wine and beer making

[...]... the wine will be supple and zestful, if too little, flat, insipid and characterless, if too much, harsh, astringent and bitter Tannin is also an essential constituent if a wine is to have good keeping qualities Tannins come from the skins and stems of fruit—particularly red fruit, and wines made from all red fruit, and from elderberries, bilberries, sloes, damsons, plums, apples, pears, grapes, and. .. at the top and will be projecting above the surface of the wine Turn the siphon up the right way again Store it in a cold place if it is to be kept for a while before use To serve the wine, do not squirt it out through the nozzle but unscrew the cap and pour out the wine as from a bottle Hey presto!—Sparkling wine! Winemaking summarised Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ 1 Extract flavour 2 Add sugar and yeast and ferment... first fermentation a wine will be milky or soupy and often downright repulsive!—in appearance, and no-one would imagine that one day it will be brilliantly clear, and perhaps even sparkling But do not dismay Properly made, and properly managed subsequently, almost all wines will clear of their own accord Some wines, parsnip and plum among them, are notorious for their slowness to clear; and it should be... rocking and swirling at 3-minute intervals Rack after a month, not before Egg-shells will often clear and decolour—a white wine Clean them, bake them in an oven—which makes them brittle and then crush them into small pieces before adding to the wine The tiny pieces will often rise and sink, rise and sink, for quite a long time, carrying down with them the suspended solids and thus clearing the wine, ... can be done even more neatly with proper wire loops and a hand wiring tool Finally, finish your bottle off with an appropriate label and coloured capsule of tinfoil or plastic to cover the cork (It looks better if label and capsule match, and are of a suitable colour for the wine, red label for red wine, yellow for yellow, and so on.) On as ordinary wine bottle the label should be about a third of the... characteristics, and just as some are more suitable for baking or beerbrewing, so others are better for the production of quality wine A good wine yeast has a high alcohol tolerance (i.e., it will allow the wine to ferment further and be that much stronger before it succumbs) it will form a firmer sediment, making racking much simpler, and it will be less prone to impart "off" flavours to the wine It is... blending two wines of known strength and wish to know the final strength, the formula is:— (A x B) + (C x D) -A+C where: A = No of parts of 1st wine B = Strength of 1st wine C = No of parts of 2nd wine D = Strength of 2nd wine Thus, if you blend two parts of a wine of 15 % with three parts of a wine of 10 % the result will be: (2 x 15) + (3 x 10) 60 - = - = 12 2+3 5 or a wine of 12... fermentation, and the fermentation is then conducted as described later Acidity plays a vital part in determining wine quality Lack of acid will mean a poor fermentation, and a "medicinal" taste in the finished wine, which will also lack character and seem insipid In any wine it is essential that acidity, tannin content and degree of sweetness should be "in balance" according to the type of wine being... trap as shown, and when gas is given off by the ferment it lifts the inner cup up and down to escape beneath its rim, through the solution Yeasts THE essential thing to realise about winemaking is that the most important and central factor is the YEAST The whole of winemaking practice really comes down to the matter of providing ideal conditions for the yeast, a living organism, to thrive and multiply... propagated and carried on from one wine to another Wine yeast, granulated yeast, yeast cultures, yeast tablets, baker's yeasts, brewer's yeasts, liquid yeasts all will make wine of varying quality and which yeast you use is a matter of personal preference Making up a starter bottle IF you do purchase a wine yeast, of whatever sort, it will usually be supplied in only a small quantity and will have . ● Wine & Spirits ● Writing ● Article Writing ● Yoga FIRST STEPS IN WINEMAKING A complete month-by-month guide to winemaking (including the production of cider, perry and mead) and beer. volumes, "130 New Winemaking Recipes" and "Home-Brewed Beers and Stouts" " ;Making Wines Like Those you Buy" and " ;Making Mead" (each 5/-, post 8d.). I hope. making, so that you can pursue your winemaking all the year round with this veritable Winemakers' Almanac. Further up-to-date recipes appear in the companion volumes, "130 New Winemaking