Now that your wine has fermented and is clear of sediment (racked) it’s time for the final step; bottling! Your first task is to find the type of bottle that will best suit your wine. Then, to ensure that your wine ends up as perfect as you envisioned, you’ll need to follow some pre-bottling steps that must be adhered too. After you follow those easy steps then you’ll be ready for the final step of bottling your homemade wine.
Bottling Items:
- Bottles
- Corks
- Siphon tube with or without clamp
- Hand corker or Bench or Floor corker
Pre-Bottling Instructions:
- Clean & Sanitize your bottles
- Soak your corks for 1-2 hours then sanitize them by boiling them in water and finishing them off with a cold-water rinse; allow to air dry
- Sanitize siphon tube with Sodium Bisulphite sanitizing solution or by submerging (for 15-20 sec) in water that has been brought to a rolling boil; remove siphon tube with clean tongs or other clean instrument and place on a clean towel to air dry
Bottling Instructions:
- Remove the airlock from the carboy
- Wet towel with boiling water and wipe out inside of neck of carboy being mindful not to touch the wine or drip excess water into the carboy
- Place your bottle side by side, underneath your carboy
- Place one end of the siphon tube in the carboy being careful to keep the tube from touching the bottom of the carboy
- Suck from the other end of the tube to start the flow of wine (Feel free to practice this step with water beforehand)
- Place the other end of the siphon tube into the bottle allowing this end of the tube to touch the bottom of the bottle
- Fill the bottles to the top (use a tube clamp to stop the flow, or raise the bottle so that it is above the carboy to stop the flow) (practice this step with water beforehand as well)
- Remove the tube from the bottle, the space remaining in the bottle is ideal displacement for each cork
- Repeat steps 5-8 until all bottles are filled
- Using a hand corker (for a few bottles), or bench or floor corker (for many bottles), cork your bottles (follow the instructions for the device you use) The cork should be level or slightly below the level of the top of the bottle.
- Wipe down the corker and each bottle.
- In a cool dark area, place bottles upright for a 5-7 days to ensure that the corks are properly seated and to allow excess air to leak out.
- If using natural corks, lay each bottle on its side in order to keep the cork from drying out. Synthetic corks do not need to be kept moist.
- Let bottles sit for at least a month, then enjoy!
NOTE: If you had any left over wine in you carboy because it wasn’t enough to fill an entire bottle, sample your creation. If there was a sediment in your carboy, mark the last bottle you filled, let it sit upright for a day before you open it and pour it slowly.
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