BREAKING: You Can Make Wine In Your Instant Pot

Whoever said wine can only be made traditionally hasn’t heard of instant pots. Its versatility was the deciding factor for me when I wanted to get one. The appliance features a slow cooker and a pressure cooker, and the combination of both in one gadget is nothing short of magic. But while the instant pot can do so much more, I have always limited it to making stews, cheese, casserole, yogurt, etc., until I stumbled upon an amazing wine recipe that changed the entire trajectory of my appliance. It turns out, you can make wine in your instant pot!

When David Murphy found a funny meme on the internet, asking when someone was going to take the initiative and make wine from the slow cooker, he decided to scour the internet for recipes. Not finding any, he set to work and created his wine recipe.

“The Instant Pot has a yogurt function, and you can use less heat. Before you knew it, I was shopping on Amazon and running to the store to grab juice and to test out my theory … and it worked!” he said [1].

I wasn’t going to be left behind, so I decided to try out his recipe and see if it is any good. And yes, I can confirm that good wine can be made through your Instant Pot. Although the recipe on his website may be a tad complicated, I have broken it down in a manner that ensures ease of understanding. Enjoy!

Ingredients

Before I get into a step-by-step explanation of his recipe, you will need to get all of the ingredients below. They are essential to this process.

Welch’s Grape Juice (64oz bottle)
a funnel
1 packet Lalvin Red Wine Yeast
1/2 a pack of Wine Yeast
1 cup of sugar (granulated)
Instant Pot with Yogurt Function
Clear Packing Tape

How to Make Wine In Your Instant Pot

Although the process isn’t instant, it takes far less time than traditional winemaking. After combining granulated sugar, Welch’s grape juice, and wine yeast, Murphy lets it sit in the pot for about 48 hours. To reduce the wine’s dizziness, he bottled and stored it in a dark place for 6 more days. After asking his friends to sample the wine, one said she could still taste some carbon dioxide, so he let it stay for 2 extra days bringing it to a total of 10 days. He deemed it ready afterward.

“The grapes in the juice became alive and transformed into something more palatable. You can smell dark cherries and raw chocolate on the nose, and you can taste more complex flavors than what you started with,” Murphey explained to Munchies.

Here’s a step-by-step way to get the best out of your Instant Pot:

Sanitize your Instant Pot by mixing one tablespoon of bleach with a gallon of water. Mix well, and pour into the pot. Allow it sit for 45 seconds then dry with a towel.
Take out one glass of juice and mix it with a cup of sugar.
Shake for at least 2 minutes to ensure the sugar dissolves properly in the juice. Next, add ½ packet of Wine Yeast to your mixture.
Seal the bag properly and remix it. Next, pour your mixture in your pot liner.
Set aside your mixture and your juice bottle for the moment.
Close your Instant Pot lid but ensure that the vent on the lid is left open
Press the yogurt button, then press less.
Alternate between closing and opening the vent. Open the vent for 6 hours, close it for another 6 hours. When it’s twelve hours, open again and close around 18 hours. Repeat this process for 48 hours.
After alternating for 48 hours, return the content to your juice bottle. Place the lid on the bottle halfway and secure the lid using clear packing tape. This will help vent the CO2 out of your mixture.

Before drinking the wine, ensure you wait for at least 10 days. You can pour it back into the bottle until it tastes as good as you want. Easy, right?

Are there any health benefits of wine

I’m a good lover of wine. Nothing makes a stressful day better for me than settling to a glass of wine while having a bath. Off the back of my hand, wine helps me relax, which in itself is a significant benefit. But what do studies show? Is wine beneficial to our health?

Several studies have shown that wine is undoubtedly beneficial to us; however, a bulk of the benefits hinge on one crucial factor – moderation. If you want to benefit from drinking wine, it has to be done with moderation. When you drink excessively, you are punishing your body rather than helping it. Enough ado, let’s jump right into it. How does wine benefit the body?

Wine is rich in Antioxidants

A study conducted on 40 adults has found that consuming 400 ml of red wine daily helped improve their antioxidant status.

Antioxidants are compounds that prevent oxidative stress and inflammation. Oxidative stress is caused by an imbalance between unstable molecules and antioxidants. Since grapes have high levels of polyphenols, they can increase your antioxidant levels, reducing the risk of diseases such as Alzheimer’s, which are associated with oxidative stress.

Wine contains compounds that prevent inflammation

Another benefit of taking wine moderately is that it contains resveratrol, which has anti-inflammatory properties that may be beneficial to your health. Since chronic inflammation can increase the risk of having heart disease, and certain cancers, drinking wine moderately while exercising and eating healthily may do a lot of good.

In a study conducted on 4,461 adults, it was found that moderate consumption of wine led to a lesser inflammatory response. The participants who consumed wine moderately experienced lower inflammation than those that didn’t drink at all.

Wine may improve mental health

A study has shown that wine, when taken moderately, can also reduce the effect of depression, thereby benefiting mental health. As with all other benefits listed above, the key factor is to do it in moderation. Excessive drinking will worsen your depression rather than ameliorate it.

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