Chapter 1. Essential Information On Wine Making At Home

Here are described some simple methods of wine making at home that are designed for beginners who do not know where to begin and for those with some experience who frequently run into difficulties and disappointments.

The making of top-quality wines is absurdly simple, yet not quite so simple that we can be careless about it. Too many people are still following granny's methods fermenting in uncovered vessels, allowing fruit mixtures to ferment of their own accord, leaving bottles of fermenting wines corked loosely (the three main causes of ruined wines), while others are still preparing their fruits and other ingredients in a manner which nine times out of ten produces cloudy, acid wines that more often than not find their way down the drain. If readers' previous attempts have not been up to expectations there is a reason. This will be found within these pages as well as the essential, yet simple, information that ensures success in making what is, surely, the finest home product on earth.

In my lectures and in my wine articles which appear in magazines, I repeatedly make it clear that I am an advocate of simplicity. There are many highly complicated scientific and chemical aspects underlying amateur wine-making. A few home operators begin to dabble in these, so that, to them, wine-making becomes a grueling test of knowledge and skill. Expensive laboratory equipment becomes necessary as does some experience in laboratory techniques and from then on all pleasures are lost in a worrying maze of technicalities. And all for no reason at all, because their wines are no better than those turned out by the simple methods and recipes here. However, so that readers understand the reasons for wines being spoiled, I have included a few chemical details so that the veriest beginner not only knows what to do and how to do it, but also why he is doing it in one particular way. Success is thus assured. Nevertheless, he will need no knowledge of chemistry and no more in the way of utensils than is already available in most homes.

Utensils

For wine making at home, with the recipes and ingredients here all one needs is a gallon-size glass bottle, an un-chipped enamel saucepan and a polythene pail. Make certain to use polythene as some plastics are not suitable. Do not use aluminum or copper vessels and do not use an enamel vessel not ordinarily intended for cooking purposes as these often contain lead in the glaze, and this could render wines poisonous.

Gallon-size glass bottles may be had from most chemists or wholesale grocers for about $. 25. Fermentation will not be carried out in an open vessel such as a crock or polythene pail in all these recipes unless you want it to; it is best to ferment the liquors in the gallon-size glass bottle this point will be covered again later on. A polythene pail is necessary for only a few of the recipes and may be disregarded for the time being.

Fermentation

This is the process by which the liquors we prepare are turned into wine, and we have nothing to do with it. All we do when making wine is to prepare a liquid containing substances that will give a pleasant flavor to what will eventually become a finished wine. The yeast we add turns the liquid into wine for us.

Ordinarily, bakers' yeast and white granulated sugar are used by the average home wine maker. However, over the past few years wine-making has taken such a hold that suppliers of equipment and ingredients offer a wide range of yeasts specially imported from the wine-producing areas of France, Italy and Germany. These yeasts make the finest wines because they are true wine yeasts whereas bakers' yeast is only bread yeast and should not be expected to make good wine though of course it does, but not to be compared with the results following the use of wine yeasts.

Wine yeast is capable of producing eighteen per cent of alcohol by volume (32° proof), against the fourteen per cent of bakers' yeast.

More and more people are using these wine yeasts together with invert sugar instead of household sugar.

Now let us understand what happens when we add yeast to a prepared liquor containing sugar.

Yeast is obtainable in the form of a compressed cake, dried tablet, pellet or in powder form and as a liquid culture, and all are inactive (dormant) at the time of purchase.

Yeast is a living thing a plant or fungus, it has not been decided which and when introduced into a sugar solution such as those we shall be preparing it begins almost at once to reproduce itself. Billions of living cells so tiny that three thousand could comfortably queue across a halfpenny begin their life cycle and in doing so produce alcohol and carbon dioxide gas. As will be appreciated, the alcohol we seek is merely a by-product of yeast reproduction.

Many, many generations of yeast are 'born', grow up and die in the course of turning a prepared liquor into wine. So rapid is this reproduction that within hours of the yeast being added to beer-wort in the brewery, a knobby eiderdown of new yeast four feet thick covers the whole fermentation tank. Most of this is taken off and pressed for sale or cold-stored for future use.

When making our wines fermentation is seen as a slight frothing during the early stages and this soon settles down to a gentle ferment that may last as long as six months. But if warmth is given as we shall see later on fermentation should be over and done with in half that time.

All the time fermentation is going on; that is, all the time the yeast continues to reproduce itself, the amount of alcohol in the wine increases. But it cannot go on for ever because when what we call the maximum alcohol tolerance of the yeast is reached, the alcohol formed kills the yeast. It will be seen then that from the tiny amount of yeast we add at the start masses of new yeast is made and all this helps to make alcohol until the last surviving generation of the original yeast is finally destroyed by the alcohol it and all the other generations put together have formed since we began. When this happens, fermentation ceases and no more alcohol is made. Thus the old tale that the longer wine is kept the stronger it becomes is proved a fallacy or old wives' tale.

As already mentioned, bakers' yeast can make up to fourteen per cent of alcohol by volume, while wine yeast makes from fifteen per cent to eighteen per cent by volume.

To get the maximum alcohol and to get fermentation over without undue waste of time we must keep the fermenting wine warm. The ideal temperature at which to keep a 'must' is between 65° F. and 70° F. However, few can manage this, but if fermenting wines are kept warm throughout fermentation time, this will do. Most people use an airing cupboard for this and it works well. Others use all sorts of ingenious devices and these are described under the heading 'Aids to Fermentation'. Do not be tempted to keep a 'must' hot during fermentation; during the warmer weather almost any warm spot in the kitchen will do, but during cold weather and especially during very cold nights it is always best if a little added warmth can be given.

When a ferment is allowed to become cold the yeast ceases to work. This means that at some time later, if the weather turns warm, fermentation begins again. If the wine has been bottled in the belief that fermentation has ceased for good, the result is a popping under the stairs and corks flying in all directions and the loss of valuable wine.

Aids to Fermentation

Most beginners will be content to keep their fermenting wines warm in an airing cupboard or near the boiler in the kitchen. Others will want to know how they can make a special fermenting cupboard.

If only two or three jars of wine are fermenting at one time, a small cupboard with a small electric heater installed will be ideal. Alternatively, an electric light bulb hanging in a cupboard and the jars grouped round this will serve the purpose just as well, especially if the cupboard is just large enough to accommodate the jars and not so big that a lot of warmth is lost. I know of people who group several jars round a small safety paraffin lamp, but this would only be satisfactory when the wine is under a fermentation lock otherwise the wine might become tainted by fumes. See 'Fermentation Locks', page 22

Other aids to satisfactory fermentation are good nutrients. Yeast nutrients, as they are called, are carefully balanced yeast foods which assist the yeast to reproduce and therefore make the largest possible amount of alcohol. Sufficient nutrient speeds fermentation so much that, once you have used a good one, you will always do so. I know from my vast experience that warmth, a good yeast and good nutrient will together make wines ten times better than any old yeast, no nutrient and a warm atmosphere one day and a chilly one the next. We want the best; very well, let us take just that little extra care and spend those few extra coppers which will make such an immense difference to the finished product.

Suppliers of special ingredients (see list at the end of this book) offer a variety of nutrients all accompanied by directions how to prepare. In most cases it is just a matter of mixing the nutrient with some of the prepared liquor and then adding it to the brew with the yeast.

Now, a word about 'invert' sugar. Most of you will be content to use household sugar and it is household sugar that I include in the recipes. However, I have proved beyond doubt that invert sugar gives better results. This is also obtainable from the same firms at about 20 cents a pound.

A summary of the foregoing is this: the inexperienced wine maker who uses bakers' yeast, no nutrient, household sugar and who allows the wine to ferment anywhere cannot possibly expect the results which can be achieved by following my advice. By doing so anyone, including beginners who do not have to endure years of apprenticeship, with the aid of a fermentation lock, see page 22, by keeping the wine warm during the whole of the fermenting period, using the appropriate wine yeast, invert sugar and nutrient will obtain wines with a strength, clarity, flavour and bouquet of which they will be justly proud.

When bakers' yeast is used it is crumbled into the prepared liquor. When wine yeast is used the directions supplied by the dealer must be followed. This involves starting what is called a 'nucleus ferment'. A half-pint milk bottle will do for this. About a quarter-pint of water and a teaspoonful of sugar are boiled together for a minute and then allowed to cool. This is then put into the milk bottle sterilized as directed later on and the yeast then added in whatever form it is obtained.

The neck of the bottle is then plugged with cotton wool and put into a warm place. Within a few days usually three this little lot is fermenting merrily ready for adding to a batch of wine that you will be waiting to make.

If you prepare the liquor for wine-making and then add the wine yeast it will take three or four days to begin to ferment. Better therefore to get the nucleus fermenting ready to add to the liquor when you have prepared it so that the whole lot is quickly in a state of vigorous fermentation.

It is most important that the yeast is not added to hot water and that the nucleus is not added to hot wine because a temperature well below boiling will destroy the yeast. Let the little drop of sugar-water cool well before adding the yeast and later let the prepared liquor cool well before adding the nucleus or 'starter bottle' as we call it. In the recipes I shall refer to adding the yeast as 'adding the nucleus' on the assumption that you will have taken my advice and will be using wine yeasts prepared as directed, but if you must use bakers' yeast merely crumble this into the liquor at the time you would add the nucleus.

It will be seen in the recipes that all the sugar is not used at once, this is because yeast ferments much better if the sugar is fed to it in stages. Too much sugar at the outset might cause the yeast to stop fermenting at around ten per cent of alcohol. Inexperienced operators might think fermentation has finished naturally and put their wine in a cool place to clear which, of course it would do. But it would be an over-sweet wine likely to start fermenting again at any time.

For a simple re-statement; having prepared the liquor as the recipes advise, the yeast or nucleus is added together with the nutrient and the wine put in a warm place until all fermentation has ceased.

In some of the recipes for wine making at home (chiefly those calling for flavouring to be added at a late stage of production), directions read: 'leave until fermentation has nearly ceased'. This is rather a broad term for beginners, but where fermentation locks are in use they will know when this stage is reached because the water will remain pushed up to one side of the lock and a bubble just manages to push through every two of three minutes.

Where fermentation locks are not in use, but where clear-glass jars are being used, beginners will be able to see the bubbles of gas rising. All the time there is quite a mass of them rising steadily, fermentation is quite vigorous. But when there is only the faintest trace of a line of bubbles round the perimeter of the wine and where only a few bubbles are seen rising slowly to the surface they may say, for all intents and purposes, that fermentation has nearly ceased though it may go on for several more weeks.

The Clearing Process

With the recipes and methods described here there is no need to use isinglass or any other aids to clarifying. These wines clear themselves usually before fermentation has ceased. Indeed, it is usual to have a brilliantly clear wine a month before fermentation has ceased. If one or two lots of wine appear to be slow to clear, do not worry, a week or two after fermentation has finally stopped clarifying will take place very quickly. It is important to bear in mind that a clear wine usually has a little deposit to throw, so that it is always best to leave the wine for at least a month after it has become crystal clear in order that the last of the impurities and perhaps some unseen yeast cloud has time to settle out. If this is not done, a slight sediment might form in the bottles and when you begin to pour the wine into a glass the sediment is churned up so that it clouds the wine. Such a happening is not a calamity as the cloud will settle again, probably overnight, but it means putting the bottle away.

It is best when all fermentation has ceased, to siphon the clear wine (if it is not yet crystal clear) into another jar leaving the deposit behind. Then when the wine is finally crystal clear it should be siphoned into bottles. This racking, as we call it, helps to get the slight cloudiness to settle out quickly. See 'Siphoning and Bottling', page 27.

The Enemies

The enemies of successful wine-making are wild yeasts and acetic bacteria. The acetic bacteria which converts alcohol into acetic acid thereby turning wine to vinegar is ever present in the air.

Similarly, the yeasts and spores of fungi which turn wine insipid and flat or turn it sour are also in the air. When using fresh fruit and other ingredients from the garden or from shops these bacteria and yeasts and fungi are already on them, but they are easily destroyed so that they do no harm. The ingredients we shall be using will be supplied in sealed containers so that they will not already be contaminated by the causes of spoilage as we call them.

However, the water we use might contain harmful bacteria that can spoil the wine or possibly wild yeast which can cause what we call 'undesirable* ferments. These ferments give 'off' flavours to put it politely otherwise sour flavours as we refer to sourness in milk not acid flavours.

Anyway, the methods described here ensure the destruction of all harmful yeasts and bacteria at the outset so they need not worry you.

Now, if wild yeasts and bacteria are in the air they must be on corks, inside bottles and jars; indeed, they are on everything we use. But they are easily destroyed so that success is assured.

It is not generally known that the moulds on cheese, half-empty pots of meat paste and jam are often yeasts growing there, and it is this kind of yeast floating about in the air that ruins our wines if we allow it to settle. To defeat this souring yeast we must keep our fermenting wines and finished wines covered closely. Treatment of finished wines is covered under the heading 'storing'. Covering fermenting wines in jars is very simple, but most important.

As soon as the prepared yeast has been added to the prepared liquid the top of the jar should be covered with a piece of polythene. This should be pressed down all round by hand and strong thin string tied tightly round. This will keep airborne diseases away from the wine because the gas generated during fermentation will find an outlet for itself and keep up a constant outgoing stream, thus preventing the diseases air contains from gaining access. Far better than this polythene covering is a. fermentation lock.

There are many types available, but the design I like best is the one illustrated in Figure 1.

The whole idea of fitting a fermentation lock is to prevent air and airborne diseases reaching the wine. Firstly, the lock is fitted to a drilled cork and the cork then fitted to the jar see Figure 2A. Water is then poured into the level shown. The gas formed during fermentation pushes through the water in the form of bubbles, but air-borne diseases are kept out. Better than water in the lock is a little of the sterilizing solution given on page 26, or a crushed and dissolved Campden tablet. This is best because if as sometimes happens a vacuum forms in the jar the air drawn in is purified by the sterilizing solution. When a vacuum forms inside the jar the lock works in reverse for a while and this often happens when warm wine is put into a jar and the lock fitted at once. But don't worry if this happens, because as soon as gas has been generated the lock will begin working properly.

Another advantage of having a fermentation lock in use is that it indicates when fermentation has ceased

All the time bubbles are passing through, and all the time the water in the lock remains pushed up to one side, it means that there is pressure in the jar and that this pressure is gas being formed by the act of fermentation. When fermentation ceases for good, the water returns to normal. During the early stages of fermentation, bubbles are running through the water at the rate of one a second or even faster than this. But as fermentation slows down they become far less frequent. Later on, the water remains pushed up to one side and it may take five or even ten minutes for sufficient gas to form to make one bubble. During the very last stages of fermentation, it may take a week for one bubble to push through. Clearly, then, all the time the water remains pushed up to one side the wine should be left, as it is safe to say that fermentation is still going on.

When the water returns to normal, give the jar a vigorous twist and the chances are that you will get fermentation on the go again for a day or two longer. If the whole idea in using locks is to keep airborne diseases from contaminating the wine we must ensure that the bung and the lock are airtight. If they are not, the gas will escape and no matter how vigorous fermentation might be, the water in the lock will remain level. The gas leaking will prevent air reaching the wine during the early stages, but as it slows down the outgoing stream of gas through the leakage holes would not be strong enough for this so that airborne diseases could easily reach the wine.

Figure 2. The fermentation lock fitted to the jar. A. Water is poured in to level shown. B. Position of water immediately before a gas bubble passes through.

Having fitted the lock to the bung and jar as shown above, run a little sealing wax round where the bungs enter the jar and where the lock enters the bung. This precaution may not be necessary, but it is better to be on the safe side. When fermentation has ceased the lock and bung are removed in one piece and a new bung inserted. The wine is then put away to clear as mentioned before. Note. I have advised sealing wax above but candle wax does just as well.

Where fermentation is carried on in a polythene pail or similar fermenting vessel during the early stages of production, the top of the vessel should be covered with a sheet of polythene with no holes in it. This should be pulled down all round and then secured with thin strong string or a tightly fitting elastic band. The gas generated during this early vigorous ferment will find an outlet for itself and keep up a constant outgoing stream so that airborne diseases cannot gain access.

Sterilization

As already mentioned, wild yeast and bacteria are likely to be inside bottles, jars and on corks, etc. Therefore, if we are to prevent them damaging our wines they must be destroyed. Better than boiling bottles, etc., in a pail of water or baking them in an oven is to use a sterilizing solution that does the job in a matter of seconds. This may be made up as follows:

Get 2 oz. of sodium metabisulphite (or potassium metabi-sulphite), there being two forms, from any chemist for about $.20. Nearly fill a half-gallon bottle with warm water and then add the crystals (or powder) and revolve the jar until all is dissolved. Try to use a glass-stoppered jar or bottle from a chemist for this they'll usually let you have one for about $.20.

To sterilize bottles and jars with this, pour a pint into the first bottle and shake it up so that all the inside is wetted. Then pour it into the next bottle and so on and then back to the bulk again. Having treated the bottles, it is best to rinse them out with boiled water that has cooled well. This will rid the bottles of the rather pungent odor of the sterilizing solution. But don't worry if a slight whiff remains in the bottles, because it will do no harm. Having rinsed the bottles, let them drain for a minute or two and they are now ready for use.

Corks. More wine has been ruined through using un-sterilized corks than through any other cause. The crevices of corks teem with all sorts of harmful bacteria and spoilage yeasts. The best way to sterilize them is to put them in a small basin with something heavy on top to keep them submerged a heavy cup will do and then cover with the sterilizing solution. Leave this for about ten minutes and during the time you are bottling a batch of wine. As each cork is required, take it, dip it in boiled water and then wipe it dry with a cloth dipped in the sterilizing solution which, incidentally, is known as sulphur dioxide or sulphite solution.

The drying of corks is necessary to prevent the weight of the wine pushing out the corks when the bottles are put away on their sides.

Siphoning, Bottling and Storing

It is almost impossible to pour clear wine from one bottle to another without stirring up the lees (deposit). The best method is to siphon the clear wine at bottling time.

First, put the bottle or jar of wine on a table and the empty bottles on a box or stool on the floor. Then, using a yard and a half of surgical rubber or plastic tubing, siphoning is quite a simple operation. Put one end of the tubing in the full jar (or the first of the full bottles) and suck the other end until the wine comes. As soon as this happens, pinch the tube at your lips and, while holding on tightly, put this end in the first empty bottle and let the wine flow. As the empty bottle nearly fills, slowly press the tube between finger and thumb in order to cut off the flow slowly rather than with a jerk. Sudden stoppage often stirs up the deposit. When the bottle has filled to the shoulders pinch the tube at the neck of the bottle being filled and put this end into the next bottle and let the wine flow again.

As the level in the full jar falls, lower the tube into the wine. But be careful not to lower so far that the deposit begins to be sucked into the tubing. A good way of avoiding this is to ask a chemist to let you have fifteen inches of quarter-inch bore glass tubing and get him to bend the last inch of one end upwards. Then fit the straight end to the rubber tubing you have. At siphoning time, insert the glass tube to the bottom of the full jar of wine. The bend in the tube will rest on the bottom of the jar, but the opening of the end bent upwards will remain above the lees. Most friendly chemists will supply glass tubing at sixpence a foot and bend it for you free.

Now let me give the impatient wine-maker a warning. I know how nice it is to build up a stock and build it quickly, but don't be in such a hurry that you put wines away that are not yet perfectly clear. This results in disappointment upon opening if, as often happens, you decide to try a bottle of the oldest and the best you have for some special friend and find that you have stirred up a deposit and clouded what you imagined to be a perfectly clear wine. A reliable test to decide whether a wine is perfectly clear or not and one I always carry out before bottling for storage purposes is to hold a high-powered torch against the bottle.

If there is no suggestion of a beam passing through a haze, then the wine is as clear as you will get it; but if there is a slight beam of light, leave the wine to clear perfectly. You will soon get used to this little test and be saved from what might be a most embarrassing position.

Finally, when the clear wine has been bottled and the corks have been rammed home they should be sliced off level with the rim of the bottles. Sealing wax should then be run over the whole surface and the bottles stored on their sides.

Sealing and storing in this fashion is important because it allows for the wine to keep the cork moist and so prevent shrinkage. Shrinkage would cause cracking in the sealing wax with the result that tiny airholes would appear through which wild yeast and bacteria can attack the wine.

In the ordinary way a well-made wine that is one made with good yeast and nutrient is strong enough in alcohol to preserve itself. A goodly percentage of alcohol acts as its own preservative and that of the wine itself. But poorly made wines are low in alcohol and can be spoiled in the bottles if air reaches them. Our wine, made by the recipes and directions here, will contain enough alcohol to destroy any wild yeast or bacteria that might reach it owing to shrinkage of corks. Nevertheless, it is still important that air is not allowed to reach the wine, because if it did so for prolonged periods the quality would deteriorate, the flavour surfer and much of the bouquet be lost.

Experienced wine makers myself included use the new plastic seals which when fitted to a bottle of wine shrink tightly, effecting a perfect airtight seal. I expect you have come across these often enough on bottles of cordial. The T'Noirot extracts described in later chapters are fitted with these. When these capsules (as they are called) are used the bottles may be stored upright. Storing bottles horizontally often presents a problem for some people, but friends of mine with a small cupboard to spare have lined it with orange boxes. In each partition they have fitted soft-drinks cardboard crates so that each orange box holds twenty-four bottles on their sides. Having heard that wines must be stored at a temperature which should remain constant throughout the year, people are going to all sorts of trouble and thinking up all sorts of ingenious devices to achieve that end. Opinion is divided as to the ideal temperature in which to store wines probably because wines, like human beings, prefer what suits them individually. The temperature suitable for one wine is not necessarily best for another.

Rapid changes of temperature are certainly best avoided, so if you can store your wines on a stone floor or in a cupboard which has a stone floor, so much the better. If you cannot do this, store your wines where you can and don't worry.

Maturing

I am afraid I always have to suppress a grin when people ask me how long a wine needs to mature because I know that all they really want to know is how soon they can drink it. It is surprising the number of people who simply will not believe that wines improve with age. They set about making wines possessed of an urgency which should not exist and an impatience that is hard to believe. They really believe that wine can be made, matured and drunk in six or seven weeks. With luck, you might get fermentation over and done with and your wines clear and bottled in that time, and truly they are drinkable even so young, but and it is an enormous 'but' wine tasted at that tender age cannot be compared with the same wine tasted a year later. It is impossible to describe the changes that take place, but take place they do. Chemical changes are taking place constantly, so that one batch of wine does not taste the same when sampled at intervals of six weeks.

I know full well that you will be itching to get your teeth into these wines and I cannot blame you for that I'm the same myself, always anxious to sample the latest batch to be bottled off. And it is a waste of time for me to tell you to keep it at least a year before drinking because I know you'll never manage it; especially after you had a taste of it when siphoning it into bottles.

But please do this for your own sake. At bottling time, put, say, two bottles in the attic or some place where they cannot be reached easily send them to me if you like. Seriously, those two bottles of each lot made will soon mount up to a nice little stock. The remaining four bottles from each gallon may be used as required.

The whole secret of building up a stock is to make several lots at the same time and when a jar is emptied at bottling time, start again with another lot. In this way you will always have a few gallons fermenting, several dozen bottles for use as required and a dozen or so slowly growing into a nice reserve. Then, when the first two bottles put away are a year or two old you may sample them. These will have become such magnificent wines in that time that your lesson will have been well and truly learned and the vow taken that henceforth half of all that is bottled is going to the attic. I hope it does, and I hope even more that you will be able to keep some of it for five years at least. For at five years it is better than age four and at three years old it is better than age two. I have proved all this to myself and have a few bottles of wine that I made over fifteen years ago. Must see what they're like, soon.

IMPORTANT BRIEFS

Fermentation Locks

There is no good substitute for the fermentation lock (described on page 22) and the one illustrated on page 23, is the best to use.
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Many people use a balloon stretched over the jar instead of a fermentation lock, and provided this is a tight fit, it will certainly protect the wine. But this cannot give any indication as to when fermentation has ceased. The balloon is fitted over the neck and, as gas escapes into it, slight inflation takes place and as pressure grows the gas forces out round the neck of the jar.

Another substitute for the lock is a three-inch piece of quarter-inch bore glass tubing stuffed with cotton wool and fitted in the same way as the lock. But, as with a balloon, this can give no indication as to when fermentation has ceased.

Yeast and adding it

It will be seen in the recipes that I give 'yeast' without mentioning any kind. This is because some of you will be using bakers' yeast and others one of the many varieties of wine yeast. In the directions which accompany the recipe, the time to add the yeast is clearly stated. If bakers' yeast is used, use half an ounce and crumble this into the jar at the time advised. Experienced wine makers and those using wine yeasts for the first time will have their little nucleus ferments ready (as instructed on page 17 under 'Aids to Fermentation') and these will be added at the time advised in the directions given with each recipe.

Sugar- Water (Syrup)

In the recipes and directions it will be seen that the sugar and water are added to the mixtures as a syrup. Make sure the sugar has dissolved before the water comes to the boil. And so that mistakes do not occur, label the jar so that you know how much sugar has to be added at each stage. There is no need to be exact when adding 'one-third' or whatever the direction happens to be, but it is a good plan to have the total amount of sugar to be used at the outset put aside; in this way, when all has been added you will know there is no more to go in and you will not be left wondering if you have used as much as you should have done.

Gallon Jars

The recipes for wine making at home detail clearly everything that is needed for making wine at home. Someone is sure to ask before they begin: How can I get a gallon of water, the flavouring, and all that sugar into a one-gallon jar? The fact is that, in the way we shall be doing it, it is quite a simple matter. Gallon jars hold half a pint more than a gallon when full, and because we shall be adding the sugar in stages, most of each lot of sugar will be used up before the next is added. Before the last lot of sugar and water is added, the wine is transferred to another jar and the deposit thrown away. This will leave space for the last lot of syrup to be added. If, through some misfortune, this is not quite the case, put the little remaining syrup in a freshly sterilized screw-stoppered bottle and screw down tightly. This will keep it safe for the few days necessary for fermentation to reduce the liquor in the jar and so make room for that little drop of left-over.

If at the time called for in the recipes you do not have a second jar in which to put the fermenting wine (at the time given for disposing of the deposit) you may pour the wine into any suitable container, then throw away the deposit, clean out the jar, sterilize it and then return the wine to this.

Saucepans

If it happens that your saucepans are not quite large enough to hold the sugar and five pints of water that is to be boiled at the first stage of making the wine, boil the sugar in a quart of water and the remaining three pints of water in another saucepan then mix.