Rhubarb Wine

/ am making my rhubarb wine as an ordinary wine, fer­menting it in the tub. I cannot decide whether it is ferment­ing properly: there is no froth on the surface of the brew, instead the surface looks something like drizzle on a pud­dle. Do you think it is working properly?

Working well. Not all fruit wines froth during fermen­tation, and those that do usually cease to do so after a day or so. The surface of the brew would then appear as you have described it.

Sweetening Finished Wines

My wine is perfectly clear t being nearly a year old, but it is rather too sharp. Will sweetening with sugar bring about more fermentation?

If, as you say, your wine is perfectly clear and reason­ably old, sweetening with sugar will not begin another ferment, simply because the alcoholic volume is too great to allow this. In other words, there is no live yeast present to work upon the sugar you intend to sweeten your wine with. First siphon it, using sterilized tubing, off any lees that may happen to be in the bottle and then warm it a little, very slowly, in a covered vessel which has also been sterilized. Add the amount of sugar you think will be sufficient - one or two teaspoonfuls per bottle should be ample. Stir this in until all is dissolved and then bottle again in sterilized bottles and seal with sterilized corks. Remember that screw-tops cannot be too tightly screwed down.

It might perhaps be best to label your bottles - 'needs sweetening' - and then sweeten each bottle as it is required for use. Do not allow the wine to become hot, as the alcohol may be driven off and might easily catch fire. This has happened to one of my own brews.

White sugar will not cloud the wine.

Adding Wheat and Raisins

May I add wheat and raisins to all the wines I make? I have been very successful so far with my wine-making, but I am anxious to do even better....

This is a question I frequently have to answer: always with the same words - it is for you to decide. However, I would advise you not to use raisins when making flower wines: these wines have an 'aromatic* flavor (I cannot otherwise describe it) which raisins might very well spoil. Raisins are best used in wines which are in­clined to be 'thin* without them. By 'thin', in this in­stance, I mean lacking in body. The best examples I can give of this are that expensive port is full-bodied, while cheap port-style wines are 'thin*.

Certain fruit wines, such as red currant and rasp­berry, though excellent wines, are sometimes improved by the addition of say half a pound or a pound of raisins per gallon. The raisins should be added to the brew when all the sugar is dissolved and before the yeast is added.

It must be stressed that to add raisins or wheat to recipes that do not call for them is strictly a matter of choice, and I would advise you to make the wines first without raisins, and then with; you may then decide which you prefer. In any case, another point must be watched if raisins are used when not called for: there is the risk of producing a wine of too high a specific gravity - a liquid containing too much minute solids per ratio of water.

Half a pound or a pound of wheat may be added to most wines (except flower wines), but I have found that it is chiefly root wines which benefit from this addition.

Hops in Wine

A friend tells me that he always uses hops when making wine, but he will not tell me how to use them. Hops grow at the end of my garden; if these may be used in wine-making, will you please tell me the best way to use them?

Unfortunately, hops are available to only a few of us, and those who can get them are indeed lucky. Root wines are improved greatly by the addition of a few hops but do not use them in fruit or flower wines, or those which call for the addition of wheat and raisins.

First gather the hops when they are ripe and dry - put them in a paper bag and hang in a dry cupboard. One teacupful of hops per gallon of brew is the usual ratio, and the hops are boiled with the roots. Rub the hops through the hands before measuring them, and do not pack them down into the cup.

Various firms supplying wine-makers' requirements supply malt and hop mixtures (dried); many people like to add about two ounces of this mixture to their root wines in the same way as hops.

If readers who have difficulty in locating supplies of dried malt and hops care to get in touch with me through my publishers (stamped addressed envelope, please!), I shall be happy to advise them.

Testing for Clarity

I would like to test my wine for clarity; is there any way of doing this other than tapping the cask?

Wines should not be repeatedly tapped for sampling; frequent opening invites contamination by harmful bac­teria.

If you must test for clarity, get fifteen inches of glass tubing from your local chemist (about nine pence), ster­ilize it and insert it into the jar. Keeping it upright, lower it to the bottom. Place your thumb firmly over the end and, with thumb pressed in place, withdraw the tube. This will contain a sample of your wine from top to bottom of the jar. Having carried out the test, re­turn the tube full of wine - keeping your thumb in place - and when the tube touches the bottom, take away your thumb and withdraw the tube. In this way there is no disturbance of the lees.

If the wine is clear, then bottle it; if not, leave it to clear.

Dryness

After fourteen days* fermentation in the fermenting vessel, when I put the wine into stone jars I found it rather dry. There is no suggestion of sourness and it is not vinegary; the dryness is quite pleasant. Will the fermentation that will go on for several more weeks use up the rest of the sugar so that the wine will be too dry when fermentation has fin­ished altogether?

The wine is almost certain to be very dry - almost arid, as I once heard it described. If you feel that you would like a trace of this pleasant dryness to remain in the finished wine, then you need add only one pound of sugar per gallon, but if you would rather there were no traces of dryness, then it is best to add two pounds per gallon. Warm a quart of the wine, dissolve the sugar in it, and then add this to the bulk.

On the other hand, if you have two gallons of this wine, why not treat one gallon as I have suggested and then blend the two separate gallons at the time of bottling ?

It should be borne in mind that much of the sugar added will be fermented out during the remainder of fermentation, so that the wine treated will not be too sweet.

Tea in Wine

In your recipe for ‘ Scotch Bravery’ you add one dessert­spoonful of tea to a gallon of wine: surely this is too small a quantity to make itself felt?

Tea is a source of tannin, and tannin adds flavor to certain wines - especially to 'Scotch Bravery*.

Now, in the normal way, I do not recommend the addition of tannin to wines, for not only is there the matter of personal taste to be considered, but in the nor­mal way sufficient tannin is given to the wine by the soaking and crushing of the fruit prior to fermentation. Too much tannin in a wine may give it the unmistakable flavor of strong tea. This may merely underlie the flavor, giving the wine a pleasant tang, or it may be so strong as to make one think that the wine is sour.

My recipes produce wines suitable for the average palate, and certainly I have had no complaints. How­ever, all tastes are not the same and all must be con­sidered. Red wines such as those produced by black grapes, blackcurrants, red plums and elderberries, for instance, usually contain sufficient natural tannin; this is absorbed by the wine during the soaking period.

The tannin is contained in the skins and pips, so that, if the pips are accidentally crushed, the wine might con­tain too much tannin and thus have the flavor I men­tioned above.

White wines - those made from green grapes, yellow plums, greengages, in fact all wines which are not red -are usually deficient in tannin, but hardly anybody seems to notice it.

The recipe for 'Scotch Bravery' resulted from an ex­periment in which I wanted to use a tannin-bearing fresh fruit which was not available. Instead, I used raisins for the fruit and added the tea to make up for the tannin that would have been in the fresh fruit.

Readers with experience in making rhubarb and other white wines may wish to experiment by adding up to half a cupful of strongly made fresh tea to each gallon.

Drying the Bottles

/ sterilized my bottles with sulphur-dioxide solution as you advised and then rinsed them in boiled water, I quickly got used to the whiff of gas, but I have a terrible job getting the bottles dry. This takes ages in an oven, for I find that the water condenses and remains a long time, I have used my hairdryer, but without much success. Can you suggest a quicker way of getting them dry?

I recommend the use of sulphur-dioxide solution to save you this trouble in getting the bottles dry.

The bottles are ready for use as soon as they have been rinsed with the boiled water. It is best, of course, if they are allowed to drain upside down for a few minutes.

Over-Vigorous Fermentation

When I bottled my wine after fourteen days' fermentation and covered the bottles as you told me, all the yeast rose to the tops of the bottles and is at present clogging the necks. Smaller pieces are rising and falling and the wine is fer­menting very, very fast. Can you tell me what I can do to make the yeast settle, and do you think any harm will come of what is happening?

No harm will come to your wine, and I do not think you will be successful in attempts to make the yeast settle. This has been caused by disturbing a vigorous fer­ment. It is nothing to worry about. As soon as fermen­tation eases up, the heavy particles of yeast will settle, but some will cling to the necks of the bottles. All you need to do is to leave things as they are for the time being, and when the yeast has settled, clean the necks of the bottles with a piece of cloth wrapped round the handle of a teaspoon. Dip this in boiling water before using it.

Isinglass

My plum brandy, made with plums and wheat, tasted really nice when I put it into jars after fourteen days' fermenta­tion - even though it was not nearly clear and fermen­tation was still going on quite hard.

When it stopped fermenting it tasted even better, but it was slow to clear, so I put a little isinglass into each bottle as I bottled it. It is really beautifully clear now, but it does not taste nearly as nice as it did before I used the isinglass. I thought that if I used isinglass to get rid of the impurities the wine would taste even better.

Isinglass certainly deposited the impurities as you wished it to, but it also took down some of the tannin and probably some acid as well. If you try to rectify matters now you will probably spoil it further. Next time, add a little strong tea - about half a cupful - before using the isinglass.

The little tannin you add in this manner will make up for that taken down by the isinglass. This is my reason for advising the use of isinglass only as a last resort.

Clearing Parsnip Wine

/ made some parsnip wine last March with parsnips I keep specially for wine-making, but it was not clear by Christ­mas - though it was quite nice to drink.

I boiled the parsnips for twenty minutes in one gallon of water, and ended up with only three and a half bottles of wine, when I had taken it off the heavy lees. I tried clear­ing the last two bottles by whipping a little egg-white into some of the wine and adding this to the bottles, but this seemed to make things worse. I then tried isinglass and that has made it worse than ever. I don't think we will be able to drink the rest.

Is there anything I can do to get these last two bottles clear?

I am afraid you boiled the parsnips too long and most likely you did not take off the scum that rose whilst boiling.

In future, if you use the recipes on pages 22 and 23, you will have no further trouble of this sort. As for clearing the remaining bottles you have, you could try filtering through boiled silver sand, but even if this does clear the wine it will not improve the flavor.

Since only two bottles are involved it might be best to add them to that expensive account labeled 'experi­ence* and vow never to have this trouble again.

Natural Fermentation

Most of the recipes I am using advise the use of cloves or ginger and they say, 'Soak the fruit for seven days or until fermentation begins. When this happens, strain the fruit and let the fermentation go on until it is finished. Then bottle the wine* There is no mention of adding the yeast. I do not like the flavor of cloves, except in stewed apples, and I am not very fond of ginger; if I have out the ginger and cloves in the recipes and then make the wine as the recipe says, do you think it will be all right?

Frankly, I do not think the wine will be much good. To allow a fruit-and-water mixture to begin fermenting, and to allow that ferment to make the wine, is a very un­satisfactory method, for I have found that in nine cases out of ten the wine turns sour long before it is ready to drink. In fact, the ferment you are allowing to make the wine might well be a souring ferment.

This obviously has occurred to whoever gave you the recipe, and the cloves and ginger are, most likely, in­cluded for the purpose of obliterating that sourness.

Use the recipes and directions that I am enclosing and note that there is no mention of spices of any kind.

Corking Too Soon

My wine in gallon glass bottles (carboys, I think you call them), was brilliantly clear, fermentation having ceased three months earlier. When I began to siphon it into bottles, the lees rose up into the wine, which seemed to start work­ing again. It stopped after about ten minutes, but I am afraid to bottle it in case it starts working again in the bottles and explodes them. I am leaving it covered with cotton-wool as you advised, and will do nothing until I have heard from you. Will you please hurry your reply? PS. The wine is clearing rapidly again and tastes de­licious. Do you think it will be all right?

Carboys they are. Your postscript confirms that bacteria are not responsible for the trouble and that your wine will be quite all right if you cork it hard now and bottle again when it has cleared.

Probably what happened is that you corked the car­boys just a little too soon and accidentally produced a semi-sparkling wine. It is a wonder the bung didn't blow out of the carboy.

There is no fear of this happening again with this brew as you have allowed all the captured (compressed) carbon-dioxide gas to escape. So go ahead with bottling as soon as the wine is clear again, and don't forget to seal the bottles.

Campden Tablets

Could you tell me the minimum number of Campden tablets that will effectively preserve my wines? I am so afraid of getting some of that pungent sulphur smell in the finished wine.

During recent experiments to find the absolute mini­mum number of Campden tablets that will hold un­desirable ferments in check while allowing the yeast to ferment the must satisfactorily, it was found that only one Campden tablet per gallon was needed when the fruit had been gathered fresh from the garden. One and a half to two were needed when the fruit was bought at a shop and so was, quite naturally, less fresh and not in such good condition.

Similar experiments revealed that as many as three tablets could be added to a well-flavored wine without there being a trace of sulphite flavor in the finished wine.

If you find that there does happen to be a slight flavor of the sulphite in a finished wine, aeration by decanting will put matters right.

Reclaiming the Yeast

/ have been using the Respora yeast you recommended, A week ago I had some fruit given me and decided to make wine with it, I had everything ready for adding the yeast and discovered that I had no yeast starter ready; worse stilly I had no yeast in the house. However½ I siphoned a little of the yeast deposit from ajar of fermenting wine and added this to the prepared must. This is now fermenting wellt but I am wondering if everything will be all right.

Everything will be all right. This is a practice often resorted to. However, the yeast deposit from a jar that has finished fermenting should not be used, as the alcohol formed in the wine would most likely have destroyed the yeast organisms, so that all you would be putting into the must in this event would be dead yeast cells.

Cloudiness

Six bottles of gooseberry wine that I bottled recently have cleared nicely, but for a layer of cloudiness at the top of each bottle. How can I get rid of this?

If rocking the bottles from side to side has no effect, it is best to put a funnel into the top of each bottle - very gently - and then to pour in a little wine; this will over­flow this 'top sediment* out of the bottles.

This is better than trying to get it to settle, which is rarely successful.

Fermentation Locks

/ have some blackberry port fermenting under a fermen­tation lock. It has been fermenting slowly for some time (I used a port yeast)y but now the water in the trap remains pushed up on one side, and nothing seems to be happening. Would you say that fermentation has ceased?

This is a little problem that those new to fermentation locks are likely to run up against. Fermentation may have finished, in which event the water will return to normal later on; but this may take from only a few days to a fortnight. Best plan is to keep the jar in a warm place, and then, when the water returns to normal, you can be fairly sure that fermentation has ceased.

On the other hand, fermentation may only have 'stuck*, and in a few days may be on the go again quite merrily. Provided you are in no hurry to put the lock to further use elsewhere, I'd leave it a month longer if I were you.

An alternative would be to remove the lock and bung and to sample the merest drop; if this seems a little too sweet, it is reasonably safe to say that the yeast needs to be got going again. The best thing to do is to transfer the wine to another jar and to refit the lock. The airing given will most likely get fermentation on the go again. If you have not a spare jar, insert a piece of sterilized glass or polythene tubing and give a gentle blow (I can hear the purists denouncing me for this), to aerate the wine. If there is no suggestion of acidity when you sample it, give it another nutrient tablet, fit the lock again and keep the jar in a warm place for a month. Fermentation will most likely get going again; if nothing happens within two weeks, then you can be certain that fermentation is finished.

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