help knock off any gas bubbles that may cling to the device. Once it stops spinning, it will float at a set level in the wine based on the sugar/alcohol content of your wine. The surface of the wine will mark what is referred to as the “specific gravity reading” and can be used to work out how alcoholic your final product will be. Your specific gravity reading should be somewhere between 1.025 and 1.035. If you want to know more about this test and what it means, you will sadly have to research it on your own. I broke my hydrometer while making my very first batch of wine, and didn't get around to replacing it for months, so I've don't really bother about this part. I simply use the type of yeast I've used to make rough estimations about the alcoholic content of my final product. A specific example is: champagne yeast can typically survive until the wine is 18% alcohol, at which point the wine becomes too alcoholic for the wine to survive and reproduce. We can therefore assume that wine made with a champagne yeast will be roughly 18-20% alcohol. Again, remember that humans have been making wine for millennia, long before we had fancy glass hydrometers.
	Whether you choose to measure or not, it's time to get your wine out of the primary fermentation bucket and into the carboy. This process is called “racking” and is used to keep as much of the good wine as possible, while leaving the gunky deposits behind. The easiest way to do this is to put the primary bucket on the kitchen counter (or other raised, stable surface) and put the (sterilized, rinsed) carboy on the floor. You then put the pump end of the auto-siphon into your primary tank, the hose end into the carboy, give it a few quick pumps, and voila! Gravity will do all the work for you. Resist the temptation to pump the auto-siphon more than you have to. The motion will disturb the sediment on the bottom of the primary bucket, leading to more of it getting into the carboy.
	Don't panic if some sediment gets mixed in, later phases will help get rid of it, but try not to take too much. Also, if you don't have an auto-siphon, you can use a simple piece of (ideally) food safe hose, but it involves putting your mouth on some equipment that will also touch your wine. If that's ok with you, then set your bucket and carboy up as you did with the auto-siphon technique, and put one end of the hose into the primary bucket. While crouching lower than the primary bucket, suck gently on the other end of the hose until the wine is almost in your mouth. Quickly put this end into your carboy and again let gravity do all the work.
	Once all of your wine has been transferred to the carboy, you should cover the top of the carboy lightly and wait an hour or three to make sure that your wine doesn't overflow. Resist the temptation to top up the carboy with water, you can do that later once you are sure everything is calm. If you skip this step, you will get spatters of fruit gunk on your walls and ceiling. I found this out the hard way.
	Once you have waited a bit and you are sure there won't be any overflow, attach your airlock to the opening of the carboy. You should then add either a shot of vodka, or shot of water into the airlock. This allows gasses to escape from your wine while preventing air from back getting in. When all of this is done, it's time to put your (now full) carboy somewhere cool and dark to rest. This phase is referred to as “secondary fermentation” and allows your yeast culture to finish fermenting and settling. Secondary fermentation lasts a total of four to six weeks, but is not time-sensitive. If you forget about it, leave the country, have other things that distract you, whatever, that's fine.
	At roughly the half way mark (three weeks, give or take) you should rack your wine again. You won't have to add any new ingredients, and the process is the exact same as when you siphoned your wine out of the primary bucket and into the carboy the first time. Siphon your wine from the carboy to the primary bucket, leaving as much sediment behind as possible. Rinse out the carboy, then return the wine and re-attach the airlock.
	The point of racking is to separate your wine from the gunk that will have built up on the bottom by this point. This gunk is referred to as the “lees” and will add (unwanted, yeasty) tastes to your wine if you leave it in there too long. There is a French process that ages the wine “sur la lies” (on the lees) but I don't know enough about it to offer any advice. It's also ok to rack your wine more than once during secondary fermentation if you think there's a lot of gunk building up in the bottom, but don't get too crazy. Every time you rack your wine, you are exposing it to the air, which can damage the taste and colour of your wine. Think of it like a sliced apple: when it's freshly sliced it looks delicious, but if it sits around for a while it will turn brown and look less appealing.
	Helpful tip: not all of us have an extra closet to keep our wine in. What if the only place you have for your carboy is a brightly-lit kitchen counter? No problem. Simply use an old (but clean!) zipper-front hoody. Zip the hoody up around the carboy like it's a mannequin, wrapping the sleeves around the top of the jug. The idea is to keep as much light as possible out. But! Be sure to wait a day to put the hoody on, just in case your wine is still a bit foamy. Over-flows are messy enough without having to do laundry too.
	Once four to six weeks have elapsed, you should notice that your wine is less cloudy and has stopped leaving new lees deposits. It's very important not to rush this part. If you do not properly stop fermentation, your wine will continue to ferment after being bottled. This produces carbon dioxide gas which will pressurize your bottles until your corks pop out, spilling and wasting your wine.

STEP SIX: stabilizing and degassing. This step is the one part where having a hydrometer is useful. You can be sure that fermentation has stopped if your hydrometer reads 0.996 for two days in a row. This means that the yeast has consumed all the available sugar. If you are not using a hydrometer, you should wait until your wine has stopped producing carbon dioxide/lees. Yeast produce alcohol, lees, and carbon dioxide when they are living their life cycle, so when they stop producing carbonation/etc, you can assume that they have stopped metabolizing the wine sugars. If you listen to the side of your carboy, you should be able to tell whether or not the process is still going. If it's still going, it can sound like soda pop fizzing. You may not be able to tell by the activity of the airlock, which should have slowed to a crawl by now. If you aren't sure, leave it longer.
	There are three ways to stabilize your wine at this point, and you must choose at least one. First, you can do (as explained above) simply wait it out and hope that everything goes well. It's not the best method, but it does work if you've got the patience. This may take up to three weeks longer. Second, you can use an electric filter machine (that uses sterile pads) to filter out the yeast. This method is okay if you have access to one of these machines (some wine making stores may even rent them) however, the filtering removes some of the more delicate flavours from your wine, uses disposable pads, and requires using an electrical appliance around a lot of liquids. It's always seemed like more hassle than it's worth to me.
	The third method is to add potassium sorbate and potassium (or sodium) metabisulphate to your wine. Some people are against adding chemicals to their wine, and I respect whatever choices you make for your own brew, but I usually choose this method. It's very straight-forward, does not mute the flavours, and (basically) guarantees that your fermentation process will stop. Feel free to look up these chemicals and decide for yourself. If you choose this method, measure the appropriate amount as directed on the packaging and dilute it in your cup with some water, then stir it directly into your carboy with a sterilized rod. You must add both the sorbate and metabisulphate together, or they will not work properly. Once you have added these chemicals, let your carboy sit for around ten minutes, then you can move immediately on to degassing and/or sweetening.
	Degassing is far less serious than stabilizing. If you do not degas your wine, it will be a “sparkling” (fizzy) wine. Some people are into that, especially with fruit wines, please use your own judgement. Importantly, if you leave your wine in a carboy long enough, it will stabilize and degas on its own, but it takes an extra 3-6 weeks. Think of it like a giant, semi-sealed bottle of soda/pop: it will eventually go flat.
	If you don't want fizzy wine and don't feel like waiting for it to go flat on its own, there are two ways to speed up the degassing process. You can either stir the gas out manually with your (sterilized) stirring tool, or you can get a degassing wand that attaches to a drill. The drill method is the fastest and easiest, but requires additional equipment and electricity. I caution you to start slow with the drill method or you may accidentally make a wine volcano. Also, be aware that these drill bits only fit standard-sized drills. Once you have finished stabilizing and degassing, you can either leave your wine alone for a little while, or you can move right on to the next step. Try not to leave it for more than a day or two though, there's more work to be done!

STEP SEVEN: sweetening and clearing. Once your wine is stabilized and such, it's time to decide if you want to sweeten it or not. In my personal experience, I have always wanted my wine sweeter. “Fresh” wine is very sharp, and it's dry as the Sahara. If you choose not to sweeten your wine, that's totally up to you, but taste it first to be super sure. It's a huge hassle to sweeten your wine after this phase.
	If you choose to sweeten your wine, there are a few ways to go about it. Basically, choose something that is sweet and tasty. You can use things like honey, fruit juice, corn syrup, or store-bought “wine conditioner”. Personally, I like to make a simple syrup from sugar and herbal tea, so that's the method I will cover here. I recommend against using corn syrup or wine conditioner, but that's mostly my personal bias, I'm sure they could work just fine in a pinch.
	Making a simple syrup begins by choosing a type of tea that you think will compliment the fruits in your wine. In the past I have used rooibos, chamomile, and strawberry white tea as my base. Again, use whatever you think will be the most delicious. If you can't find any tea that you think would work, you can leave it out and just make plain sugar syrup. It won't taste like much (unless you use a golden sugar or something) but it will still sweeten your wine's own flavours. The measurements I will use here produces two litres of simple syrup. I have found that this amount is consistently the right amount that I like, but your mileage may vary. See below for how to figure out how much syrup to add.
	Anyway, once you are ready to make your simple syrup and have selected your tea, bring (roughly) a litre of water to a low simmer in a large pot, then add your tea bags. Let this mix brew as if you were making a super strong pot of tea, being careful not to boil it too hard, as this can make your tea bitter. Once this tea mix is nice and strong, remove the tea bags and add four cups of sugar. Stir this mixture up and let it simmer until the sugar is totally dissolved. Cover it and put it away to cool. It should be only slightly thicker than water.
	Don't worry about making too much syrup. You can store excess syrup in a clean, sterilized pickle jar for up to a year. If you are worried about it, you can add a shot or two of vodka (once it's cool) to keep things clean. This syrup is good on pancakes, in cocktails, as a flavorant to milk (like strawberry milk) or mixed into carbonated water as an Italian soda. Don't be afraid to experiment!
	While your syrup is cooling, you should siphon your wine into the (sterilized) primary bucket and rinse whatever lees are left in the bottom of your carboy, so it's nice and clean. As long as you use clean water for this part, don't worry about re-sterilizing the carboy.
	A great way to work out how much syrup you need is to take 250mls (one cup) of your wine into a glass and slowly add a teaspoon (or so) of syrup at a time. Take tiny tastes as you go, until it's the way you want it, making note of how much syrup you've added. Then, simply multiply the number of syrup teaspoons by 91, because there are 92 total cups in twenty three litres. Once multiplied, I suggest that you convert teaspoons to a more reasonable measurement (like cups) to add your final amount. Adding two litres by spoonfuls is just silly. If you're lazy like me, you can just add the full amount of syrup and skip the measuring, but be aware that this will give your wine a dessert wine level of sweetness.
	Once your syrup has been added and stirred in thoroughly, cover your primary bucket and leave it for half an hour. If your wine starts to fizz again, then it did not stabilize. If this is the case, wait a day for it to calm down, put the wine back into the carboy, wait for another week or two, then attempt stabilization again. I strongly recommend against doing this by chemical means more than twice total, due to the amount of chemicals that will build up in your brew. Your wine will taste salty and sulphury. Gross.
	If your wine does not fizz after adding the syrup, then it is time to remove some of it from the bucket and put it into a clean, sterilized jug or similar vessel. This is very important because adding syrup previously will have increased the total volume of your wine batch, so it won't all fit back into your carboy later. Simply remove an equal volume of wine to however much syrup you have added (eg. if you've added two litres of syrup before, you should now remove two litres of sweetened wine). Cover the jug and set it aside in the fridge. It will not be re-added later, so feel free to drink it, otherwise it will go to waste. Careful, it will be strong!
	Once you have drawn off the excess wine, it's time to add any clearing agents you wish to use. Clearing agents make an electron bond with gunk particles in the wine. These particles then become too heavy to remain suspended in the wine, so they settle to the bottom where we can get rid of them like lees. Be aware that some commercial clearing agents are made from shellfish squeezings, which some people (like me) may find super gross. If you wish, you can omit clearing agents altogether, but your wine can take much longer to clear. This recipe uses kaolin clay as the clearing agent, because it's the method I'm familiar with.
	To begin, add the kaolin (or bentonite, they're basically the same) clay powder to your cup and add enough water to make a liquid. Stir this mixture until well combined. If you wish, you can pour it into a food processor to mix, as long as you rinse the processor immediately after you are done with it. If the clay dries somewhere bad, it could wreck your food processor. Once properly blended, let the mixture rest for 10-15 minutes. This allows the clay powder to hydrate properly, which will help it to work better. If the clay is in little dried chunks, most of it will quickly sink to the bottom of your carboy, without clearing your wine on the way down. Don't be afraid to buy more kaolin than you need. It's pretty cheap, it doesn't spoil if kept properly, and it makes an amazing, unscented facial mud mask when combined with a bit of water or cucumber puree. Safe for even the most delicate skin!
	Once you think your clay has re-hydrated, give it a bit of a stir and pour it into the empty carboy. Siphon your wine from the primary bucket back into the carboy (with the clay solution) and stir it a bit to make sure everything mixed in. Reattach the airlock, and put the hoody back on if you're using it. Let your wine rest until it is clear enough to see through. This should take a week or two.
	If you wish to accelerate this process (with or without clearing agents) you must keep your wine cool. This works because cold liquids retain fewer particles, so all the unwanted gunk will settle to the bottom faster. I have tried doing this in the fridge, but it's a pain to remove enough fridge shelves to make room for a big carboy and I think the vibration of the fridge offsets any benefits the chilling might provide. The method I have used successfully has been to pack the bottom of the carboy with either cold gel packs (the first aid kind, you can pick these up at most dollar stores) or with ziploc freezer bags full of ice. Be careful though, this will produce condensation on your work surface. You may want to put a towel down.
	If you are doing this step in the late fall to early spring (and you live somewhere cold enough) you can put your carboy out in the snow for a while to chill it. The only cautions I will give are 1) beware of any wildlife (including children) that may disturb your wine while it's outside, and 2) don't let your wine freeze. If the water in your wine freezes, it can separate from the alcohol. You can skim this ice off and drink the condensed alcohol that's left (referred to as “apple jack”) but it will be very strong, so be careful. Depending on where you live, this may also be illegal, so please use your best judgement. Do NOT freeze the water out/concentrate the wine more than once for any batch. It's easy to go way too far, and if you do, you could do very serious harm to yourself or others. Like, “may cause blindness or death” kind of harm. You have been warned!

STEP EIGHT: bottling. Once your wine is nice and clear, it's finally time to bottle your wine. A 23 litre carboy will produce 30 (standard, 750ml) bottles. You will therefore need to get 30 bottles and 30 corks. You can buy empty bottles from a wine supply store, or you can re-use glass bottles that you have collected by other means. The key here is that they need to be glass bottles, and you need to sterilize them thoroughly.
	There are many kinds of fancy attachments out there that claim to clean bottles better than normal, and there are special drying racks for bottles to dry on. I don't use either of these products, but if you have the money and you want to give it a try, by all means do so. In my case, I simply fill my bottles with sanitizer liquid, leave them to sit for half an hour, rinse them, then leave them to dry, inverted, on the bottom rack of my (clean) dishwasher using the pegs to keep the bottles in place. In a pinch, you can leave them right-side-up on your counter to dry. Make note though, if a bit of water is in there when the wine goes in, it won't hurt anything. However, if there is some sanitizer left in there due to rinsing improperly, it could make you very, very sick (like, accidentally drank some bleach type of sick) so be sure to rinse well!
	Depending on the kinds of corks you are planning to use, you should either soak them in some sanitizer, or not. Usually it's the expanding type of corks that should not be soaked. The packaging will tell you one way or the other. If the package says nothing, you should soak your corks. Some say that you should heat up the sanitizer, to help it penetrate into the cork, but I personally don't think that's a good plan. What if some of it squeezes out into your wine? Anyway, whether you soak your corks or not, you should certainly rinse them in clean water before putting them in.
	While your corks soak (or not) you should siphon your wine into your (now sterile, rinsed) bottles, using the methods listed previously. Fill the bottles right up to the base of the bottle's neck, leaving enough space for the cork and a little bit of air. This part will go much smoother with an auto-siphon than with a plain piece of hose. There is also a bottle-filling tool that can make this process even faster and cleaner, but I don't have one, so I won't explain its use here.
	For the corking itself, I lucked out and got a corking machine at a garage sale for $10, so I've managed to avoid corking manually. If you are lucky enough to have one of these, simply place your full bottle of wine in the bottom part, and put your cork into the cork-sized slot in the top. Then all you have to do is pull down the lever! If you buy this type of machine new, it may require some calibrating (to get the cork depth right) but otherwise it takes minimal effort. Be careful not to compress the air inside the bottles too much, there is a chance that this could lead to bottle explosion. If you aren't sure, go to a liquor store and have a look at the bottles of wine there. This should give you an idea of how much space to leave.
	If you are corking manually, I strongly encourage you to look for expanding corks, which can simply be placed into the bottle necks, where they will expand and form a seal on their own. If you can't find these, I recommend getting another person to help you. One person to hold the bottle tightly, and the other to jam the cork in. It's a lot of work, so you should offer your helper some wine for their trouble. It seems obvious, but just in case: don't use a hammer. If you are corking manually, have no one to help you, and you only have regular corks, use a rubber mallet and be as gentle as possible.

STEP NINE: storage. Once your bottles have all been corked, you should leave them out on your kitchen counter (or whatever) for a few days. If you have somehow made an error (specifically, if your fermentation is still going inside the bottles) then your corks will pop out. If they pop, it will be better for your bottles to be right-side up rather than on their sides. You may not be around when this happens, and it could make a huge mess.
	When you are sure that your corks won't pop out, you can add shrink-wrap seals to the tops of your bottles (these are applied using a hair-dryer) or you can skip that step and move your wine straight into long-term storage. I also recommend labelling your wine, including a date, but that's up to you. Feel free to use whatever labels you have (including those "Hi, my name is..." ones) but be aware that some labels are very hard to scrub off afterwards.
	It's very important for wine to be stored horizontally. It keeps the corks moist, which helps keep the bottle gas-tight. If your corks dry out, it can let gasses in or let the wine out. Either way is bad. Properly bottled fruit wine can last two to five years on the shelf, but it doesn't really gain much by being aged like a good red wine. I recommend just drinking your wine and not worrying about ageing it.
	Finally, if you begin a new batch of wine shortly after bottling this batch, the new stuff should be ready before you run out of this stuff, even if you give several bottles away.

IMPORTANT SAFETY TIPS:
1) ALWAYS lift with your knees and be careful when carrying your wine around around! Your wine weighs 23 kilograms (50 pounds) even without the container it's being carried in, so please follow safe lifting procedures. If this is too much for you, consider dividing your wine into smaller carboys.
2) Avoid carrying your wine up and down stairs if at all possible. It can slosh around inside the container, which could throw you off balance. It's much safer to use the hoody method than it is to heft fifty pounds of liquid up and down stairs every time you need to do something.
3) Although your wine will be safe to taste at all points of this process (even if it smells like rotten fruit) it is a bad idea to get the sanitizer (or any of the other chemicals) into your eyes or mouth. They are serious chemicals, treat them seriously.
4) Always mix the sanitizer according to the instructions on the package, the strength may vary from brand to brand
5) Be very careful not to inhale any chemical dust. You do NOT want powdered bleach in your lungs.
6) Because the sanitizer is a bleach product, you should be careful to dispose of it properly. It's okay to put the used bleach solution into a standard house drain, but it is absolutely unsafe to pour it out into the yard or down a storm drain.
7) Do not ever mix the pink stuff/bleach powder with any other cleaning agent. Super dangerous.
8) “Prison wine” uses fruit juice, bread yeast, and plastic bags, but you probably shouldn't.

FURTHER INFORMATION:
1) The recipe I have based mine around: http://www.eckraus.com/wine-making-strawberry

2) A line of video tutorials I have found helpful, though it uses wine kits and does things in a different order than I have done here: https://www.youtube.com/user/WineMakersToyStore/videos

3) A great video explaining the stabilizing and sweetening process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QEkv-1XVGY

Good luck!