A brilliant man shared the magical key to life: How to make wine in an Instant Pot.
Food blogger David Murphy has bestowed the world with his ridiculously awesome and easy recipe to make the nectar of the Gods, right in the comfort of your own home.
Ingredients
Welch’s Grape Juice (64oz bottle)
1 cup of sugar (granulated)
a funnel
1 packet Lalvin Red Wine Yeast (They also have White Wine Yeast) *Just use 1/2 a pack*
Instant Pot with Yogurt Function (I have a 6qt DUO Plus IP)
Clear Packing Tape
Directions
Open your bottle of juice and remove 1 cup of juice from it and set to the side. Once this is done, use your funnel and add 1 cup of sugar to your bottle of juice. Place the plastic cap on it somewhat tightly and shake vigorously to help try to dissolve most of the sugar. This will take about 1 -2 minutes.
Open your bottle of juice again, and add a 1/2 packet of the Lalvin red wine yeast into it. Close the lid and lightly shake back and forth inside of the bottle.
Once done, pour the juice from the bottle into your Instant Pot inner pot liner. (PLEASE BE SURE YOUR POT IS ACTUALLY INSIDE OF YOUR INSTANT POT!). Remember that cup of juice we put to the side? Pour that inside with the rest of the juice. Do NOT throw away your plastic juice bottle. You’re going to need it!
Close and lock the lid of your Instant Pot. Press the Yogurt button, and then press less. The Less heat on the Yogurt function will keep the heat stead around 80ish degrees Fahrenheit. This is less than a human body heat. This heat zone will keep the yeast super happy in the sugary mixture inside of your Instant Pot. This is SO important! So please… make sure you use the Less heat on the Yogurt function. DO NOT CLOSE THE VENT ON YOUR LID! We need it open so the wine can breathe.
Now you need to have some patience!! You’re going to run the time for a total of 48 hours!! Each day, let it run for 24 hours. If you have two Instant Pots, then this is perfect as you can still cook with your other one!
In step 4, you will notice that I said to NOT close the vent on your lid. The reason is that this is your starting point. Every 6-8 hours, you want to alternate opening the lid vent and closing the lid vent. So, for the first round, you will leave the vent open. Wait 6-8 hours (depending if you’re sleeping or not!), and then close the vent. Then alternate. The yeast will be eating that sugar up inside of your grape juice to create that yummy alcohol content for us. It will be producing a LOT of carbon dioxide. I love doing it in the Instant pot because it can LITERALLY handle any kind of pressure that builds up, hence why we are alternating the opening and closing of the vent on your Instant Pot.
Murphy warns that if you taste the wine at this time, it will be “very fizzy and have a carbonated taste,” and probably won’t taste that great.
After your 48 hours is up, you can transfer the wine “juice” back into your plastic container. Take the plastic lid and place it on HALF way. You don’t want it to seal tight. Remember, the yeast is constantly releasing carbon dioxide and the pressure will build up and blow the lid off of the bottle. Then you’ll just a mess to clean up!
Secure the plastic cap on the bottle with the clear packing tape. Refer to the image below to see it better. Place a piece of tape across, and then place a piece of tape around the neck to keep the tape in place.
Place the bottle in an area that doesn’t have a ton of light. I placed mine behind my Instant Pot underneath my cabinets. It’s dark, and a great room temperature for the wine magic to happen.
Now comes the “waiting game,” Murphy said.
You can wait up to a month to drink it. However, you can drink it way before then. I found that after 8 days of being in the bottle, I really didn’t notice the fizziness anymore. Just a tiny bit.
His reasoning for becoming a blogger, however, is even sweeter than his grape juice-based recipe.
“I have a special needs sister that I’m a caretaker for,” Murphy told Love What Matters. “She just loves it when I’m making something in my Instant Pot. I know that she loves the little sounds it makes. She’s always by my side when I’m ready to take the lid off of it.
I’ve been taking care of her (with my partner) for a little over four years now. It’s had a lot of ups and downs, but it’s all been a blessing. She’s actually the reason that I took to blogging full time. I had to find a way of being able to make an income while staying home and taking care of her.
We’ve encountered our challenges and feel that she has really grown as an individual. I started incorporating her into my blog and social media life for a couple of reasons: 1. To try to see if other people who are caretakers of people with special needs had any more insight to battle the extremely bad meltdowns, and certain behavior issues. 2. To stay honest with my friends and readers, in hopes that I can spread a little bit of hope and love into their daily lives.
Angela is 42 years old going on 6 or 7. She’s our forever child, so the holidays and the little things in life are super amazing. I can seriously write a book about her, because she’s not supposed to be alive today.
She has such a strong zest and love for life, and doesn’t know how not do anything else BUT to live. So many open-heart surgeries and other medical conditions. Would we ever put her in a home? No. She’s my sister, and we will be taking care of her until the end of our lives together.”
This story was submitted to Love What Matters by David Murphy, founder of FoodNService.com. Subscribe to our best love stories here.
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