I have been searching for a recipe on the web for a good old fashioned wine or cider recipe but can not find one. We have access to lots of Apples and lots of Blackberries but can not find a recipe that does not call for chemicals or additives. Can any one help? We just want a recipe that does not require cadium tablets or lucavictive hubcaps or what ever, the way our Grandfathers used to make it. Any help would be appreciated.

-- Tim Jaeger (tjkayaker@cyplace.net), August 19, 2000

Answers

Cider is just cold pressed apple juice. (Clear apple juice is from cooked apples.) You want a blend of tart and sweet apples for the best cider. For hard cider, just let a jug set at coolish room temperature (say 55F to 65F) for a few days until it's working pretty good and then stick it in the fridge. What they sell as hard cider and what most recipes on the web for hard cider are usually more of an apple wine--it's fermented longer and aged. The cider will work by itself just fine, you don't need to add anything. Some people add a handful of raisins or grapes because they have live yeasts on them that are often better than the ones on apples. If it's the wine-type hard cider you're looking for, most books on brewing beer and/or wine will also cover cider. You don't need to add anything, especially for a still' beverage. If you want it fizzy that takes a bit more work.

For anything aged or fermented for more than a few days, you need to read a good book on sanitation in brewing if you want consistently drinkable stuff. There isn't anything deadly that can live with actively fermenting yeast or the higher alcohol levels of beers and wines, but there are a few things that will spoil the taste. Any beer book will tell you how to use an airlock and such. I'm sure there are places on the web too, but I don't have time to look now.

For aged cider or apple wine or whatever you want to call it, just put the cider in a jug with an airlock and let it work in a cool dark place until it stops working. Siphon off the brew, leaving the dregs into a second jug afer a few days. If much more dregs settle out, siphon it off again. Leaving the juice set on the dregs too long can give it an off taste. Then you can either bottle it as-is for a still drink, or add a bit of sugar to get it working again when you bottle it. My notes are packed somewhere but I'm pretty sure it's a quarter cup of sugar for 5 gallons of brew. The small amount of added sugar will cause it to ferment enough to carbonate. Store the bottles in a dark cool cellar.

One very good drink I've made in the past and want to do a batch of this fall is cyser. It's a cross between cider with an attitude and mead. I used 3 quarts of honey and enough cider to make 5 gallons. It took months to ferment before I bottled it and over a year and a half to age to where it tasted good. I had some apple peels left over from something else and simmered them in a bit of water and added it to the cider. There is more flavor in the peel than in the rest of the apple. When I opened a bottle of this stuff you could smell the apples from 50 feet away.

"Country wines" made from small fruit and berries was often made by layering the fruit with sugar in a vat and letting it work for a few weeks to a month, strain the fruit out, let it work some more and then bottling it. I've never made it this way, but have tried some other people have made. The guy who made the blackberry wine I had added "a couple handfuls of sugar every few inches of berries" in a 5 gallon plastic bucket. He just let the bucket lid sit on it loosely. I've also had wine made from wild grapes this same basic way, but don't know how much (if any) sugar was used.

Bottoms up. ==>paul

-- paul (p@ledgewood-consulting.com), August 20, 2000.

Look under the blackberry thread in the forum, might be under kitchen by now, but anyways it has several recipes and I found one for blackberry wine that worked great, no additives or preservatives. hope this helps.

-- Bernice (geminigoats@yahoo.com), August 20, 2000.

Contact E.C. Kraus Wine Supply at 1-800-841-7404 for a free catalog. Their catalog is filled with tidbits of info and a couple of recipes and if you order $15 on your first supply order, they give you a 100 wine recipe book FREE. Ever since finding them in Countryside, I mail order all my supplies. Its cheaper and easier than driving 80 miles round trip and shipping is free with a $15 order (priority mail).

As far as the non chemical, their recipes only use them as options not requirements, but keep in mind with some of the "chemicals" you can preserve a fine wine better. I remember my grandfather and father having more batches turn to vineager and mother than actually making it into the bottle. I suggest you read Diane Muellers' article on page 56 of Countryside vol 84 No.5 before you decide. Good luck and great wine

-- Jay Blair (jayblair678@yahoo.com), August 25, 2000.