m e n t a t i o n s w i m w o u l d l i k e t o p r e s e n t s w i m s s o i l f o r m u l

Fruit Wine
Here are the benefits of my wine making experiences with fruit. My orchard consists of pears, apples and grapes so I will concentrate on making wine with these. You can use other fruits in a similar way. I have found over the years that over ripe fruit are best. Your problem is that over ripe fruit attracts insects, so it is best to pick the fruit as late as possible but before it is a windfall or gone soft. The fruit needs to be stored until you are ready to use it, and then ripened until it is over ripe. toring and !ipening your "ruit Ideally you should store the fruit until the onset of winter when the insects are out of the way. You can do this by wrapping the fruit in paper so that insects will not be able to attack the fruit. There are two easy ways to over#ripen the fruit$ % Transfer the fruit separately into plastic bags, keeping the top of the bag open. tore in a cool area like a garage until the fruit is weeping into the bag, it will look disgusting by now and soft to touch. &on't worry about it free(ing, frosts are bound to occur. It will be early )anuary before you start the next process. % The second way is to generate heat to turn the fruit over ripe *uickly. If you grow your own tobacco, a tobacco curing chamber will do this for you in a matter of hours. If not place the fruit in a hot conservatory or greenhouse, or even an oven. !emove and wait until the flesh has gone extremely soft and brown, and the fruit can be crushed by hand. ugar and Yeast +nce you have put the pulped fruit and ,uice into the fermenting container, add enough water to ,ust cover the fruit. -oil up . teaspoons of tea /or . teabags0 for every gallon of wine and add this to the fermenting container. 1dding the tea adds tannin, which will vastly improve the taste of your wine and is essential if you want your wine to keep. You also need to add sugar and yeast. Ideally you should use about 2 kilo of sugar for every gallon of wine, but do not add it all at once. The yeast will convert the sugar into alcohol, and once the alcohol content is high enough, it will kill off the yeast. If you have added a lot of sugar and the alcohol level kills off the yeast before all the sugar is converted, then you will end up with a sweet wine. If you don't add enough sugar and the yeast is killed off then you will have a dry wine. 1 wine hydrometer can tell you the specific gravity of your wine /how much sugar remains in the li*uid0 and therefore how much sugar to add to give you the desired sweetness. Most fruits as mentioned have natural sugar in them and without adding extra sugar, these can be turned into a wine of about 34 to 54 volume alcohol. This is a low alcohol content and the wine will not keep for long, although it could be drunk young. Most home wine makers prefer to make a stronger wine of about 2.4 to 264, so sugar is needed to bring the alcohol content up to a level high enough to store longer.

If you have a hydrometer, calculate the amount of sugar re*uired to give you the sweetness of you wine re*uire. If your hydrometer reads 778, then this will be a dry wine and you will need to add sugar if you want to sweeten it. If your hydrometer reads 28.8 then it will be a sweet wine. You will need to use the hydrometer several times while your wine is fermenting to test whether you need to add more sugar. Ideally you should aim to use 2 kilo of sugar per gallon /3.9 litres0 of wine. If you do not have a hydrometer, you will have to rely on guesswork and experience. If your wine is too sweet, you can use less sugar in the next batch. If it's too dry, then you can use more sugar in the next batch. You can either use a special wine yeast from a home brew shop, or you can create your own yeast. :ine yeasts can be added straight into the fermenting bin, but it is better to start them off in some warm fruit ,uice /the ,uice from your fruit is ideal0 and then add it to your fermenting container once the yeast is bubbling. Yeast is found naturally in the bloom of grapes, so you can create your own yeast by crushing a few grapes into some warm natural fruit ,uice. +range ,uice works well. +nce this is bubbling, add it to your fermenting bin. Making the :ine +nce your fruit is over#ripened, crush it to a pulp and add it to your fermenting container, with the ,uice. I use a 2; gallon plastic drum as my fermenting container, but any similar plastic drum will do, even if it is smaller. Your drum will need a lid, and this will need to be airtight to prevent infection by insects, although it need not be 2884 airtight during the winter when the insects have gone. 1dd some of the sugar to the fermenting bin and stir it in very well until it has all dissolved. Then add your yeast and your wine should start fermenting. You should ideally keep the fermenting bin at around .2<, so keeping it in your living room should be fine. :ine will continue to ferment at lower and higher temperatures, so don't worry if you don't have room in your living room. "it the lid onto the fermenting bin and leave the wine to ferment for about 3 to 6 days. =very day, test your wine with the hydrometer and add more sugar if necessary, remembering to stir well to dissolve the sugar. You will need to stop adding sugar when the fermenting stops due to too much alcohol and hopefully the wine we be sweetened to suit your palate. 1fter a few days, you need to draw off the li*uid into fermenting ,ars /demi,ohns0, leaving the fruit pulp behind. The easiest way is to pour the li*uid through a strainer or a sieve. . or ; thicknesses of muslin will do the ,ob ,ust as well. *uee(e the ,uice out of the remaining pulp to get as much ,uice as possible from the fruit. "ill the fermenting ,ars to within a couple of inches of the top and fit a bung with an airlock. The bung and airlock will allow the gases produced by the fermenting to escape and prevent unwanted bacteria and insects attacking your wine. >eave your ,ars to continue fermenting, testing with the hydrometer and adding sugar as necessary. 1gain you can keep these ,ars in the living room to allow the wine to continue fermenting. !acking Your wine will appear cloudy due to the yeast in the wine. 1fter about ; months or so, the wine will begin to clear as the yeast settles to the bottom of the ,ar as sediment. +nce cleared, you should syphon the wine from the ,ar into a second ,ar, being careful not to transfer the sediment. This is known as racking. 1gain, fit a bung and airlock and leave the wine to continue fermenting. Your wine will still contain some yeast and this will multiply and your wine will

again turn cloudy. 1fter about ; months, the wine should have cleared again and you should rack the wine a second time. You can now bottle the wine. -ottling -efore bottling, ensure that your wine has completely finished fermenting. If the wine continues to ferment in the sealed bottles, then the gases produced by the fermenting will cause the bottles to explode. The racking will help prevent continued fermentation by removing the yeast. You can tell if the wine has finished fermenting by leaving it in the fermenting ,ar after the second racking and fitting a bung and airlock. If the wine turns cloudy, then there is still yeast in the wine and it is still fermenting. You can stop the fermenting by adding one crushed <ampden tablet for every gallon of wine. If the wine is not fermenting, then bottle the wine and seal the bottles with airtight caps or corks. If using corks, store the bottles on their sides to keep the cork wet and stop it from shrinking. <loudy :ine Most wines will clear of their own accord, although it may take some time. ome fruits such as pears, and some vegetables such as parsnips, will produce a cloudy wine that won't clear easily. >eave the wine as long as possible to see if it clears on it's own. If not you may wish to try using a commercial fining product or a powder filter. You should check what is available at your local home brew winemaking shop and ask their advice according to which fruits you have used. 1nother method is to stir some raw egg white # the particles which cause the cloudiness will hopefully stick to the egg white, and you can then strain the egg white from the li*uid to leave a clear wine. However, this is not a reliable method. +ver#sweet :ine If you have wine too sweet to drink, don't worry as you can rectify this. tart a new batch of wine the same as the over#sweet batch and introduce the yeast culture from a wine still fermenting. Then add the over sweet wine to the new one, and follow the instructions above. -e more careul with the sugar this time and hopefully your wine will taste ,ust right?

The freezer system of increasing alcohol

-ritish <ustoms are now saying this system is on a par with distillation, and therefore not allowed in the @A. They have to be nuts??? !ight, let's get on with more free info. Yeast and sugar create alcoholB tolerant yeast will reach a higher level of alcohol than say beer yeast. ugar, which is in most fruits is not high enough to reach above 54 Col. so sugar is added in winemaking to raise the level. Most wines are 284 to 2.4 Col. 1nd whilst the following is for fun, the main text is aimed for the wines in the 284# 2.4 bracket Dow while you are reading this /and I hope you have printed it off0 get a bottle of lager, take the cap off drink the li*uid in the neck of the bottle and put the bottle in the free(er. Tomorrow, take it out and turn it upside down to drip in another vessel. :hen Two thirds are in the new container

pour the remainder in the bottle away, /it's mostly ice0. Dow re#free(e the remainder using the bottle again. :hen fro(en, repeat the process. If you started off with a pint, after the second run aim for half a pint remaining. This should have doubled the original alcohol you started with. o your 54 is now 2.4, if you repeat everything again you could achieve .34 but only E of li*uid remaining. That's about as high as this system works. Things to avoid, free(ing fi((y drinks in a bottle with the lid on, you risk the glass cracking, also don't fill your glass or plastic container you are free(ing, leave it short of the shoulder by . inches. Ice expands when fro(en, allow the fro(en container to stand for a half#hour before lifting the cap, this reduces the chance of the li*uid spurting out. To aid in transferring the li*uid from one container to the next, I use matching containers and matching lids. If they have plastic screw on lids, I glue them together, back to back and then drill 3 x E inch holes around the centre to allow the li*uid to flow down. Your first run could take 3 F G hours to drip into the second container, but the second run will be much *uicker. The colour and the sugar travel with the alcohol, also the flavour, so if you start with a sweet drink it could end up like a li*ueur. 1 heavy beer like stout would end up disgusting, whereas a weak flavoured home brew wine could be very palatable. :hy run it twice through the free(er, and not onceH It is such a large volume to separate in one go, I have found two runs will bring over 794 of the alcohol, where as one run only G84. 1n extra benefit is the high alcohol content will keep this wine indefinitely like fortified wine. In theory there is no reason why much higher levels of alcohol could not be achieved through the free(ing method, it is limited to the lowest level your free(er will allow. @nlike distillation free(ing allows the colour and sugar to travel with the spirit, to me that's a good thing adding flavour to the drink. Dow if you wish to make li*ueurs here are some brilliant tips. Iet some fresh untreated sawn =nglish oak wood from the timber merchants, cut into kindle si(e pieces that will drop into a demi# ,ohn or plastic container, remember the wood will swell when wet. &ry off by putting into a warm oven for 39 minutes, opening the door every 9 minutes to release the steam. Dow burn the wood with a flame torch, or ,ust hold it over the gas till it is a ,ust a little charred. &rop it into the new wine and in weeks it will impart a mild flavour of -randy. This is why a good wine is left in the barrel. This next tip you won't find in many books, most branded li*ueurs bought today are about .84 Col., but if you wish to fool people that it is nearer 384 add 3 F G drops of <apsicum Tincture -.J.<. to one bottle of wine. It is not expensive and can be ordered from your <hemist, buy the smallest *uantity they will sell you. >astly if it is a dry wine, stir in caster sugar to taste. To re#iterate, if your starter wine is 2.4 then your end product will be half the volume and twice the level of 1lcohol, .34 # .G4 is the best this system will do on an average household free(er. 1s the aim is to free(e out the water, you could try putting your free(er on maximum, and go the extra few percent. 1 useful bit of information, water boils at 288 c 1lcohol at 6G.; c, and alcohol free(es at minus 223 c. also if you saved this ,ob until there was a heavy frost, this whole operation could be done at no expense.