Home Fermentation - Introduction and Overview
You can do this fairly easily and once you grasp the basics of the fermentation process you can make wines , spirits, liqueurs and beers that are superior to many of the products on sale. You can buy the basic equipment starter kits online or in your local stores and finding articles, recipes etc is no problem either so you should have the hang of it in no time.
Fermentation is basically the creation of alcohol which is done by mixing sugar, yeast and water. Yeast is a living organism and if the water is kept at the proper temperature the yeast cells will go to work on the sugar and react in a way that creates a combination of 50% alcohol and 50% carbon dioxide (which normally gets shaken out of the solution during the fermentation process). Of course it wouldn’t make much of a drink like that but luckily you can purchase pre-mixed wine, beer, cider kits etc or you can pick fruits and make it from scratch. Nearly any fruit can be used and alcohol strength can be varied by the different types of yeast so you really do have full control over the finished product. Anyone brand new to the hobby would probably be better off starting with a kit as you just follow the instructions. cleanliness is fairly important for the equipment used and sterilization has to be carried out on containers before each fermentation. This can be done by using either bleach or solutions such as Chempro SDP.