Joy of Home Wine Making (17 page)

1 packet Montrachet yeast

Boil the water and sugar or honey, and skim, if necessary.

Pick over the berries carefully. Discard any bad ones. Put them in a nylon straining bag and crush with clean hands or a sanitized potato masher.

Pour the hot sugar water over the crushed berries. The color should be very pretty if you have used red currants. You can chill and reserve half the water beforehand; if you’ve done so, you can pour it in now to bring the temperature down quickly. Add the tannin and yeast nutrient, but wait till the temperature comes down to add the Campden tablet if you choose to. Cover and fit with an air lock. Twelve hours after the Campden tablet, add the pectic enzyme. If you don’t use the tablet, then merely wait until the must cools down to add the pectic enzyme. Be sure to use the pectic enzyme!

Check the PA and write it down.

Twenty-four hours later, add your yeast. Stir down daily. After one week, remove the bag (don’t squeeze). After the sediment has settled down again, check the PA. If it is above 3 to 4 percent, let the must ferment for anther week or so and rack the wine into your glass fermenter.

Rack the wine once or twice during fermentation. Be sure to keep it in a dark jug.

In four to six months, check the PA. Taste it, too. I prefer this wine dry, but you might want to sweeten it. Use stabilizer, and add 2 to 6 ounces of sugar boiled in water. Keep it for a year. The color and flavor should be very nice. Serve lightly chilled. Good with poultry, fish, etc.

NOTE: If you can find a small amount of currants in a market somewhere, you can always add them to some cranberries and use either recipe.

BLACK CURRANT WINE

Black currants are REALLY hard to get in the United States unless you grow them yourself. Although they used to be banned because they carried a rust that affected pine trees, new varieties have been developed, and they’re OK now. Just in case, here’s a recipe, because I know people out there are growing more and more of this tasty fruit, and some of our Canadian friends might be reading this.

1 gallon water

2½ lbs. sugar or 3 lbs. mild honey

2½ lbs. black currants (high acid fruit)

no acid

no tannin

1 tsp. yeast nutrient

1 Campden tablet, crushed (optional)

½ tsp. pectic enzyme

1 packet Montrachet yeast

Boil the water and sugar or honey, and skim, if necessary.

Pick over the berries carefully. Discard any bad ones. Put them in a nylon straining bag and crush with clean hands or a sanitized potato masher. Black currants will stain.

Pour the hot sugar water over the crushed berries. If you prefer, you can chill and reserve half the water beforehand; if you’ve done so, you can pour it in now to bring the temperature down quickly. Add the yeast nutrient, but wait till the temperature comes down to add the Campden tablet if you choose to. Cover and fit with an air lock. Twelve hours after the Campden tablet, add the pectic enzyme. If you don’t use the tablet, merely wait until the must cools down to add the pectic enzyme. Be sure to use the pectic enzyme!

Check the PA and write it down.

Twenty-four hours later, add your yeast. Stir down daily. After the first excitement of the yeast is over (about one week), remove the bag (don’t squeeze). After the sediment has settled down again, check the PA. If it is above 3 to 4 percent, let the must ferment for another week or so and rack the wine into your glass fermenter. Bung and fit with an air lock.

Rack the wine once or twice during secondary fermentation. Be
sure to keep it in a dark jug, or put a piece of cloth around it to keep out the light.

In four to six months, check the PA. Taste it, too. I prefer this wine dry, but you might want to sweeten it. It’s very fragrant. Use stabilizer, and add 2 to 6 ounces of sugar boiled in water. Keep it for a year. Serve lightly chilled.

NOTE: For a more portlike wine you can make this wine with more berries and more sugar by following the red currant wine recipe—but don’t use more than three pounds of fruit.

HISTORICAL MONUMENT ELDERBERRY WINE

Elderberry wine is steeped in so much history that it seems like an institution to be preserved for posterity, and rightly so. Recipes are mentioned in many old cookbooks. There are references to elderberry wine all through American literature (Remember
Arsenic and Old Lace
?) Elderberry juice was used for dye and even ink, as well as for wine, jam, and pie.

Unless you grow them yourself, elderberries are only available in the wild. BE SURE YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE PICKING! Pick only ripe, dark elderberries, away from roads and industrial wastelands. They grow over much of North America.

The first time I saw anyone attempt to make homemade wine, my friend simply put a whole bunch of elderberries and some sugar and water in a jug and set it in the sun. It was a disaster! It turned into primordial soup, and we dumped it into the storm drain rather than inflict it upon the compost heap. You can do better, if you are lucky enough to have these fine berries. They have plenty of flavor and tannin but very little sugar. They also make good jelly. Like mulberries, a raw elderberry is pretty boring, but cooked or made into wine, they are transformed!

1 gallon water

2½ lbs. sugar or 3 lbs. mild honey

3 lbs. ripe elderberries

2 tsp. acid blend

1 tsp. yeast nutrient

1 Campden tablet, crushed (optional)

½ tsp. pectic enzyme

no tannin

1 packet Montrachet yeast

Put the water and sugar or honey on the stove to boil. Pick over the berries carefully. Take them off the stems. Discard any bad ones. Put them in a nylon straining bag and crush them with clean hands in sanitized rubber gloves or with a sanitized potato masher. They stain like all get out.

Now pour the hot sugar water over the crushed berries. If you prefer, you can chill and reserve half the water beforehand; if you’ve done so, you can pour it in now to bring the temperature down quickly. Add the acid and yeast nutrient, but wait until the temperature comes down before adding the Campden tablet if you choose to. Cover and fit with an airlock. Twelve hours after the Campden tablet, add the pectic enzyme. If you don’t use the tablet, then merely wait until the must cools down to add the pectic enzyme. Be sure to use the pectic enzyme.

Check the PA and write it down.

Twenty-four hours later, add the yeast. Stir down daily. This can froth quite a bit. After two weeks, remove the bag (don’t squeeze). After the sediment has settled down again, check the PA. If it is above 3 to 4 percent, let the must ferment for another week or so and then rack the wine into your glass fermenter. Bung and fit with an air lock.

Rack the wine once or twice during secondary fermentation. Be sure to keep it in a dark jug, or put a piece of cloth around it to keep out the light.

In four to six months, check the PA. Taste it, too. I prefer this wine dry, but you might want to sweeten it. Use stabilizer, and add 2 to 6 ounces of sugar boiled in water. Keep it for a year. Isn’t that a lovely color? Serve at room temperature.