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!



Sparkling Apple Wine

Filed under: Apple Wine — admin @ 12:51 am

Sparkling Apple Wine 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.



Sparkling Apple Mock Champagne

Filed under: Apple Wine — admin @ 12:50 am

Sparkling Apple Mock Champagne 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.



Sparkling Apple Amber

Filed under: Apple Wine — admin @ 12:49 am

Sparkling Apple Amber 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.



Sparkling Amber Balm Wine

Filed under: Amber Wine — admin @ 6:01 pm

Sparkling Amber Balm Wine 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.



Sparkling Dark Amber Wine

Filed under: Amber Wine — admin @ 5:38 pm

Sparkling Dark Amber Wine 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.



Sparkling Amber Wine

Filed under: Amber Wine — admin @ 5:25 pm

Sparkling Amber Wine 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.



Making Sparkling Wines - Bubble and Sparkle in a Glass

Filed under: Wine Ingredients — admin @ 12:26 pm

To Make Your Wines Bubble and Sparkle in a Glass 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.



Treatment of Materials to Make a Champagne-Like Wine

Filed under: Wine Ingredients — admin @ 12:20 pm

Treatment of Materials to Make a Champagne Like Wine 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.



Homemade Sparkling Wines

Filed under: Wine Varieties — admin @ 12:16 pm

Homemade Sparkling Wines 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.

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