HOME=MADE WINES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 January 1940, Page 8

HOME=MADE WINES

RECIPES FOR THE HOUSEWIFE. Most wines, home-made or otherwise, are all the better for being bottled off after about 6—12 months, or when they have cleared thoroughly. They are then freed from the. heavier dregs and will go on improving. In most cases, the longer they are kept the better. Make sure that the bottles are perfectly dry, clean and sound, and that the corks are new, of good quality and tight-fitting. They can be soaked in boiling water to soften them for driving into the bottles. Let the wine run from the tap in the cask into the bottles through a fine strainer. Do not fill the bottles too full, cork them securely and keep them lying on their sides in a cool, dry place. Beetroot Wine. Take 101 b beetroot, eight pints cold water, loz ginger, loz cloves, 31b sugar, three lemons, loz yeast. Put the cold water into a large pan and add the beetroot cut into small pieces. Add the ginger and cloves and leave for 12 hours.. Then simmer until the beet is soft, almost to a pulp. This usually takes about two hours. Pour off the liquid, add the sugar, stir until this is dissolved, then add the lemon juice. When the liquor is nearly cold, spread the yeast on a piece of toast, float this on the wine, and let it stand for 14 days, removing the scum each day. Strain and bottle. A few raisins added improve the wine. Parsnip Wine. Take 151 b of sliced parsnips and boil in five gallons of water until quite soft. Squeeze the liquid out of them well, run it through a sieve and add 31b of coarse lump sugar to every gallon of liquid. Boil the whole for three-quarters of an hour and when it is nearly cold add a little yeast on a piece of toast. Let it remain in a wooden tub for 10 days, stirring it from the bottom each day. Then put it into a cask and leave for a year. As it works over, fill it up every day. Passionfruit Wine. Take four dozen ripe passionfruit and scoop out the insides. Pour over them four quarts of water, and allow to stand five days. Strain and bottle, leaving the corks off. After about six months the corks may be rammed in tightly and the wine is ready after about 12 months. The longer it is kept the better, but do not cork tightly until it has stood for the six months. Plum Wine. Choose fruit that is ripe and sound, and wipe it clean and dry. Cover one gallon fruit with one gallon water and put in an earthenware jar. Cover with a cloth and set in a warm room for six days, stirring four times a day with a wooden.spoon. Strain the liquor and to each gallon of juice add 411 b sugar. When the sugar is dissolved pour the liquor into a cask and when it ceases fermenting close the bung hole and leave it for six or eight months, then bottle and cork tightly. Store in a dark room. Plum and Raisin Wine. Gather the plums dry and ripe. Stone them and mash the pulp. To each 81b of pulp and 21b crushed raisins and one gallon boiling water. Let it stand together for two days, then strain off the jucie and for each gallon of juice add 11b brown sugar and stir till dissolved. Then place in a cask, filling it to the brim, close bung loosely, and let the juice work for four or five days. Then close a bung hole tightly and let stand for 12 months before using or drawing off from sediment. If a less alcoholic wine is desired, just close the bung hole of cask tightly after putting in liquor and let it stand in a cool place 12 months. Blackberry Wine. To one gallon of blackberries allow one quart of boiling water and to one gallon of juice from, one to two pounds of sugar. Gather the fruit when ripe and on a fine, dry day. Pick it carefully, measure and put into a tub or into a vessel with a tap. Pour the boiling water over, and when cool enough bruise the berries with the hands until they are all broken. Cover and leave for three or four days, or until the pulp rises to the surface and forms a crust. Drain off the liquor and add the sugar. Mix well and when dissolved put into a cask. I,eave with the bung hole lightly covered until fermentation ceases (from seven to ten days) and keep the cask well filled up with extra liquor. A little stick cinnamon may be added. Close the bung hole tightly and leave from six to 12 months. Then bottle and cork tightly.