Hello, I'm Liz Zorab and this is Byther Farm. I'm back in the kitchen again today and
this morning I'm making some wine, so I thought I would show you the process
that I use to start off a gallon of wine. And today I'm making some plum wine. This
is not a full of winemaking video, but it will show you how I start it off.One of
the most important things is that everything you use in relation to your
wine is very, very clean, so it's worth sterilizing equipment before you begin.
Here I have three and a half pounds of plums that were previously frozen, so
these are last year's plums. And two days ago I popped them into this bowl, poured
boiling water over them covered them and I've left them to stand for the flavor
and the color, as you can see, to come out of the. And I also put in a very small
handful of sultanas. So they've just been sitting and it
smells wonderful. So I'm going to strain them off.
Okay, I'm not going to throw this away now because I'm going to use that for
something else. So this is the liquid that I'm going to make my wine
with. Here's my demijohn I've just sterilized this using a sterilizing
solution. I actually use baby equipment sterilizing tablets. As long as
you follow the instructions on whatever you get that should be absolutely fine.
I can't, I'm not going to guide you because the
instructions will be different for different products. So into here I'm
now going to add sugar, the water from the plums and my yeast mixture. Using
a funnel I've weighed out my sugar, now that was three and a half pounds of
plums that I put into the bowl to soak and we're going to use three pounds of
sugar and I'm putting the sugar in first so the funnel isn't wet when I'm trying to
put the sugar in, because otherwise what happens is the sugar sticks to the
funnel. it took me about three or four goes to
learn that one, so that's a good tip!
The next thing I'm going to do is add in the the fruit juices. Now it really doesn't matter
what fruit it is as long as you've extracted the juices and the flavor from
it. What I used to do would be to press the fruit but something like plums sas an
awful lot of bits come ou,t which means you don't get a particularly clear wine
and it takes an awfully long time to settle. So I've stopped squeezing things
like plums and pressing them to get the last bit of juice out, I just let them
stand. And next I'm going to put my fruit juice in.
And the next thing I want to do is make up the yeast mixture to go in there. And
I use a dry active yeast for winemaking and obviously you follow the
instructions. But with this one, for one gallon it's one teaspoon. It doesn't look
like very much in here and there's a certainly a temptation to add in extra, but
the yeast is a living thing and it grows and swells and multiplies, and this
really is plenty enough. So I'm going to add that to my mixture as well and then
I'm going to top this up with lukewarm water. And before this gets completely
filled up I'm going to sterilize the handle of a long spoon just to give it a
stir and a mix in.
The reason I'm doing this is that I think it helps the yeast if there is
some sugar dissolved in the fruit and water. The sugar won't all dissolve in
it at this stage, but some has, so I'm going to carry on topping it up to the base
of the neck. And in fact for a couple of days, I'm going to leave it at this level
because the yeast action is quite vigorous and very often bubbles right up
through the airlock. And this way it just gives a little bit of space for the
yeast to do its thing and then in two days time I will top the water up to
this at the base of the neck just here. So the last thing to do is to put an
airlock on it to stop this oxidating or oxidizing, I'm not sure which it is!
And for that I use an airlock. Now there are different designs, this is the one I
like to use. So you fill up the top parts about half way with water. You could also
use an alcohol like vodka to do this and then you push it into the top, so this
has got a nice seal between the the rubber bung and the glass jar. It's got a
seal here so no air can get in. And as the yeast action happens the carbon
dioxide will come up through this tube, around through the airlock and out at the top.
Next thing to do is just to leave this
now to do its thing. You can see that it's already getting busy.
I tend to stand this in a container just in case it does fizz all out at the top
so it doesn't make a mess everywhere, and in a few days time, as I said, I'll
top this up to the base of the neck here and then I'll just put it in a, not a
very hot place, not a very cold place, just a room temperature to ferment
for the next three to four weeks. Now I'm sure at this point, there are lots of
you shouting at the screen saying no no that's not how you do it! This is how I
do it. I'm not making a high-quality fancy wine to sell, I'm making a country
wine for Mr. J to drink. It will be an everyday wine, it will be palatable. Some
of them are a bit sweeter than others, but as this is a plum one I don't
imagine it will be too sweet. Generally I tend to think these country wines are a
bit sweeter than say a really nice Graves, which is very dry, but they do the
job. And they're a really good use of the surplus fruit here. I'm going to use a
sticky label just to label it and so I know which wine is which, because at this
time of year I make quite a lot of wine. They all just look like pinky red
liquids, no idea which is which, unless I give it a label. I hope you found that
useful, when I do the next stage in the winemaking
I'll be sure to show that to you as well. Well I think that's it for me I've
got a lot of tidying up to do in the kitchen today. And so, wherever you are in
the world and whatever you've got planned for today I hope it's a good one.
And I also hope you'll join me again tomorrow!