Homemade

Guide to Homemade Wine, Beer, Cider & Mead

Alcoholic beverages; commonly beer and wines and made at home. Most often brews are made from brewing kits purchased at shops specialized in spirits. Cheap Draft features homebrew recipes, equipment requirements, and best practices needed to deliver the perfect batch!

These meads flavored with flowers are something quite special. The flavor of the flowers in these is not so marked as when more flowers are used to make flower wines. The amounts of flowers given in these recipes give a delightful background flavor while allowing the flavor of the honey to remain unmasked. These ‘meads’ are not, strictly speaking, meads, but I call them meads because the basic material is honey. All flower mead recipes make for medium sweet wines. Those who know in advance that they must have all wines dry should use not more than three-and-a-half pounds of honey instead of the four pounds given in the recipes. Those who must have all wines on the sweet side should use not less than four-and-a-half pounds and not more than five pounds instead of the four pounds given in the recipes.

Clover Mead

Use purple (sometimes called mauve) clover.

• 4 lb. honey
• ¼ oz. citric acid
• ¼ pint strong freshly-made tea
• 2-3 pints clover head
• yeast - nutrient

The clover heads should be loosely packed in the measure and not pressed down hard.

Mix honey with about half a gallon of hot water, bring slowly to boil and boil for two minutes.

Turn into polythene pail containing the clover heads. Add citric acid and tea and make up to one gallon with boiling water. Add extra quart of boiling water to make up for the space occupied by the flower heads - regardless of the number of pints used. Allow to cool to approximately 65ºF, and add yeast and nutrient. Cover as directed for beers and ferment in warm place for five-six days.

Strain out flower heads and return strained liquor to fermenting vessel. Cover again as before and continue to ferment thus for a further five-six days. Then siphon into gallon jar, leaving as much deposit behind as you can. Fit fermentation lock and leave until all fermentation has ceased. Fermentation may go on for as long as several months. When finished and the wine is clear it should be siphoned into another jar and bunged down for one year, after which it may be bottled.

4½ - 5 lb. honey
¼ oz. citric acid
¼ pint strong freshly-made tea
yeast - nutrient

Mix honey with about half gallon of hot water, bring slowly to boil and boil for two minutes. Turn into polythene pail, add citric acid and tea and make up to one gallon with boiling water. Allow to cool to approximately 65ºF, then add yeast and nutrient. Cover as directed for beers and ferment in warm place for ten-fourteen days. After this, proceed as for dry table mead.

• 4-4 ½ lb. honey
• ¼ oz. citric acid
• ¼ pint strong freshly-made tea
• yeast - nutrient

Mix honey with about half a gallon of hot water, bring slowly to boil and boil for two minutes. Turn into polythene pail, add citric acid and tea and make up to one gallon with boiling water. Allow to cool to approximately 65ºF, then add yeast and nutrient. Cover as directed for beers and ferment in warm place for ten-fourteen days. After this, proceed as for dry table mead.

A wine with the fragrance and delight of apple blossom.

Ingredients:

4 lbs. pink rhubarb - cut into dice
4 lbs. sugar
1 lb. maize
1 lb. raisins
1 egg white
I slice of toast
1 oz. yeast
1 lb. crab apple blossom
½ lb. barley
4 quarts water

Method:

Put all, except the flowers, into a big jar and stir daily for 14 days. Keep covered and warm.

Add the flowers and stir a further 6 days.

Strain, bottle and cork.

Keep for 6-12. months. See that the wine is clear, add the bubbles for “making sparkling wines” and keep for a further 1-5 months before drinking.

This is a refreshing wine, deep gold in color.

Ingredients:

2 lbs. vegetable marrow
2 lbs. apples-chopped up
½ lb. sultanas
½ lb. prunes
½ lb. maize
1 beaten egg white
1 slice of toast
1 oz. yeast
5 quarts water

Method:

Put all into a big jar and stir daily for 10 days. Keep covered and warm.

Strain-stand for 2 hours. Pour the clear off, measure it and add 1 lb. sugar to each quart of liquid. Stir well.

Bottle and cork.

Keep for 6 - 12 months. See that the wine is clear, add the bubbles for “making sparkling wines” and keep for a further 1-5 months before drinking.

Tasty and strong. Each ingredient in this amber-colored wine enhances the other.

Ingredients:

1 lb. figs
4 lbs. sugar
3 lbs. rhubarb-peeled and cut into dice
2 lbs. rice
1 egg white
1 slice of toast
1 oz. yeast
1 lb. crab apple blossom
4 quarts water

Method:

Put all, except the flowers, into a big jar. Stir daily for 14 days. Keep covered and keep warm.

Add the flowers and stir for a further 5 days.

Strain, bottle and cork.

Keep for 6 - 12 months. See that the wine is clear, add the bubbles for “making sparkling wines” and keep for a further 1-5 months before drinking.

This recipe includes balm which is a noted cure for headaches and imparts a pleasing fragrance.

Ingredients:

• 4 lbs, rhubarb-peeled and cut into dice
• ½ lb. raisins-shredded
• ½ lb. barley
• ½ lb. maize
• 1 egg white
• 4 lbs. sugar
• 1 slice of toast
• 1 oz. yeast
• 1 lb. balm (lemon scented mint)
• 4 quart water

Method:

Put all, except the balm, into a big jar. Stand. Stir daily for 14 days. Keep covered and warm.

Add the balm-stand for a further 4 days.

Strain, bottle and cork.

Keep for 6 - 12 months. See that the wine is clear, add the bubbles for “making sparkling wines” and keep for a further 1-5 months before drinking.

This is dark amber in color and more mellow than the preceding recipe. It is a champagne-type wine.

Ingredients:

• 3 oz. tea
• 1 lb. figs-shredded
• ½ lb. maize
• ½ lb. barley
• 1 egg white
• 1 slice of toast
• 1 oz. yeast
• 1 lb. rhubarb-peeled and cut into dice
• 1 lb. privet flowers
• 4 lbs. sugar
• 5 quarts water

Method:

Put tea bag into 3 quarts of water and boil for 5 minutes and then remove bag. Put all, except the flowers, into the liquid and stir daily for 14 days. Keep covered and warm.

Add the flowers and stir for a further 4 days.

Strain-stand for 2, hours. Pour clear liquid off.

Bottle and cork.

Keep for 6-12 months. See that the wine is clear, add the bubbles for “making sparkling wines” and keep for a further 1-5 months before drinking.

As the name implies, this is an amber-colored wine.

It has a “bite” in it and even without the flowers it is very good.

Ingredients:

• 1 lb. dates shredded
• 3 lbs. rhubarb-peeled and cut into dice
• 1 egg white
• 1 lb. bread-toasted
• ½ lb. rice
• 5 quarts water
• 4 lbs. sugar
• 1 oz. yeast
• 1 lb. yellow mimulus

Method:

Put all, except, except the flowers, into a large jar. Keep covered and warm. Stir daily for 10 days, squeeze the bread out.

Add the flowers and stir for a further 5 days.

Strain, bottle and cork.

Keep for 6 - 12 months.

See that the wine is clear, add the bubbles for “making sparkling wines” and keep for a further 1-5 months before drinking.

You get the wine absolutely clear and right for drinking, then to each ½ gallon you add 2 dessert spoonfuls of white vinegar and the juice of half a lemon, or to each gallon 2 tablespoonfuls of white vinegar and the juice of one lemon. You mix it well through the wine then put it into small bottles, say pint size. You can put stoppers in if Tau are using that type of bottle, or you can put ordinary corks well in and then, with a piece of calico, say a 4-inch or a y-inch square, tie the corks in. Put the calico over the cork, bring it down on to the neck and tie the string around firmly, until you want to use it.

After one to five months, when the cork is released, it will bubble merrily into the glass and in the glass for a minute or so. At home, we add the” magic” regularly in July, then we drink the wine any time from one month to five months later having often had it until Christmas-but there is a snag to this! Someone, usually a man, says “If it is good at five months, it will be better at twelve “, and that’s where he will fall down, because we once kept some and it was totally flat at one and two years old.

Never put more than 2 tablespoonfuls of white vinegar and the juice of I lemon to a gallon. You get plenty of bubble with that.

The white vinegar with lemon juice makes the wine bubble and jump about in the glass as you pour it and does not alter the color.

Where there is a hard green hub to flowers, like Marigolds, Cornflowers, etc., cut the hub off most of them with a sharp knife. It makes less gross matter when clearing the wine.

Wash preservative off dried fruit like apricots, peaches, etc., with a quick plunge in plenty of cold water; also treat dandelion flowers to this plunge to rid the flowers of grit and little black flies.

Use stale bread cut into slices If’ thick from a large loaf and toasted a light brown. This keeps the bread from breaking up into the brew. Spread yeast on after mixing it to a paste with 2 teaspoonfuls of the brew. Float toast on the wine yeast side down. It is easily lifted out when fermentation is completed and, if you like, give it to the birds.

Instead of spreading the yeast, you can crumble it and just scatter it over the top of the toast. White bread gives more to the brew than brown bread does.

Use clean cold water.

Use yeast such as one bakes with from a baker or grocer. Use white sugar unless brown” is stated in the recipe.

See the sugar is dissolved and not settled hard in the bottom of the jar. Keep stirring daily-it prevents mould, gets all the ingredients mixed and dissolves the sugar. Keep covered with a heavy blanket-like cloth.

Gather the flowers and fruit when dry. Never use too much green. You can pick each floret off with a little patience. You aim to get delicious wine fragrantly scented from the flowers used. It should be scintillatingly beautiful, delicate in color and delightful in taste.

Use good corks. New ones are best. Label every bottle.

Scald bottles out and smell them; if in doubt, bake them for a time in a fairly hot oven. Never lay bottles on their sides.

You have to drown the flowers in making flower wines to do that, keep pushing them down in the water; you then gather all their sweetness and scent, but you must take them out before they decay. Just squeeze out.

Leave peel on Rhubarb unless it is likely to spoil the color, then you take a thin skin off and cut it into smallish dice like lump sugar.

Whilst fermenting, keep ail wine in a warm place around 50°F as mentioned earlier and, when slow in clearing, step up the heat a little, say to 60°F.

Ripe gooseberries and ripe plums should be squashed. When making champagne-type wine, it is best to keep to the paler shades in flowers although pink, red, etc. come out very well. All one wants from them is their fragrance individual sweetness and character with its scent.

I have taken the easiest way to make a spirit content. Many of the lanes, fields and gardens will supply much of the material so that the poorest and rawest amateur can make good wine and feel proud of the glass they offer in friendly hospitality.

I had many jars of jam left-even 4 and 5 years old. I usually use these” left overs” from seasons to make jam tarts, puddings, etc., but nowadays my household is so small that I felt I could spare them for wine making.

I have been experimenting. Jam seems to condense into about half the bulk it should be when kept a year or two, going into a hardish block, but retaining all its goodness, color and taste-it needs to be dissolved in the water.

With maize, get the flaked kind-stir well, then you can (after it has settled to the bottom) pour off all the liquid. The maize can then go to pigs or hens. The liquid makes an agreeable drink with a “bite” in it but it should be kept a year to mellow. Keep stirring daily during fermentation to avoid a mouldy crust forming. One cannot emphasize too much how important it is to keep wine covered through this period so that the air does not get to it.

Maize soaks up the water but this type of wine making gives the town folk a chance to make good wine at any time of the year, at little cost or trouble. I have used as much as 5 quarts of water as flowers and maize lap up the water.

Toasting bread both sides keeps it whole so it can be lifted out easily.

I have used rhubarb and lemons to “tart” up the sweetness, making the recipe “tasty” to the tongue.

Whilst many recipes will make good wine without the flowers, the addition of the flower petals, with careful management, will give a delightful fragrant bouquet which is so desirable in a sparkling wine, and make it distinctive from the ordinary still wines.

To get a sparkling wine, you make the wine, clear it, turn it over and then add the sparkling agent. When ready for drinking it will bubble and sparkle, leaping joyfully in the glass on being broached.

Wine making is an educational hobby with a pleasing ending. You learn to appreciate the bounty of the earth and in time you realize what a pleasant effect it can be on the body without being a drunkard or abasing one’s self in any way, and you get really full enjoyment when you offer the glass you’ve made in hospitable generosity.

How does one launch a brew of wine? You need a big jar-one to hold 2 or 3 gallons. Those old-fashioned ware bread mugs or a cream jar, such as farmers use to gather cream in, are ideal. An old fashioned potato masher is grand to mash fruit; then you need a wooden spoon to stir with and a sharp knife to shred up dried fruit.

You must also have bottles and corks arid a place to keep the wine undisturbed at a temperature of 50°-60°F for 6 or 9 months.

Use an aluminum steam pan to strain the rough flowers out, then you lose no liquid. 2 yards of muslin double is an excellent strainer.

Always keep a brew well covered with a thick cloth. Flies will strike wine in hot weather in the same way as they strike meat, so carelessness in protecting the bowl or jar could result in a mass of maggots forming, as the winey smell attracts flies. Also, letting the air to the brew means you make a sourness impossible to cure and the whole lot turns to vinegar.

As already mentioned, honey contains bacteria and yeasts. These, like the yeasts and bacteria on the skins of fruit, are the main causes of spoilage. The method we shall use, ensures that they are destroyed; I mention them because too many people are still trying to make mead without sterilizing the honey-water mixture before they begin. If not sterilized, these yeasts and bacteria will almost certainly start spoiling ferments to produce souring, bitterness or vinegar flavours. In its undiluted state, the concentration of sugar prevents their action, but as soon as this is reduced by diluting with water, they are ready to spring into action and spoil the mead. Where small amounts of mead are being made - say one or two gallons at a time - boiling the mixture is the easiest means of sterilizing. But where larger amounts are being made, a large enough vessel for boiling might be hard to come by; in this case, the mixture may be sterilized by adding two Campden tablets per gallon. These are crushed and dissolved in a little warm water and stirred into the mixture. This is left for a few hours and then given a brisk stirring before the yeast is added. But as most beginners will be making one or two gallon lots to start with they will do the heat sterilization method as given in the recipes.

Boiling one gallon of honey and water mixture often proves difficult owing to a vessel holding a good deal more than a gallon being required. Therefore, I have arranged the method to allow for half the water to be used at the start - or approximately half, it will not matter if you are a pint over or under the amount given to start with. As will be seen, the mixture is made up to one gallon before the yeast is added, and this is all that matters.

Dry Table Mead

• 3½ lb. honey
• 1 oz. citric acid
• ½ pint strong freshly-made tea
• yeast - nutrient

Mix honey with about half gallon of hot water, bring slowly to boil and boil for two minutes. Turn into polythene pail, add citric acid and tea and make up to one gallon with boiling water. Allow to cool to approximately 65 Of. and then add yeast and nutrient. Cover as directed for beers and ferment in warm place for ten-fourteen days.

If using hydrometer, take reading when mixture has cooled to the point where the yeast is added.

After ten-fourteen days, pour into gallon jar, leaving as much deposit behind as you can. Fit fermentation lock and leave in warm place until all fermentation has ceased. It may be several months before this happens, but when fermentation has ceased and the mead is clear, it should be siphoned off the deposit into another jar and bunged down and kept for one year or it may be bottled and sealed; then some may be used right away and a few bottles kept to mature. Don’t judge young mead for it is not at its best; at a year old it will have mellowed and developed its full flavour and bouquet.

When fermentation stops before the maximum alcohol the yeast can make is actually made, we say that fermentation has stuck. The main cause of this is too high or too Iowa temperature. Also, lack of acid or tannin or both. Now, provided the recipes are followed, and the fermenting mead kept warm, fermentation should not ’stick’, but sometimes it does. Where it sticks when only about 2% below the maximum alcohol, nothing much is lost. In fact, you might waste a lot of time in trying to get fermentation on the go again. 2% is not important, so if you obviously have a good mead with near enough the alcohol content you aimed at, be satisfied rather than try to make it better. But where a dry mead was aimed at, a dry mead should result. This is because not enough sugar was in the original must to slow up fermentation. And since dry mead is preferred in this case, fermentation must be induced to recommence.

To define the reason for a ferment having ’stuck’ is difficult for beginners - especially when they have added tannin and acid and kept their musts warm. But here is the usual cause, over-warmth or not warm enough. Where it is clear that a must has become too warm, allow it to become quite cold and then warm it again gradually, but be careful this time not to let it become over-heated. Where it has become cold, gradual warming by keeping in a warm place will usually get fermentation on the go again. On no account, attempt to heat the must quickly. If these two remedies fail after a few days of trial, the need for a tiny additional amount of tannin or acid may be indicated, and this should be tried. Just a few drops of strong, freshly-made tea or a few - three or four - crystals of citric acid should be added. Where crystals are not available, a few drops of lemon juice should be tried. If all this fails, then it could be that all nutrient matter has been used up and a further half to whole nutrient tablet should be crushed and added. After each of the recommended additions, give the must three or four days before adding anything else. It often needs this period of time to get a sticking ferment on the go again. For example, if you try extra acid, wait three or four days to see if fermentation gets going again, if it does not, then try something else I have recommended.

Use of Fermentation Lock

The use of the fermentation lock has already been described in the brewing and cider-making chapters. Here it is necessary only to say that we use it in mead making to ensure maximum alcohol is made and to prevent airborne diseases reaching the must. Follow directions already given in the chapters mentioned above and fit the lock at the time given in the recipes.

Anybody can use baker’s yeast and get a mead of sorts with possibly a yeast haze in it and a bake-house mustiness into the bargain. It is well worth while getting a good yeast either dried or in liquid form. Dried all-purpose wine yeast does an excellent job here, but those with a good deal of experience in making a variety of top-class meads insist on a certain variety of yeast. Madeira yeast is fancied by some while others swear by Tokay yeast. Sherry and Maurey yeasts are also popular. So do not use baker’s yeast, unless you want an inferior product, which, of course, amounts to a waste of honey - and money.

Aids to Good Fermentation

As with all alcoholic products a good fermentation from the outset to the end is important for good results. Now, in itself, and because honey is mostly sugar and water, it is not the best medium for good fermentation. This is because unlike fruit juices it contains no acid or tannin - both of which are essentials to good fermentation. As will be seen in the recipes we add acid either as citric acid easily obtained quite cheaply from any chemist or the same stuff in the form of lemon juice. Tannin is added in the form of tea; tea being a useful and cheap source of tannin. These two constituents are also important to the flavour of the finished product. Without them the mead would appear lifeless; in other words it would lack character, bite - or even ‘guts’ if you like to put it that way. Also lacking in honey are essential elements found in most fruit juices. This deficiency is easily made up by adding nutrient salts in tablet form. These are known as yeast nutrients and are obtainable from dealers in home wine and home brewing equipment. When to add the tablet is given in the recipes. Temperature is also an important consideration.

Yeast, as we have seen in other parts of this book, must have warmth if it is to reproduce itself. And as already explained, it is this reproduction going on that uses up the sugar and produces alcohol. The ideal temperature is between 6So-70°f. It is not always possible to maintain this, but where it is possible, it certainly should be maintained. Failing this, a warm place where the temperature remains fairly constant will do. But on no account allow the mead-in-making to become too warm, otherwise fermentation might stop prematurely or ’stick’.

Whereas cider may be still (draught) or sparkling, true perry is a sparkling drink - that is, it is not made as a still or draught perry, though I can think of no reason for not making it as still perry if this suits the individual operator. The fact that it is ’still’ will mean that, strictly speaking, it will not be perry because it is not sparkling; after all, champagne would not be champagne without its sparkle. Nevertheless, those with an abundance of pears should try their hand at making perry either sparkling or still - as it suits them. But do take note of all I have had to say about sparkling cider in the chapter on cider making.

Perry may be made in exactly the same way as cider. Dessert pears are not needed. A mixture of pears; some sweet, some lacking juice and on the dry side, some cooking pears and in fact some of those little hard ones that children love to get their teeth into may all go in together. But where only one variety is available, a few from an outside source should be obtained and added, otherwise the perry will lack character. Where additional pears are not obtainable, a few crab-apples will do nicely-say one pound to every ten pounds of pears.

A dry sparkling or merely a dry still pear wine or perry low in alcohol - say 8-9% by volume is a nice drink.

Pears usually contain enough tannin, therefore none need be added - so put the tea-pot away. Acid will be needed; this should be added at the rate of a quarter ounce to the gallon of juice obtained. Where some water has been used to make a bit more of the juice, a little more acid should be added because in diluting the juice you will reduce the acid content.

The most common fault in an amateur’s cider is acidity. This is because most apples contain more acid than is needed for pleasant cider. Diluting the juice to lessen the acidity before fermentation usually results in a poorly-flavored cider. Balancing the acidity using acidemetric apparatus, is almost certainly beyond the scope of beginners because not only is expensive apparatus needed, but also some laboratory experience.

However, if a cider turns out too acid, some of the acid may be removed quite simply by anyone. The only risk is that of removing too much. Even this can be rectified, but this involves adding more acid. Better to proceed with caution and to get the lessacid cider you are after at first or second attempt. Now let us suppose a cider is only a little too acid. Removing a little acid is quite simple. Take a quart of the cider (a quart of each gallon); take a little of this quart and dissolve in this by stirring about a quarter ounce of precipitated chalk - from any chemist for a few coppers. When dissolved, stir this into the quart. Leave until the sample is clear again and then siphon the clear cider off the chalk deposit. Having done this, return the treated cider to the bulk. The acid will have been removed from the quart by the chalk, and this completely acid-free cider going into the bulk should be enough to reduce the acidity of the rest of it. If it is found that not enough acid has been removed, repeat the process, but with less chalk this time. If by accident, too much acid is removed so that you have a flat almost insipid cider, the remedy is to add either citric acid from a chemist or lemon juice.

On the skins of apples there are various strains of yeast and some bacteria. These get into the juice when it is in the process of being pressed from the apples. These yeasts and bacteria can start souring ferments and turn the alcohol into acetic acid vinegar. Boiling the juice will produce a cider that will never clear - though it will destroy the troublesome yeast and bacteria. Therefore, we must destroy the yeast and bacteria without boiling. Here again, Campden fruit-preserving tablets do the job for us.

Having expressed the juice, one Campden tablet per gallon is crushed and dissolved in a little warm water and stirred into the juice. Two may be used to make sure there will be no souring ferments, but if two are used, the juice should be stirred vigorously after one hour and then again after ten minutes. This will liberate much of the gas so that the yeast added to ferment the juice is not also killed as it is put in.

The gas produced by the Campden tablets is known as sulphur-dioxide or 5.02, This method of destroying unwanted yeast and bacteria is used extensively by both commercial and amateur wine makers.

All bottles and stoppers must be washed in a solution of sulphur dioxide made up by dissolving 2 oz. sodium metabisulphite in half a gallon of warm water. Half a pint of this is poured into the first bottle, then into the next and next and so on. When a dozen have been done this half pint is discarded. The bottles are then rinsed with boiled water that has cooled; they are then ready to receive the cider. Jars for draught cider are treated in the same fashion. The bulk of the sterilizing solution may be kept for further use. Best to use a glass-stoppered or rubberstoppered bottle for this. Plenty of chemists will let you have one for about a shilling.

Where there is no means of separating the JUICe from the pulp, it will be found that quite good cider may be made from fermenting the pulp. There will be some loss of juice if this is done because some will inevitably be left in the pulp.

The process is simplicity itself. One merely proceeds to produce the pulp as directed above, and instead of pressing out the juice, the whole lot is fermented. Sugar is dissolved in as little water as possible. This is boiled together and added to the pulp. The pulp is then measured and treated with Campden tablets as already directed. The yeast is then added and fermentation allowed to proceed for seven-eight days. After this, the cider is strained free of apple particles. The pulp should be allowed to drain. While this is draining, a sheet of polythene should be spread over the surface of the pulp and down round the sides of the vessel receiving the drippings. This should be tied in place with thin string or kept in place with strong elastic to prevent airborne diseases reaching it. Leave for two or three hours. Then put the strained cider into jars and fit fermentation lock. Do not squeeze the pulp too much.