There's a classic observation that applies to everything from wine making to installing computer software: When in doubt, read the instructions.

It's a fact of life that most people don't bother to read instructions. They assume they know exactly what to do. Or they skim through instructions and wonder why they got it wrong.

For example, people who have never made wine before will do stupid things like:

· Try to activate yeast in boiling water even though the instruction state it must be blood-heat.

· Put their fermenting liquid in the garden shed during winter when it's supposed to be kept in a warm place.

· Forget to add the yeast at all.

Here are some simple tips that might help you if you are a total beginner.

Activate the yeast first

Before you do anything else, activate the yeast. It takes a bit of time to get started - usually at least six hours.

How to cope with "stuck fermentation"

If your wine ends up syrupy, it hasn't fermented. What the fermentation process does is to turn the sugar into alcohol, and the wine become drier and drier in taste.

But sometimes the fermentation process stops for no apparent reason. If this happens you can usually rescue your wine by making a new lot of yeast in your starter bottle. When you have activated the new yeast, transfer it to a larger bottle and add some of the "stuck" wine to the bottle. Don't fill the bottle, instead keep adding "stuck" wine little by little for a couple of days. If this works, you will see the wine bubbling away in the bigger bottle.

Pour the bubbling mix into a clean fermentation container, and gradually add the rest of the "stuck" wine to it until it is fermenting really violently, then throw in the balance.

The importance of temperature

Warm conditions are needed for making wine. If it's too hot or too cold, the yeast won't ferment. Generally 70 °F is perfect.

Be careful with added sugar

Follow quantities given in your wine making recipe. If you want the wine to be sweeter, add extra sugar gradually. Remember that yeast can't cope with too much sugar at once.

Al Barker is a grape growing and wine making expert. Al has spent the past 16 years mastering wine making and providing people with easy to follow wine making instructions. In Al's many years he has not only made world class wine himself, but has also shown hundreds of people how by following simple wine making instructions. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Al_Barker Other articles about winemaking: Winemakers Filter wines