Have you ever looked at your slow cooker and wondered how to make fermented drinks inside? Well, with the Instant Pot, that's a reality. What can't the pressure cooker combo do? Capable of searing, slow cooking, yogurt making, rice cooking, and so much more, you can now add one more cooking technique to the list: fermentation. Well, kind of. David Murphy of Food N Service actually hacked his family's Instant Pot to make something quite Biblical. That's right, y'all, David Murphy figured out to use his Instant Pot to make wine.
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While he's not turning water into wine the old fashioned way, he is indeed turning Welch's Grape Juice into wine. His instructions are surprisingly simple, it seems it just took one enterprising home cook to figure it out so the rest of us can follow. For that, Mr. Murphy, we thank you!
How to Make Instant Pot Wine
So how do you make your own Instant Pot wine? As David Murphy warns, you're not just going to dump in juice and sugar to wake up to wine. Like any fermentation process, there are multiple steps to achieving the optimal taste. In the case of wine, you'll need to thoroughly sanitize your Instant Pot first. Murphy used 1 tablespoon of bleach and 1 gallon of hot water, let it sit for 30 seconds, and thoroughly washed it out.
Ingredients
- Welch's Grape Juice
- 1 cup of sugar
- A funnel
- 1 packet of Lalvin Red Wine Yeast
- Instant Pot with a yogurt setting
- Clear packing tape
For this process to work, your Instant Pot needs to have a yogurt function, this is non-negotiable. Luckily for food blogger David, he was good to go.
From there, you'll begin mixing and you'll have to leave your Instant Pot on for 48 hours. While you may be concerned with the current recall, just make sure that your model isn't listed here before you begin. After the first 24 hours, you'll begin to notice the deep red color and after 48 hours, you can transfer your wine to a plastic juice bottle for up to eight days.
So what does Instant Pot wine taste like? Murphy said there were hints of chocolate and dark cherries, and there was no fizzy action. Overall, the drinkable wine was deemed delicious and easy to sip. It could probably be compared to Trader Joe's Two-Buck Chuck.
To learn more and see the full instructions on how to make the dry red wine at home, head on over to recipe developer David Murphy's website and happy wine making, y'all! For more Instant Pot recipes, check out our list here.
