From bucket to demijohn.
Last week saw me starting off my first batches of wine for 2014. The gooseberries steeped in just a little less than a gallon of sugar water with yeast and other wine making ingredients has had a lovely frothy head for most of the week but today was stage 2 in the process where the initial fermentation has slowed down slightly and so the liquid has to be strained off ready for its two month stint in a demijohn. In the larger bucket I had added a pound of strawberries to my rhubarb wine just to increase the body and give it a hint of strawberries and that too had been frothing nicely but it was time for what they call "the wine must" to go into the demijohns.
Being a woman it wasn't hard for me to find other jobs to do whilst all my equipment was being sterilised. (Ever wondered why amateur wine makers are so reluctant to part with their precious liquid well now you have a slight insight.) After the actual straining comes the washing and tidying it all away ready for the next batch.
When I make my wine I never add all the sugar at the initial stage as it can sometimes be too much for the yeast to handle and then the 'wine must' has to be kick-started into action again. Instead, I add only a bag of sugar for each gallon and then once the liquid has been transferred into the demijohn it can be topped up with sugar syrup made by simply dissolving sugar in a small amount of water that has been brought to the boil and then allowed it to cool.
I can almost hear the voices talking back at me…how can you be bothered? The answer is in the taste, the quality, the cost and the simple fact that I can turn around and say “I made that and it was worth every penny and every minute of my time!” Last but not least is the content of alcohol that depending how you make it is far higher than any wines bought in the supermarket. So basically you only need to drink half a bottle of home-made wine to get the same effect as one shop bought.
The only down side to wine making is that you cant really sample the wine to see what it tastes like until the fermentation is complete and it is time to rack but you must agree it does look pretty good at this stage.
